Post by Ilmatar on Jan 27, 2006 11:02:59 GMT -5
I saw a documentary on Turkish women living in Germany forced to an arranged marriage yesterday. While I was appalled by the fact that some families had basicly sold their daughters without any consideration to their wellbeing, I actually found myself thinking that arranged marriages doesn't necessarely have to be worse than many "love" marriages I've seen in Western countries. The footage shot in a Kurdish wedding in Turkey were very interesting, and made me wonder about different traditions regarding the marriage in different countries.
Therefore, I would be interested in hearing about the traditions considering the marriage in the cultures of different dodona members. For instance, how is the marriage celebrated ? Who decides who should marry whom and on which bases ? Is there an "ideal" age for the bride and the groom ?
Here in Finland we tend to follow the current Western trends. Most people first marry in their late 20's. However, almost all of the new couples have lived together before marrying officially. Some even have children - it's not that uncommon the flowergirls are wedded couple's children Encagement is still very fashionable - men actually wear only their encagement ring rather than the wedding ring as in Southern Europe. Even if most Finns aren't churchgoers, most marriages are celebrated in church and/or by a minister, rather than in the register office. Finnish Lutheran church allows divorcees to marry, since marriage isn't considered a sacrament. Divorce rates for the first marriage are very high, but "multiple" divorcees aren't as common as in the US (at least in the movies
).
In the past Finns especially the Western Finns had some interesting traditions regarding the marriage. In rural Finland people tended to marry quite late. In the early 19th century an average bride would have been 25, and an average groom 28. People owning properties would have married slightly earlier, farm-hands slightly later, because it took them time to gather the money for starting a family. Sex outside marriage was a punishable act in theory. However, it seems punishments weren't enforced often. Especially the encaged couples were left quite free.
In certain areas the marriage wouldn't even have taken place before the bride was pregnant - it was important to verify that she was fertile. Arranged marriages weren't common. They would have taken place only between the wealthiest families, and even in those cases forcing a girl to marry a man she didn't like was seen as a cruel act. People were relatively free to decide who to marry, as long as they married a person who shared their social status. Since marriage was seen as a partnership, a desirable companion would have been relatively wealthy, skills - for instance, good builders and milkmaids were extremely desiderable spouses - and been a hard worker.
Therefore, I would be interested in hearing about the traditions considering the marriage in the cultures of different dodona members. For instance, how is the marriage celebrated ? Who decides who should marry whom and on which bases ? Is there an "ideal" age for the bride and the groom ?
Here in Finland we tend to follow the current Western trends. Most people first marry in their late 20's. However, almost all of the new couples have lived together before marrying officially. Some even have children - it's not that uncommon the flowergirls are wedded couple's children Encagement is still very fashionable - men actually wear only their encagement ring rather than the wedding ring as in Southern Europe. Even if most Finns aren't churchgoers, most marriages are celebrated in church and/or by a minister, rather than in the register office. Finnish Lutheran church allows divorcees to marry, since marriage isn't considered a sacrament. Divorce rates for the first marriage are very high, but "multiple" divorcees aren't as common as in the US (at least in the movies
).In the past Finns especially the Western Finns had some interesting traditions regarding the marriage. In rural Finland people tended to marry quite late. In the early 19th century an average bride would have been 25, and an average groom 28. People owning properties would have married slightly earlier, farm-hands slightly later, because it took them time to gather the money for starting a family. Sex outside marriage was a punishable act in theory. However, it seems punishments weren't enforced often. Especially the encaged couples were left quite free.
In certain areas the marriage wouldn't even have taken place before the bride was pregnant - it was important to verify that she was fertile. Arranged marriages weren't common. They would have taken place only between the wealthiest families, and even in those cases forcing a girl to marry a man she didn't like was seen as a cruel act. People were relatively free to decide who to marry, as long as they married a person who shared their social status. Since marriage was seen as a partnership, a desirable companion would have been relatively wealthy, skills - for instance, good builders and milkmaids were extremely desiderable spouses - and been a hard worker.
Of course all of these are for the times of my grandfathers. It is much open now.
