Essay on The Price of a Bride: Marriage, Family and Dowry
In ancient history of mankind, the marriages had different customs around the world. During the times of renaissance in Italy, Western Europe, marriages had the concept of creation of a new family, the bride had a price and concept of dowry was an important element of marriages. In Imperial China, the ancient wedding traditions have a history spread over 5,000 years. The traditions have been changing with the passage of time due to a variety of social beliefs and artistic values in the times of different empires. They have their unique characteristics and ceremonies that have been carried forward to even today. The essay aims at discussing the various aspects of marriages during the renaissance period in Italy and Imperial China and in the process, define marriage, concept of creation of the new family, concept of dowry and responsibilities of women as bride and a housewife.
In Western Europe, wedding was a celebrated event for the wealthy people and the weddings would go on for many days and involved numbers of events to include pageants, carnivals, concerts, meals and games. Wedding poems of that era talk about marriages and importance of marriages. The poems emphasize to preserve the civic and political institutions of marriage in order to have a stable society. The poets expressed the family values and celebrated the community virtues of the marriages. Marriages contained possibly volatile moments and dispute over the dowry were diffused through lavish meals. Wedding processions were participated and celebrated by the entire community. The major ritual of these marriages was the ceremonial action of the father handing over the hand of her daughter to the bridegroom and husband taking the hand of the women and taking her inside his house. Bride was like an object handed over from one owner to the next one. During the renaissance period, the wedding celebrations became more deliberate and elaborate events. Wedding meals became more lavish with many courses served, and metaphoric floats were used in high level marriages to celebrate the event. Weddings received a lot of publicity, and it was a public affair so as not to leave the doubt to anyone about if the couple had married. Principal purpose of the marriage was a coalition between two families, and it was not merely a coming together of two lovers. In renaissance Italy, marriages had four different stages of marriage that were spread over weeks and sometimes over months, but as the time passed, the time condensed between the conduct of different stages of marriage. First stage was a handshake for finalizing the deal of the marriage. A third party negotiated the deal, and handshake was a private function attended only by the few family members of both sides. Second stage of the marriage was the public meeting of the male family members of both sides. No women even the bride was not part of the ceremony. Both sides would choose the guarantors and arbiters in order to ensure the promises made during the deal were kept by both the families. Bride dowry was a huge amount of money and was rarely the jewelry. The value of her treasure was included in the overall amount during the negotiations. The size of the dowry displayed the standing of the groom and his family. Intention of the dowry was good as it was meant to provide care to the bride. Third stage of the marriage was the ring day in which both families would gather at the bride’s house and asked for the willingness of both bride and groom. A set of questions was asked by the solicitor of the church to give the marriage recognition by the church. Bride and groom would then place the ring in each other’s right hand ring finger. They were now legally married, but the process was not yet complete. Fourth and final stage of the marriage was the escorting of bride to her new home by his father. The bride was crowned and dressed beautifully and rode a white horse if she was from the nobility. Marriages during renaissance Italy were civil in nature and not religious. Sometimes some stage of marriage were conducted in the Church grounds in order to get publicity or to have a neutral venue.
In Imperial China, the ancient marriage customs have developed through different stages over 5000 years. In primitive ages, Chinese people lived in groups and had no designated spouses and sexual relations were indiscriminate. During the middle Neolithic age, banned the marriage of the parent with the offspring but allowed the marriages between sister and brother. In the middle and late Neolithic age, marriages between blood brothers and sisters were strictly banned and allowed marriages only among different social groups. In the late Neolithic age, there was an unstable relationship between husband and wife that was easily breakable and showed tolerance to the extramarital relationship of both husband and wife. During the patriarchal social system, the husband owned the family, a wife, the children and the property and wife was responsible for the upbringing of children. There were basic principles of ancient marriages that included the same social status, direction of parents, advice of the middleman, ban on marriage of the couple with the same surname and flexibility towards polygamy. In ancient China, the marriageable age for male was twenty and for the female it was sixteen. Intermarriages between noble families and common people were not allowed under the law. There was no free love in ancient China and condemned the free love as an offence under the law. Parent used to arrange the marriages for their children through matchmakers, and arranged marriages were liked by the society and encouraged by the law. Adult males and females were supposed to obey the orders of their parents on marriage and most of the time, it resulted in misalliances because both did not see each other before marriage. There are six rituals of customary Chinese marriage that remained throughout the history called “three letters and six Etiquettes.” First letter is the betrothal letter that was a formal agreement of marriage between the two families. Second was a gift letter that included the list of items and their quantities, given as the gift by the families. Third letter was the wedding letter welcoming the bride to the new home. Six etiquettes included a proposal for marriage, matching of the birthdates, giving betrothal gifts, giving the wedding gifts, selection of the date for wedding and wedding itself. The couple would perform bows before entering to their room. The three bows were meant for heaven and earth, their parents and the spouse. A red veil covered the bride’s head that indicated the virginity of the bride and husband used to remove the veil which would formally declare them as husband and wife. Bride was not allowed to sleep out of her home for the first four months, and she was not allowed to attend a funeral in first four months.
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