Wedding Curiosities!
Curious to discover some gems about marriage?
Well, here you are satisfied with the first curiosity about marriage: this famous ceremony was formalized by law and definitively established in Rome. Consider that men could marry after the age of 14 and women even after 12 years of age.
The custom of wedding rings also derives from ancient Rome. The reason? Here’s another wedding gem! In those years, it was believed that a vein started from the ring finger and ended straight at the heart.
This belief has in fact been nurtured for several centuries!
The white dress made its first appearance only around 1840. Before then, women used to get married in dresses of any color. We owe it to Queen Victoria to introduce total white, which has since become a real tradition. The Queen of England was also the first bride to use the wedding march.
But the wedding tidbits certainly don’t end here!
“To have a good marriage you have to fall in love many times, always with the same person”.
-Mignon McLaughlin-
Marriage in history
Love marriage represents a fairly recent “invention”. Starting from Roman times, up to and including the nineteenth century, this ceremony was characterized as a civil institution with essentially patrimonial effects. In short, people married without romantic involvement, to guarantee economic stability.
This did not happen only among aristocratic families, but in all social strata. Marriage was an agreement between the bride’s father and the groom. It was, therefore, a question of economic and social convenience, rather than sentimental. And divorce? This remained unacceptable in most countries, at least until the 20th century.
When the idea of romantic love began to gain ground, the opportunities to find love were balls (for the rich) and fairs for the people (for the less wealthy classes). Everyone knew that people went there to look for a husband or wife. Another way to find your soul mate was to glance at each other during religious services.
At one time, it was not considered virtuous for a woman to flirt or show interest in a man. In other words, displaying indifference was a sign of great respectability. However, this has not hindered the creation of a love language between man and woman, through the use of umbrellas, fans or handkerchiefs.