The Marriage Tradition

From where did the tradition of marriage start? To answer this question i have put in some of my own researches here in this post. Marriage, as a custom, goes back to the very earliest history of man. It has passed through three stages. The first was marriage by capture. Primitive man simply stole the woman he wanted for as his wife. Then came marriage by contract or a purchase. A bride was bought by a man.

Finally came the marriage based on mutual love. But even today we still have traces of the first two stages. The honeymoon itself symbolizes the period during which the bridegroom was forced to hide his captured bride until her kinsmen grew tired of searching for her!

When it comes to wedding customs, most of them can be traced back to ancient meanings which have long been forgotten. For example, the “something blue” which brides wear is borrowed from ancient Israel. In those times brides were told to wear a rib-band of blue on the borders of their garments because blue was the color of purity, love, and fidelity.