Saying “I do” in Different Parts of the World – Cultural Differences & Amazing Traditions
Weddings are special joyful occasions which do have deep routed traditions in different parts of the world. Here we are going to take a journey and make acquaintance with a few wonderful traditions from different continents of our Earth and present some African, Asian and Middle East traditions that are passed on from generation to generation.
Wonderful Africa
This is the continent where weddings have a truly special meaning. Certainly Africa is a huge continent; therefore traditions also differ from one region to the other. A very common custom in Africa is that young brides must already be prepared to learn “secret languages” so that they can chit chat with other young wives without their husbands to understand. Then, here the wedding reception usually lasts up to 3 days or even more, and not only one single day as usual for western civilizations.
In certain regions it is a very important tradition that the groom needs to pay off the bride’s family for taking away the daughter that was a helping hand there. Men do not pay with money or gold, but with cattle instead (sometimes a bride will cost him even 50 cattle!). Girls usually enter marriage at ages between 12 and 16, and divorce is not a widespread tradition here. Somalia makes a sort of exception from the traditional “two in a boat” rule, because men here are allowed to keep even up to 5 different wives, but he has to prove that he can afford to give housing and enough food to each of them.
Romantic Asia: India, Japan & China
If you have seen even one Asian romantic movie (a Bollywood featured one in particular), you may have already got a glimpse of how colorful the weddings are in India. Here for several days before the actual wedding takes place, the bride and the groom live separately and they are not allowed to see each other (it is said to bring about bad luck!). A quite important wedding ritual is the washing of both the groom’s and the bride’s feet with milk and water, as a symbol for sending them into married life with a purified body and soul.
In another part of Asia, more specifically Japan, the brides wear their traditional “shiromku” which is a white kimono style dress, and the wedding ceremony takes place in a Shinto shrine. By visiting China, we can see that the brides there wear bright red dresses which are wonderfully embroidered with golden silk thread, and the ceremonies in China are rather small and without any dancing.
The Middle East: Israel & Yemen
“Something old, something new, something borrowed something blue”- does it ring a bell? Well, the “blue” in the sentence originates from some very old Israeli traditions, according to which the bride must prove that she is going to be a faithful wife by wearing a tiny blue ribbon. A traditional Jewish wedding cannot take place without the “mizinke” which is a joyful dance where the parents of the bride and groom are encircled by all the youngsters and are thrown colorful flowers at and they are sang songs of praise. The entire family is a very important focus point in the Israeli weddings, not only the bride and the groom.
In Yemen all the women of the family gather to bake the traditional sweets for their children’s wedding, and especially in countryside parts of Yemen it is not unusual to have entire villages participating at the joyful wedding reception.
What do you think?