Tag Archives: Wedding Rituals

Hiding The Groom’s Shoes

Nationality: Indian
Age: 30
Occupation: Pediatric Eye Surgeon
Residence: Bangalore, KA, India
Performance Date: 3/20/2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi, Tamil

Item:

“One of the most elaborately staged pranks at a desi (typically North Indian or Pakistani) wedding is the theft of the groom’s shoes by the bride’s younger sisters and female cousins. The groom has to bargain for his shoes to be returned to him with these young girls, often offering them money, sweets, and jewelry in exchange for them. It has become a tradition emblematic to our weddings.”

Context:

The interviewee related her experience with this tradition to me: “The first time I got the chance to have my cousins do this for me was when I was getting married to your uncle. It was hilarious. He was running around, looking for the shoes like some desperate fellow, and they managed to swindle about a thousand rupees each from him! Not to mention all the sweets they got in exchange. It was amazing.”

Analysis:

There are a few explanations for this ritual-impeding prank. The first is that the Indian groom, who has to arrive at the wedding venue from another location, some distance away,and usually on a horse or an elephant, cannot proceed with the actual wedding sacraments if he doesn’t have his shoes with him. This, effectively, would put a stop to the wedding and interrupt the smooth flowing of a very important liminal period in one’s life – the time in which one is a groom, not yet married, and not really unmarried either. Secondly, India, being a rather patriarchal society, sees a wedding as the groom’s family taking possession of the bride. Therefore, in retaliation, the girls from the bride’s side take their revenge, symbolically and humorously, by stealing an important component of the groom’s outfit and thereby threatening the marriage. The money is supposed to be a sort of compensation for the bride being taken away. And finally, and perhaps rather obscurely, is the deeply-entrenched ancient practice of child-betrothal and child marriage in Indian society. In a time when children were the main participants in these weddings, these little games would have assuaged their confusion and engaged their attention to the very religious, and sometimes pretty long-winded sacraments.

Together Forever – A Henna Tradition

Nationality: Indian
Age: 30
Occupation: Pediatric Eye Surgeon
Residence: Bangalore, India
Performance Date: 3/19/2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi, Tamil

Item and Context:

“Henna traditions are deeply entrenched in the proceedings of Indian weddings. I remember when I was a teenager, my older female cousins would be getting married, and they would tease all of us younger girls by saying that if they hid the initials of our boyfriends in our henna and the respective boys were able to find them in the swirls and floral patterns, we would be together forever. Of course, being a teenager, I found this pretty embarrassing and awkward, as most teenage girls are when it comes to boys. Now, it’s no big deal, because I’m already married. But the next time any of the girls in our family gets married, I won’t leave you!”

Analysis:

As the informant mentioned, henna is really important in Indian weddings, regardless of religious affiliation. There are man different henna rituals and traditions, including this one. Oftentimes, the people targeted by this “hidden initials” ritual are the teenage girls of the wedding party, i.e. the ones who are about to grow up and get married soon enough. Therefore, it is common to embarrass them by hinting towards their upcoming weddings. Also, the idea of predestination is important in the faith of Hinduism, the predominant religion of India. The idea that a woman’s soulmate has already been picked out for her from lifetimes before and for lifetimes after is highlighted by this tradition, and the ideal outcome is that the girl’s supposed boyfriend should find his initials in the girl’s henna. Since henna is traditionally applied on the palms of a girl’s hands, the notion of palmistry is also brought up here ; if the boyfriend is able to find his initials in the girl’s henna, symbolically, he is finding and establishing his place in her hectic life as well.

Unity Sand

Nationality: Hatian
Age: 28
Occupation: Physical Therapist Assistant
Residence: San Bernardino, CA
Primary Language: English
Language: French Creole

Christopher Jean was raised in Los Angeles, California.  He graduated high school in 2003 and obtained his Bachelor of Science degree from Loma Linda University in 2012.  He is Hatian and grew up in a devout Catholic household.  He currently resides in San Bernardino, with his wife Shirley.  He is a Physical Therapist Assistant.

At our wedding, me and Shirley decided to do the Unity Sand … Now that I think about it, we did a lot of unity stuff.  The whole day was about us becoming one.  I guess that is kind of the point when you think about it and put it all into perspective. … so we had two jars of sand.  Each was our wedding colors.  So Shirley got the Coral colored sand and I got the dark brown colored sand.  When the pastor announced it, we made a big production of walking over, together, to a table that we had set up and decorated with a larger vase.  Together, we emptied the sand in our vases into the new, bigger vase.  It symbolized us being united.

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A Freudian interpretation of this would interpret the larger jar as symbolizing the children that they will create together as a result of this union.

The Unity Candle

Nationality: African American
Age: 26
Occupation: Teacher
Residence: San Bernardino, CA
Primary Language: English

Shirley Turner Jean grew up in Rialto, California.  She graduated from Dwight D Eisenhower high school I 2004.  From there, she pursued a bachelor’s degree in physical education at Cal State San Bernardino.  Shortly thereafter, Shirley obtained a Masters Degree in Kinesiology from Azusa Pacific University.  She has sense obtained a number of credentials from Azusa Pacific University.  She currently lives in San Bernardino, California and teaches at Synergy Middle School in Los Angeles, California.  She is a PE teacher.

We had a beautiful wedding this past October that my beautiful friend, Keesha, helped put together.  (pauses and smiles at me)  Anyhoo, it was help at this garden in Glendale.  It was very intimate … and very hot, actually.  We did a lot of symbolic things to reinforce the idea of us coming together as a single unit.  One of the things that I wanted to emphasize was the union of our families.  Because, let me tell you, it is so true.  You don’t just marry the man, you marry his momma and all the other crazy relatives too!  So, we did the unity candle.  During the ceremony we had my mom on my end of the alter light a candle and his mom did the same on his side.  They both walked up to where we were standing and lit one, big, candle together.  To me, it symbolized how the two families had to come together to make this union work.  Now, I kind of wish I didn’t need so much of his mom’s input and participation in my marriage.  (laughs for a few seconds.  Then looks me straight in the face.)  Keesha, and it was pretty and stuff.

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It seems like this was only added to the wedding ceremony because it was a tradition and was aesthetically pleasing.  However, when put into practice and what it really means to the future marriage, it isn’t exactly warranted.

An Indian Wedding Tradition

Nationality: American (ethnicity: Indian)
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California (Originally from Irvine, California)
Performance Date: 4/29/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

Item:

“So my family originates from um, a little state called Gujrat in India, and uh we, our weddings in India differentiate from state to state, so our weddings have a certain aspect: At the beginning, prior to the formal ceremony, where the bride’s side attempts to steal the groom’s shoes. And it’s this big thing where both sides kind of get in this mini tussle that can kind of sometimes, expand in to big fights, um, over the shoes. And if the bride’s side succeeds in securing the groom’s shoes the groom then uh has to pay off the bride’s side to get his shoes back because he can’t leave , he can’t leave the uh location without those shoes.”

Context:

The informant on his experience with this wedding tradition: “So, um, this past wedding that I went to, I was on the groom’s side, so I was semi-in charge of my cousin’s, so we were in charge of securing those shoes and keeping them safe, so the entire way up until, the mundup is what we call it, it’s where they have the actual ceremony, we surrounded the groom like body guards and literally just walked him all the way up the stage and didn’t let anyone near him, like he was the president, um and successfully got him there without having the shoes stolen. In another situation at another wedding I was on the bride’s side, and um the groom’s side had secured one shoe, the other shoe had been secured by us, and one of the big guys like, put it behind him and held it there. And you know, I was in charge at the time of like figuring out where they took it, so I realized he had put it behind him and just had it in one hand, and I just grabbed it and ran, straight out of his hand, and got it that way. So I mean it takes a little scheming and planning, but it’s fun, it’s one of the fun parts about a wedding.”

Analysis:

Indian society is very patriarchal. So, in a way, what happens in a wedding is that the groom’s family steals the bride from her family. In this sense, the activity of the bride’s family in the wedding demonstrates their acknowledgment of this fact and their consequent response. That they steal the groom’s shoes exhibits a lighthearted form of revenge taken against the groom’s family. The monetary compensation received from the return of the shoes is the least they can expect after having their daughter stolen from them.