The term 'wedding' is rooted in the Old Norse and Danish words veðja and vedde, which mean to place a bet or a bet. This makes sense when you consider that weddings were more a matter of politics and business for much of history. Old English wedding get engaged, make a pact to do something, promise; get married, get married, also unite (two other people) in a marriage, celebrate the marriage ceremony, from the Proto-Germanic *wadja (source also from Old Norse veðja, green Danish for betting, wedding in Old Frisian to promise, ga-wadjon gothic to get engaged), from the root *PIE wadh- (a, to exchange a garment (also source of the Latin vas, genitive vadis bail, security, Lithuanian vaduoti to exchange a garment), of uncertain origin. How old is the institution? The best available evidence suggests that it is about 4,350 years old. Most anthropologists believe that for thousands of years before that, families consisted of loosely organized groups of up to 30 people, with several male leaders, several women in common and children.
As hunter-gatherers established themselves in agrarian civilizations, society needed more stable arrangements. The first recorded evidence of marriage ceremonies bringing a woman and a man together dates to around 2350 BC. C. For the next few hundred years, marriage became a widespread institution embraced by the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. But back then, marriage had little to do with love or religion. Did this change the nature of marriage? The blessings of the church improved the fortunes of the wives.
Men were taught to show greater respect for their wives and were forbidden to divorce them. Christian doctrine stated that the two will be one flesh, giving spouses exclusive access to each other's bodies. This put new pressure on men to remain sexually faithful. However, the church still held that men were the heads of families and that their wives fulfilled their wishes. When did love come on the scene? Later than you think.
For much of human history, couples came together for practical reasons, not because they fell in love. Over time, of course, many spouses came to feel a deep love and devotion to one another. But the idea of romantic love, as a motivating force for marriage, only dates back to the Middle Ages. Naturally, many scholars believe that the concept was invented by the French. His model was the gentleman who had an intense love for someone else's wife, as in the case of Sir Lancelot and the wife of King Arthur, Queen Guinevere. Advice literature of the 12th century told men to court the object of their desire by praising their eyes, hair and lips.
In the 13th century, Richard de Fournival, doctor to the King of France, wrote Advice on Love, in which he suggested that a woman give flirty glances at her love anything but a frank and open plea. From Middle English wedding, weddynge, from Old English weddung (“engagement, conjugal”), equivalent to wedding + -ing. This rhyme originated in England during the Victorian era and symbolized a bride's luck on her wedding day. Specifically, each “something” represents an item that will be given to the lucky bride before she walks down the aisle. But what does it really mean and where does it come from? It's a fact that Western weddings have a lot of tradition.
