Pagan roots of Christian Weddings
Are our contemporary social customs and practices the exclusive creations of established religions'? To put it in another way, were our ancestors, in the pre-religious era primitive and uncivilized, that they followed no social customs and rituals?
Gillian Markson digs out the pagan traditions of modern church weddings.
Pagans were people who lived in the outskirts of Rome when Romans got control of it. Later, Romans were superseded by the Victorians and the Christians. In the modern Christian political tradition, Pagans are treated the most 'primitive' and uncivilized.
The Pagan weddings and marriage customs
A Pagan man and a woman, married in the presence of families, friends, and gods(not religious gods of the present kind) promising to take care of each other forever. They stay their wrist bound together for a few minutes, called the 'handfast ritual of the wedding.
Guests would bring biscuits for the wedding, which after the wedding, would get stalked for the couple to kiss over the stalk. How high was the biscuit stalk determined how wealthy the couple were. Biscuits were then given to poor people. The couple can decide to stay on in the marriage after staying together for a year and a day.
Modern tiered wedding cake is a sophisticated form of tiered biscuits.
According to Markson, the history of dowry also started with the Pagans. It was in the form of an animal, grain and other materials, which the girl's father gave to the man who was willing to marry the girl.
When the Christians discredited the Pagans, primitive and uncivilized, they adopted the pagan customs and populated them. So very little is now known about the Pagan roots and their social history.
It is seemingly the case of the racial politics of modern religions that such deliberate omissions happen. The purpose is to boost the modern religious ego having no reasoning. It deprives the younger generations of respecting the ancient cultures and their roots to get swayed to defining even the nationality in terms of the modern constructed hybrid religious cultures.
However, in the acceleration towards modern civilization, many Pagan rituals got dropped. Dowry is no more practised among Western Christians. The couple has to earn themselves towards the wedding expenses and for their living together in the marriage.
Well researched article on the subject. We are always pulling down anything old but if we went into the ancient customs we would find that we are going back to the same old customs and calling them 'modern.' Only we want the cake and eat it too.
ReplyDeleteZephyr,
ReplyDeletethanks a lot for the comment.
I am talking about the deliberate neglect of anything old and pre-religious(in the modern sense of religion).
a nice post to read... very informative on the origins...
ReplyDeletethanks a lot Dr. Roshan for reading my post and commenting :)
ReplyDeleteI dont agree witn you.Christianity is acually a continuation of babylonian mysteries carried forward from ancient babylon assyria persia greece rome.Christianity has nothing to do with the true worship of Yahshua messiah which they call jesus christ but was not greek.Acts 11:23They called them Christians at antioch.This is because the greeks heard about Serapid christus and zeus christus a depiction of babylonian nimrod.Constantine a pagan Initiated Christianity into the roman empire from Egypt .They just took the bible and scripture as a guide for their people but sun moon idol worship still continues up to today.The jews in bible never prayed in church.The word church comes from kirk a scottish idol goddess.The wedding ring is a symbol of a serpent ourobourus .Bible people never married this way .The priest in church marry people started by catholics to make money.The wedding ceremony is pagan church is womb and the cross a phallic symbol of baal tammuz nimrod lucifer.church doors are female genitalia.The wedding veil is pagan and there is superstition about the bride being apart from bridegroom.In the roman empire everyone was pagan because only the jews were given the law.Celts germanics romans slavic egyptians carthiginians etc were all pagans.All the traditions of ancient babylon continue today and are a rejection of the bible.Christians celebrate xmas easter lent may day halloween etc all paganism.We now live in a commercial world and pagan customs good for business
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