The purpose of this paper is to unveil the hidden history of marriage within the Hebraic traditions. In order to understand marriage in this time period I will use the three c’s of ancient Jewish marriage; contract, consummation, celebration. In the modern western hemisphere, we operate under the same understanding, the only difference is the order and timing of each stage. Marriage in America, in its Americanized traditional context of walking the bride down the aisle to be married is greatly different from ancient Jewish weddings. We would never see the bride of an ancient Jewish wedding walking down the aisle to be married in a synagogue or temple.
The origins of marriage have evolved far from its original tradition but are still heavily…show more content… In the Ketubbah stage of marriage the father of the groom would choose a wife for his son. A contract would then be signed by the bride to be father. At this point the couple is then considered married but do not have sex. One of the reason for the delay in intercourse was due to the young ages that fathers would marry their children. Therefore, the consummation would be delayed until the two married teens became of age. The chuppah stage was the actual act of sexual intercourse. It was custom for the groom to go to the house of the bride after notifying the bride’s father of his age or ability to honor the ketubbah to complete the next stage of their marriage. It was during this time the groom would check to make sure his bride was indeed a virgin and would parade a cloth of proof around after. The third stage is the wedding ceremony. After the sexual act of consummation the bride and groom proceeds to the groom’s house for a feast and upon this last act, the marriage is…show more content… The father’s of young Jewish children would often arrange the futures of their children. Today, we are privileged to find our own mates, but this idea was not so in the old traditions of Jewish marriage. In old Jewish marriage’s, fathers would consult their children but underneath their consultation, the children never really had a voice. In the negotiations of families it would sometime appear the father was allowing the children to speak for themselves in the arrangement but it was only for show, the final decision always remained with the father. Even in the patriarchal male ran society the sons of a family were not even allowed to choose their
