A Trip to the Altar: The Circle of Life Series

Meredith Price

The sacred union between a woman and a man constitutes one of the oldest known practices in human history. At its inception, marriage functioned to perpetuate family bloodlines and form new political alliances. It also served as a way to pass along property and material possessions, and it was often arranged by parents for their children. Romantic marriages are relatively recent, and most people today wed out of love and not for political or financial gain. Despite some universal symbols, the cultural and religious traditions surrounding the ceremonies are extremely varied and each couple personalizes their ceremony to fit their individual relationship.

A circle represents the promise to love and cherish one another for eternity. This vow to create a lasting union usually accompanies the exchange of rings whose circular band symbolizes the commitment to build a future together. In the Indian culture, marriage is a binding sacrament not only in this life but also in the hereafter. The official legal recording of marriages as we know it today began in Roman times, and wedding couples do enter a legally binding contract when they marry within the United States, regardless of their ancestry or religion. According to Joseph Campbell, the author of The Power of Myth, the notion of courtly love and romance which lingers in contemporary societies originated in the twelfth century with the troubadours.

In the Thai tradition, the circle representing eternal union appears in more than the rings. A circular head piece, called Saimong Kol in Thailand, is worn in the wedding ceremony by the bride and groom. Two rings composed of tiny threads twisted together by Buddhist monks in prayer encircle the heads of the bride and groom. These two circles are then connected to symbolize the tying of the couples’ life together. Water also plays an important role in the Thai ceremony as it represents purity and holiness. The bride and groom kneel at the Thai altar facing the guests with their hands together in a prayer position while elder family members and friends pour blessed water out of an elaborate conch shell and through the couples’ hands to wish them luck and good fortune in their future life together. As in the Indian and Muslim communities, colorful robes and fine silk gowns are also common in the wedding ceremonies of the Thai community. The rich and vibrant colors provide beauty and diversity in the sacrament and inspire good fortune in the future. The brides’ finery and elaborate jewels represent the prosperity she will bring to her new home. "My bridesmaids’ wore red to symbolize our love for each other and their dresses are representative of the standard outfit for many special occasions, not just weddings," says Prinjadha Pittman, a Thai bride from Cobb County who married in May of this year.

It is common in Indian and Muslim weddings for the bride to use henna as a decorative adornment of her hands and feet. The mehndi, or henna design, can be extremely complex and is a sign of status and celebration. According to www.hennacaracan.com, "the function of mehndi in wedding rituals extends far beyond beauty and socializing. It is associated with a girls’ entrance into womanhood at marriage. A relationship exists between mehndi, hymenal blood and the menstrual cycle." For Geetha Vinod, an Indian woman living in Smyrna, "henna is based on tradition. It looks good and in the olden days it was thought to bring good health by removing impurities from the body through its herbal roots."

The traditional white gown worn by the Christian and Jewish cultures symbolizes the purity of the woman, but the customs proving that purity have evolved and many no longer exist today. In the past, many Jewish communities required that the bride’s blood stain a sheet to prove the consummation of the marriage and her purity. According to fp.thebeers.f9.co.uk, "The blood shed by the bride is notable for two reasons. It speaks of purity before marriage, but it also shows a blood covenant, such as God’s covenant with his people."

Today, few Jewish communities require this process after the ceremony. Most Jewish communities do, however, perform the marriage ceremony beneath a Chuppah, or canopy, which symbolizes the home the new couple will forge together. The Chuppah can be made of any material and is usually accompanied by flowers. Andrea Levy, a Cobb County resident and a member of the Jewish community, used her grandmother’s tablecloth to make her Chuppah. "We used my nana’s tablecloth, gathered it at the corners, attached it to four poles and then accented it with fresh flowers. She could not attend our wedding, but her presence was there through the Chuppah," comments Ms. Levy. This canopy, or mandate, is also used in Indian ceremonies. It is usually a wooden frame with a cloth top, and the poles of the frame are almost always draped with a string of flowers. The bride and groom sit under this canopy with the bride’s parents and the priest as the wedding ceremony takes place.

During the ceremony, the groom ties three knots in the bride's necklace to symbolize their union and the consecration of their vows. He then places a kum kum, or dot, on the bride’s forehead to signify his promise to take care of her. At the end of the ceremony, the bride and groom exchange garlands to show their mutual acceptance of the matrimony. "Before we marry, we wash our parents’ feet to show them our respect and appreciation," says Ms. Vinod, who, like many Indian women, took her husband’s first name, Vinod, as her last. "Usually, a bride changes her last name to her husband’s first after the marriage. The last name in India is not used very much and it does not have the importance of the last name here," explains Ms. Vinod.

In the Christian and Jewish tradition, the bride changes her last name to that of her husband’s last name, but many modern brides choose to hyphenate their last names or change their middle name to their last to preserve their family names. Every marriage ceremony is accompanied by vows, prayers and blessings, but another change from the past is the dowry, which has faded into a symbol in most communities.

In the Muslim community, the dowry is paid by the groom to the bride, but what was once a serious requirement has now become optional. "Today there is a symbolic dowry that the groom offers the bride, usually a sum of money or jewelry that the bride requests. She chooses what she wants for her dowry," explains Muhammad Ninowy, an Imam at the Al Madina mosque in Norcross. The traditional religious Muslim wedding does, however, like religious Jewish weddings, still require a separation between men and women at the marriage festivities. This separation allows each party to feel comfortable in their celebrations without being immodest in front of the opposite sex. According to www.ultimatewedding.com, "If your family tradition is not to have weddings arranged with separate spaces for males and females, you will receive Allah’s blessings if you do so for seeking to accommodate your guests and trying to observe an Islamic practice which has been in place for about 1400 years."

The giving of gifts to the wedding guests is also very common among all communities, although the Jewish and Muslim cultures tend to offer money to the newlyweds rather than actual gifts. So while the actual ceremony differs greatly, even amongst members of the same community, the underlying rituals are actually very similar. Every culture uses rings, vows, blessings and flowers. Some form of altar or sanctuary is necessary for the couple to wed and a holy figure is responsible for joining the couple in holy matrimony, unless they choose to have a non-religious ceremony. The wedding sacrament is still of utmost importance in today’s society, despite its evolution and changes from the past. The promise to love, cherish and respect one another constitutes the basis of all unions, whether they are traditional ceremonies, unusual mixtures or innovatively contemporary.