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Who might ascribe to handfasting?
Question
#63147. Asked by soonappear. (Mar 05 06 7:32 PM)
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xaosdog
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I think it is worth noting that, contrary to what the links already posted indicate, handfasting was frequently between the groom and the father of the bride, rather than between groom and bride. So that often in handfasting the ritual was for the woman to pass from her father's custody to her husband's, almost like a chattel. (That said, I think in continental Europe the handfast was most often between bride and groom; the man-to-man ritual may have been more of a British Isles thing.)
The above refers to the medieval tradition of handfasting; I think it became looser in latter centuries, and might even have become a sort of expressly-non-marital cohabitation contract in rural areas in, say, the 1600s or so.
Moreover, I don't think the tradition was particularly pagan, although it is likely it (like all Christian ceremonies and dogmas) had pre-Christian roots. I think it is more rural than pagan: that it was used in lieu of Christian ceremony merely because no Christian clergyman was available in remote areas.
Modern-day new-agey so-called wiccans may have taken over the ceremony as an alternative to Christian rites, and they are wholly entitled to do so, but historically there's nothing particularly pagan about the ceremony (there is nothing inherently anti-monotheistic about it), nor is the ceremony particularly egalitarian as regards the rights and/or independence of women (in that handfasting could be and often was at least as patriarchy-reifying as Christian rites).
Anyway, the strict answer to the question is: (1) any modern person looking for a marriage ceremony that appeals to them, or (2) medieval Europeans looking for a way to solemnize a marriage in the absence of official clergy, or (3) roughly renaissance-age rural Europeans interested in solemnizing a less formal version of marriage than that openly sanctioned by the church.
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xaosdog
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Moreover, I don't think the tradition was particularly pagan, although it is likely it (like all Christian ceremonies and dogmas) had pre-Christian roots. I think it is more rural than pagan: that it was used in lieu of Christian ceremony merely because no Christian clergyman was available in remote areas.
Modern-day new-agey so-called wiccans may have taken over the ceremony as an alternative to Christian rites, and they are wholly entitled to do so, but historically there's nothing particularly pagan about the ceremony (there is nothing inherently anti-monotheistic about it), nor is the ceremony particularly egalitarian as regards the rights and/or independence of women (in that handfasting could be and often was at least as patriarchy-reifying as Christian rites).
Anyway, the strict answer to the question is: (1) any modern person looking for a marriage ceremony that appeals to them, or (2) medieval Europeans looking for a way to solemnize a marriage in the absence of official clergy, or (3) roughly renaissance-age rural Europeans interested in solemnizing a less formal version of marriage than that openly sanctioned by the church.
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