Today our topic of discussion is The Wedding Ceremony .
The Wedding Ceremony
The wedding ceremony itself could be very elaborate or simple depending on the wealth and tastes of the families concerned. Three accounts of Muslim weddings cited below which took place over a period of 60 years show the tenacity of some aspects of ritual life.
The first is an account from that oft-cited feat of colonial record keeping, Hunter’s Statistical Account, the second from an aricle published in a journal in 1922; the third is a bride’s description of her own wedding in Calcutta in 1933. Hunter was sent the report of a wedding in a semi-rural society by Mr King, collector of Noakhali:
The parents arrange the marriage if possible in their own village… Among Muhammadans the bridegroom’s father gives the marriage present which consist of clothes, ornaments and a written agreement. Among Muhammadans, the bridegroom with his relatives (etc.) meet on the appointed day in the outer apartment of the bride’s house…a wakil and two witnesses are appointed.
The wedding present in handed to the wakil who takes it to the bride and is thereupon empowered by her to intimate to the bridegroom her consent to the marriage… the mullah reads the religious service. The guests are feasted.
This description went down to the last detail including the glass of sharbet drunk by husband and wife in the andar. An article in Sadhana, published 46 years after Hunter’s, resembled the former description quite closely: the 20th century, even when the familial patterns started changing.
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