Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue! In this episode, Ellie and David talk about weddings. What kind of celebration is a wedding? And what social function do these festivities serve? Do weddings necessarily legitimize the institution of marriage? Or can weddings be dissociated from this legal institution and its problematic history? As they ponder these issues, your hosts walk you down the aisle of history by considering how early Christians developed their views about weddings by embracing some aspects of Roman weddings while rejecting others as vain and contrary to virtue. They also explore the meaning of weddings symbols that are still with us today and look at how weddings can challenge exclusionary nationalist ideologies. In the Substack bonus segment, Ellie and David talk about the weddings they’ve been to and discuss historical factors that shape our current conception of weddings.
Works Discussed:
Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History
Laurie Essig, Love, Inc.
Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage
Brooke Leany, “Something borrowed: The origins of Christian wedding rituals.”
Ellen Rothman, Hands and Hearts: A History of Courtship in America
Lisa Schwarzbaum, “Mamdani, His Mother and a Movie of Prescient Grace”
Jonathan Wolff, “The Value of Ceremonies”
Highlight: Performance and Symbolism in Weddings
An aspect of weddings that Habermas discusses is fuss
Fuss is the idea that one purpose of a wedding is to be extravagant and ostentatious in a way that is meant to make a display of the event.
Another aspect is social drama
Social drama is the idea that, at a wedding, you don’t show up as your regular self, but as a persona, by wearing your best clothes, performing a specific role, etc.
Acknowledgement and discussion of these aspects reveals how weddings are performative and symbolic in nature.
Mira Nair’s film, Monsoon Wedding (2001), emphasizes the various performative and symbolic aspects that a wedding often has, and serves as a great example of the discussions that Ellie and David have in this episode.
