A brief thought on marriage customs abroad
I’ve been recently reading quite a lot about wedding favours, which vary enormously around the world and generally fascinate me. They’re normally twee little things, but you can get wedding favours which are actually nice miniatures and similar trinkets which you’d want to have in your home. Some of them are, of course, picture frames and similar, but others are ornaments and decorations which will fit perfectly into the home of the lucky newlyweds.
In some parts of the world, especially Asia – India springs to mind – the father of the bride is expected to give much more than simply trinkets and ornaments. Instead, he is almost contractually bound to provide the groom’s family with a large dowry. This can take the form of a moped, a car, an apartment, furniture, consumer electronics and cash. They take the role of the father of the bride much more seriously than we in the UK do. Here and in America, it has taken on a rather sillier role in the form of films such as Meet the Fokkers, where the father of the bride is a domineering and calculating opponent to the hapless groom-to-be.
Learning from cultures around the world puts our own culture into perspective. Whether it can be argued that our culture is a rigid thing that we can spectate upon is a matter for sociologists, but I think it is safe to say that comparison between our own values and those of other populations can only be a healthy thing if it is done in a respectful way.
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