Wedding ransom - a Slavic rite in which usually the matchmaker, friends , the groom himself or the guests pay a real or symbolic fee (money, food, linen, a towel , etc.) for the bride to leave the house, travel the “ wedding train ”, dance with the bride, with the " abduction of the bride " or her shoe at the wedding.
Content
Traditional Foreclosure Options
In the wedding ceremony, the ransom-related rituals are common at all stages. The bride and the symbol of girlhood are redeemed - the bride’s braid, ribbon ( s.-Russian beauty ), wreath ( white ); dowry; wedding banner ( y.-glor. ); the right to travel a wedding train (the road is blocked by logs, stones, rope, chain, ribbon, sheaves, a table with cups); the ability to enter the house; a place near the bride at the table ( v. glor. ); loaf; bed ( century- , west-glory. ); wedding night right. In addition, the young one pays for refreshments and gifts after the wedding night.
Most often, the matchmaker, brothers, boyfriends or the groom himself redeem something from his brother, girlfriends, father, mother of the bride. Arriving for the bride, the groom found the doors locked and had to pay a ransom ( goalkeeper - S. Serbian. ). If the ransom is small, instead of the bridegroom, another girl was taken out to the groom ( puddle ). Often, the bridegroom was offered to recognize her bride among the girls in disguise and to redeem her (Ts. Russian). At the same time, the ransom demand was formulated in the form of a riddle, for example, they asked for porridge cooked without fire (i.e. honey), etc., gradually complicating tasks for the groom and friends ( Czech ). Guys and married men paid a ransom for a dance with a bride ( gender ). The ransom of the groom is also known: during the matchmaking, the girlfriends of the bride do not give him to the matchmakers without a ransom ( Russian ). In Moravia ( Gornyacko ) things were stolen from the newlyweds at night, demanding a ransom for them in the morning [1] .
Swearing
Swearing is a rite of handing over the bride to friends and groom “hand in hand to one guest forever”, including: meeting the train, taking the bride out and seeing off to the crown.
In the house of both the bride and groom, preparations were made for abuse . The matchmaker and the groom's relatives have been decorated since the evening with a wedding cart; in the morning mother scratched her son’s curls - he also said goodbye to his unmarried life. To protect the guy from the evil eye , the godmother sometimes planted him on a sauerkraut , cut her out from the head crosswise in a tuft of hair and singeed the places of the slices. Dressed the groom, like the bride, in everything new - a shirt embroidered by the bride, a belt woven by her.
The bride before the battle said goodbye to her friends, to her parents' house. Actually, the wedding began with the arrival of the "wedding train", guests from the groom on horseback to the bride's house. In many traditions, the bride matchmaker before the arrival of the wedding train chalked the road in front of the house.
Before entering the house, the “peasants” had to overcome a number of obstacles. In ancient times, fist fights were organized between childbirth of the bride and groom, during which the bride's relatives, having rendered symbolic resistance to the bridegroom's relatives, gave up.
Classic bride ransoms: the sale of braids, the purchase of dressed up burdock bush ( Samara region ) are popular today.
Modern bride ransom
At present, the ransom place is no longer firmly tied to the bride's place of residence. The ransom can take place for convenience reasons from the house of the grandmother (or other relatives) or even from the house of the groom, if the young have lived together for a long time.
Modern ransom is carried out, as a rule, by sisters, brothers and guests from the bride. According to some beliefs, the ransom should be carried out by a witness. The bride’s ransom is concluded in successive comic competitions, for the failure of which a tribute is paid (money, sweets, champagne). Modern brides and her friends try to come up with interesting and varied buyback scenarios, often buybacks are thematic and relate to the interests of the future couple [2] .
During the ransom, the witness and / or friends of the groom help overcome the “obstacles”.
As a rule, a modern ransom is carried out on a staircase from the ground floor to the doors of the bride’s apartment.
Classic modern comic buyback contests are:
- recognition of the bride by her children's photos (from a mixture with other people's photos)
- naming the affectionate word or quality of the bride on each step of one of the flights of stairs
- definition of what the numbers on the sheets spread out on the stairs or hanging on the walls mean (usually these are the bride’s birthdays, mother-in-law, bride’s apartment number, date of acquaintance, etc.)
- a choice of lip prints on sheets of paper of your bride’s lip print
other.
In addition, lottery contests are held, where everything depends only on the luck of the groom. For example:
- a choice of three shoe boxes of the one with the bride’s wedding shoe (if you make a mistake for the second and third attempts, you will need to "pay off")
- selection of several keys of the one from the bride's room
- choice of several balls of where the name of the bride
- a choice of several ropes that is tied to the bride (and not to a stuffed toy, for example)
other.
During the ransom, the groom's side is allowed to cheat a little and perform tasks in simpler or not entirely honest ways. It is not customary to interfere with this, because if the task itself allows it to be interpreted ambiguously, this is not the fault of the “assailants”. Moreover, this behavior was also characteristic of earlier weddings, when bridesmaids were given a piece of paper with the inscription "one hundred thousand" instead of real money saying: "We offered - you agreed. And if you don’t like our money, we are not to blame! ”
The last ransom action is usually the ransom of the bride's opportunity to come down from the stool on which she stands waiting for the groom. This ransom is usually paid more. Removing the bride from the stool, the groom kisses her, and from that moment the ransom ceremony is considered completed.
See also
- Bride abduction
- Kalym
Notes
- ↑ Plotnikova, 1995 , p. 475.
- ↑ Rite of redemption of the bride . Date of treatment March 23, 2017.
Literature
- Ransom / Plotnikova A. A. // Slavic antiquities : Ethnolinguistic dictionary: in 5 volumes / under the general. ed. N. I. Tolstoy ; Institute of Slavic Studies RAS . - M .: Int. Relations , 1995. - T. 1: A (August) - G (Goose). - S. 475-477. - ISBN 5-7133-0704-2 .