7. Wedding: The Bride’s Triumph Ceremony

O bride, how happy you are! Lala shebo! You have found a hard worker!⁴⁴44 From "The Lala-Song of the Village Girls", in Charlotte and Wolf Leslau, eds., African Poems and Love Songs, Mount Vernon, N.Y.: Peter Pauper Press, 1970, pp.20-22. Lala shebo!

According to some feminists, a wedding ushers a woman into that prison, that house of domestic slavery, that vale of misery which is marriage. As one of them has put it, marriage is “the hardest way on earth of getting a living”⁴⁵45 Judy Allen and Dyan Sheldon, op.cit., p.74. — which would, presumably, make it harder than plantation slavery! Another feminist, Sue Bruley, has said of it:

Someone coming from another planet and looking at a marriage contract and the semi-slavery it entails for the woman would think it insane that she should enter into it voluntarily.⁴⁶46 Ibid., p.75.

If weddings ushered women into semi-slavery, into the hardest way on earth of getting a living, women would, indeed, be mad to enter it voluntarily. That women do enter it, not just voluntarily, but eagerly, suggests that either women are daft or they are not the ones enslaved by marriage. Since women are the more down to earth and sensible of the two sexes, one must conclude that this talk of slavery is pure feminist propaganda. In fact, a look at the realities, including the actual behaviour of men and women, would give the lie to the feminist claim.

If indeed weddings ushered women into exploitation and hardship, why is it that the bride can be counted upon to appear for her wedding looking radiant and joyfully expectant? Why do bridal songs celebrate her happiness? If a bride is judged happy by women because she has found a hard worker (as is stated in the Ethiopian song quoted above), who then is going to be exploited in the subsequent marriage — the hard worker or his owner?

Of course, the bride is happy because the wedding is her triumph ceremony marking the end of her man hunt, marking the beginning of her retirement on the earnings of her husband. She has spotted a suitable male, and disorganized him with the effects of her body-beautiful. She has sparked in him a craving for her womb. She has smitten him with love, put him through the obstacle course of courtship, broken his wild spirit, attached his emotions to herself, and taught him his commitments and duties. She has gotten him to propose, and is about to bring him before the public to accept to be her nest-slave. Why should she not be happy after such a successful campaign? Why should she not be radiant at the prospect of her fine reward — to live on his earnings for the rest of her days?

If she is less than perfectly happy on her wedding morning, there are usually two main reasons. First, of course, is that she now has to leave her parents and friends and set out for that new abode where she shall make her nest. Parting from one’s home cannot be entirely joyful for anyone. But its sorrows are nothing compared with the joy of, at last, having her own nest. The balance of any mixed feelings she might have are on the side of leaving her mother’s nest for her own. As a “Song of Bridesmaids” from Rwanda says:

We did not do it to you, We did not want to see you go; We love you too much for that. It’s your beauty that did it, Because you are so gorgeous… Ah, we see you laugh beneath your tears! Good-bye, your husband is here And already you don’t seem To need our consolations…⁴⁷47 From "Song of the Bridesmaids", in Charlotte and Wolf Leslau, op.cit., pp.6-7.

The second reason for any unhappiness on her wedding morning is anxiety that the true picture of his future condition might have penetrated the bridegroom’s befuddled mind. What if he should then fail to turn up at the celebration of his own defeat? And what if he showed up, but balked at saying his “I do!” before the assembled witnesses? Consider the following news reports:

Antonio Iorillo giggled when the priest asked: ‘Do you take this woman for your wedded wife?’ Then he said: ‘No.’ There was pandemonium in the little church at Santa Maria Goretti, Italy. The bride sobbed and one bridesmaid fainted. Hastily the bridegroom explained that he was only joking, and asked the priest to continue the service. ‘You have committed sacrilege,’ the priest told him. ‘Only a bishop can put things right.’ Fortunately, the bishop was an understanding man. He told the priest to go on with the ceremony, which was delayed for more than two hours.

There was a shorter hitch at a Suffolk wedding when a nervous bridegroom became tongue-tied just when he should have said ‘I will.’ The bride, a hefty woman, nudged him and muttered: ‘Say “I will,” you fool’, and her partner blurted out, parrot-fashion: ‘I will, you fool.‘⁴⁸48 "The Groom Said 'No'", The Weekly Star (Enugu), March 15, 1981, p.9.

In each case, what gives any bride anxieties had happened; luckily, disaster was averted, and all ended well for each bride.

The reactions to these balking bridegrooms reveal that it is the woman who is all set to exploit the man in their post-wedding life. Would the Italian bride have sobbed, or would her bridesmaid have fainted in sympathetic shock, if women looked forward to being enslaved in marriage? Wouldn’t the bride, and her bridesmaid, have rejoiced at her fortuitous escape from a terrible future? As for the Suffolk bride, she reacted with the decisiveness of an alert slave-owner who thwarts the escape bid of a slave she is buying. So much for feminist disinformation about who is set to be exploited within marriage.

Any intelligent man who plays participant observer at his own courtship realizes that he is being tricked, cajoled, bullied and prick-twisted into staying the course. He realizes that the wedding, in which he is about to play his bit part, is simply a public celebration of his own defeat, and of his bride’s victory, in the great battle of courtship. He will recognize that the wedding is a public triumph where, like a victorious Roman general, his bride will parade him as the captive from her manhunt. He will recognize the non-reciprocal (and inequitable) terms of the contract which the officiating priest will ask him to consent to, especially those clauses which require him to share with the bride all his wealth and the fruits of his toil, but which do not ask her to do likewise. Any wonder then that an observant and intelligent man would balk at saying his “I will”? Anyway, who in his right mind and full liberty would attend a parade which advertises his capitulation? Any wonder some bridegrooms just don’t show up? Don’t some defeated generals commit suicide to spare themselves the ignominy of being paraded in their vanquisher’s triumph? Any wonder why that Suffolk bridegroom who couldn’t stay away (like a general whose captors did not give him a chance to disembowel himself, or to bite on his cyanide pill) was far from enthusiastic at the ceremony? Perhaps the true significance of a wedding dawned on him too late, probably right there at the altar, and he took fright, and got tongue-tied!

Balking bridegrooms, and those who go AWOL (Absent Without Leave) from their weddings, recognize that a wedding is not a triumph for the man. But most men either are too daft to recognize that, or are too intimidated to do anything about it.

What, it may be asked, about brides who bolt from their own weddings? That does happen, but it is most rare. In societies where marriages are not arranged, it is rare because, as the employer, the bride calls the shots, and settles only for the best available candidate. She does not agree to any wedding unless she is sure the bridegroom is the best available to her. But when she does bolt from her own wedding, it is usually because she has spied a much better prey, perhaps a previous lover with whom she had lost touch, who suddenly turns up and indicates that he is available. Where marriages are arranged, a bride bolts from her own wedding if a man she finds revolting is being forced upon her by her parents or guardians. In that case, her action is a rebellion against parental insensitivity or tyranny rather than a manifestation of fear of enslavement within marriage.

To avoid incidents of balking, tongue-tied or no-show bridegrooms, some societies have built into the wedding process rituals like bride-snatching. Bride-snatching is designed to reassure the bridegroom that he is the victor in the courtship battle; it confirms his feeling that he has been the hunter, and that the bride is his prize. According to psychological experts:

(The wedding ritual) is essentially a woman’s initiation rite, in which a man is bound to feel like anything but a conquering hero. No wonder we find, in tribal societies, such counterphobic rituals as the abduction or rape of the bride. These enable the man to cling to the remnants of his heroic role at the very moment that he must submit to his bride and assume the responsibilities of marriage.⁴⁹49 Joseph L. Henderson, "Ancient Myths and Modern Man", in C.G. Jung, ed., Man and His Symbols, New York: Dell, 1968, p.127.

Such counterphobic rituals are a tribute to the profound disquiet which the prospect of marriage, and of his sworn duties within it, provokes in the intelligent male. It also shows the lengths to which the male administrators of the female interest will go in devising con games that will trick a man into accepting his own enslavement.

The sensible male (and any fair person) has to admit that the bridegroom is the one person with every reason to be unhappy at a wedding. Everyone else is usually genuinely happy — the bride, the officiating priest, the parents of the bride, the bridesmaids and other hopeful brides-to-be, the groom’s parents, and the merrily feasting guests. They have good reason too! The married women, like generals who have had their own triumphs, are glad to welcome another to their ranks. The unmarried women are having their hopes renewed, with each probably thinking: “If that silly girl can get herself a slave, so will I, sooner or later.” The married men are there to enjoy the discomfiture of yet another lad: after all, misery loves company! In any case, why should they be unhappy at a feast? As for the unmarried men, the fools among them are hoping to be next in line for what they have been taught is bliss; while the worldly wise are rejoicing that it wasn’t them this time. They probably say to themselves: “Another sod bites the dust, but I’m still free!”

And thus it is that a wedding is a grand and heartless conspiracy against the bridegroom. Poor fellow! As he leads his bride home and shows her off, you can guess why that radiant smile shines from her face. You can imagine the woman in her (what Virginia Woolf called the “Angel in the House”) popping up in her head and singing the victory song of bridepower:

Now the hunt is over; The prey is in your net. Show his head to the cheering crowd And flash your victory smile.

You can almost read the thoughts in her mind as she hugs and kisses him in front of the wedding guests: “Poor fool, I caught you at last! You may think you are stronger; you may think you are cleverer; you may think whatever nonsense makes you feel good, but you are now my official nest-slave! And if ever you try to escape, all of society, all these people who have witnessed this day, will restrain you.”

Which is why a woman who won’t enter into marriage without a wedding knows precisely what she is after. She knows what insurance she is insisting on obtaining against possible desertion by her soon-to-be-over-exploited nest-slave.