Wedding Realities The Rules Have Changed… and They Haven’t… Les noces en vrai Les règles changent… et restent les mêmes

Many folks think that weddings and marriages are about love and relationships. But love and relationships don’t need the institutional verification of the church and/or state that weddings and marriages provide. Ultimately, then, weddings and marriages are actually about sex and property — the socio-religious approval of sex and the socio-economic distribution, consumption and accumulation of property. Even in the current North American situation, where differences between married and unmarried liaisons are abating, marriage still provides access to health care (or, in Canada, to supplementary health care) not guaranteed to non-married relationships, and grants special immigration status to married partners (see Matrix, forthcoming), not to mention a host of informal social sanctions and approvals. These aims and effects have not changed with the advent of developments from same-sex marriage to writing your own vows to the blatant (or coded) request for cash on the wedding invitation, among other practices that would be unthinkable to most middle class white Euro North Americans as recently as fifty years ago. Marriage usually refers to the legal and social structures that surround the linking of individuals for the exchange of sexual and economic services. Weddings are the specific legally and religiously sanctioned rituals and ceremonies that actually accomplish that connection. But it is nearly impossible to talk about weddings without saying something about marriage, and vice versa. Marriage has always implicated the transfer of individuals — usually women — from one kinship line to another — usually between men (see e.g. Lévi-Strauss 1969 and Rubin 1975) — reflected in the Anglo North American tradition of women’s surnames changing from their father’s to their husband’s. But it has also cross-culturally involved the transfer of actual property — money and gifts — between families and individuals. It may be only upon divorce that many of today’s middle class couples discover the link between their wedded state and the sharing of their goods and property, but such co-mingling is present from the moment they are married. The symbolism of weddings parades the sexualities of the partners; in heterosexual weddings, most obviously that of the bride but also by implication that of the groom. For example, it would be difficult to locate a Euro North American who does not know that white dresses on brides symbolise virginity. It is acceptable to snicker inwardly when the couple has been living together for years, and perhaps even has children together, and the bride chooses to wear white. But even when s/he does not, her/his gown colour decision is a reference to her/his sexuality, whether or not s/he wants it to be. The groom’s guiding the bride’s hand in cutting the cake is another citation to the initiation into sexuality, as is his/her lifting of the veil, tossing the garter, stamping upon a wineglass, and so on, and so on, and so on. However, as many of the papers here illustrate, the new symbolism of contemporary weddings combines old traditions with new ones: oftentimes today’s celebrations are organized around conspicuous consumption of wedding commodities, and the accumulation and display of the correct status goods (such as an exotic honeymoon and elaborate photographic package) and celebrity designer brands (such as Vera Wang or Krups). These new wedding symbols indicate a couple who is upwardly mobile, propelled by the support, approval and financial investments of their family and friends. Equally, however, marriage and weddings themselves may become optional, replaced by an engagement ceremony before a couple begins living together — or even in the absence of any intention to cohabit. Etiquette experts concur that it is loutish to point out the economic aspect …