Bride And Groom Like The Dead example essay topic

Marriage and Funeral in Classical Athens Marriage in Classical Athens was inevitable. It was a part of life. Everyone had to get married, just as everyone had to someday face death. Although most people would not see a connection between marriage and death, the Greeks did. Both define an irreversible physical change-the loss of virginity and the loss of life. This idea of loss, rebirth, and renewal are present in both wedding and funeral.

This is evident in the way wedding and funeral ceremonies complement each other in character and content. Both ceremonies are interwoven with ritual meaning and overlapping rites. There are three distinctive parts to a Greek marriage: the en gue, , and games (Powers). The en gue refers to the betrothal arranged by the, which are the fathers of the bride and groom (Duby 273). In this ceremony a verbal contract is made called eng ye. This is basically an agreement upon marriage between the groom and father of the bride.

The dowry is also paid to the groom during this time. The agreement is sealed by the phrase 'I hand over this woman to you for the ploughing of legitimate children' (Blundell 101). Witnesses were present as proof of en gue in case the legitimacy of children was ever questioned. As the en gue marked a pledge the marked a transformation of the bride as she shifted from a child to an adult, a virgin to a wife. Actions that symbolized this transfer included cutting of the bride's hair, removing the girdle she wore since puberty, and taking a ritual bath in water from a sacred spring. During the the daughter is given away by the father to her husband.

The bride and groom prepare for the wedding with offerings, dedications, and sacrifices. All of these rites are for purification and conciliation. The bride offers locks of her hair to the virgin deity Artemis in hopes that the god would ease her passage from virginity. The bride's girdle is also taken off and consecrated to Artemis or Athena (Blundell 105). This pre-wedding ritual is one of the few events women are allowed to participate in. The bride and groom both take a ritual bath which is believed to induce fertility (Avagianou 6).

Sacred spring water for the bath is carried in a which means "someone who carries the bath water" (Rehm 15). The bride is then assisted in adorning herself for the public ceremony which begins with a feast at the family's home. She shows up veiled and both she and the groom wear a crown of garland to mark the occasion. There is plenty of music and dancing as the families celebrate the wedding. Later that night, the bride, groom, and the groom's best friend are carried into the couple's future home by chariot. This procession is the central event of the Athenian wedding (Duby 280).

The family follows the chariot by foot with gifts. The mother of the bride carries a torch. The flames of torches and sound of music function against evil spirits which intend to harm the bride during the procession (Avagianou 11). To mark the initiation into her new home, the bride eats a quince or apple demonstrating that her livelihood now comes from her husband. The bride and groom are showered with fruits and nuts to symbolize prosperity and fertility (Rehm 17). Finally the physical union in the nuptial bed marks the goal of transferal of bride to husband.

Games is the consummated and now complete marriage. The next day there is another ceremony for the women only. Gifts are presented to the bride such as baskets, vases, pots, furniture, jewelry, combs, perfume, mirrors, and wreaths (Avagianou 18). Like the wedding, the funeral, or, is a three part drama consisting of the prothesis, , and the deposition of the body (Garland 22).

Death was a momentous event in the social and religious lives of the Greeks. A proper burial, or other acceptable disposal of the dead, such as cremation, was necessary to ensure that the psyche, or soul, could leave the body freely and enter the Underworld. The women play the most significant role in funeral rituals. Their duties are to fully prepare the body for funeral by bathing the body, anointing it with oil, and adorning it with flowers, wreaths, ribbons, and jewelry (Kurtz 144). The body is also dressed in an ankle length, white sheath and a golden crown is placed upon the head to symbolize dignity. The prothesis is a carefully orchestrated proceeding which takes place the day after death in the home of the deceased (Kurtz 144).

The house is hung with wreaths and sprays of leaves, and a vessel is placed outside the door of the house as a notification and warning of death. The duration of this phase varies, but it normally lasts one day. Plato proclaimed that it lasts only long enough to confirm death (Kurtz 146). During the prothesis, the body is laid out and displayed on a Kline, or a bed. The dead lay on the kline with their feet toward the door.

It is from that direction the men come in procession raising their right hands, palm outwards toward the gods. The women stand at the end of the kline beating their head, raising their hands, and tearing their hair in lamentation (Kurtz 144). Elaborate mourning rites were carried out by women to honor the dead, satisfy family duties, and appease the soul of the departed. The mourners all dress in black to show honor and respect to the dead.

The most important part of the prothesis was the ritual lament. The Greeks believed that the dead were capable of hearing the funeral lament, and thus performed extravagant dirges to satisfy the soul of the deceased (Vermule 14). While singing, the people involved would move around the kline in a pattern resembling a dance. The good was an improvised lament sung by friends and relatives. Another type of lament called the thre nos was sung by professional mourners.

The hired singer would lead off the lament followed by the family singing the good. A chorus of women cried out in accompaniment. Laments called were sung in turn by principal singers and a chorus. The second stage in the Greek funeral was the, the procession through the city to the grave site.

The occurred on the third day after death (Kurtz 145). Men led the procession and the women followed. Women were primarily responsible for carrying the appropriate offerings to the grave site. Women also sang throughout the procession, often stopping at street corners for increased outbursts of wailing and lamentation (Humphreys 86). The procession was also an opportunity to display the wealth and status of the deceased and his surviving family. Less is known about the third stage of the Greek funeral, the burial and its surrounding ceremonies.

This stage was the climax of the funeral, yet it was more private and restricted than the prior prothesis. Mourners probably lined up along the open grave while a last series of rites were performed. Offerings were made and female mourners often dedicated locks of their hair. At the conclusion of the burial ceremony, the women were the first to leave so they could go home and prepare a banquet held in honor of the deceased. The men remained behind to finish the preparation of the tomb or grave. When all was done, a stele, very similar to modern gravestones, was placed over the grave.

A large banquet in honor of the dead was the finale of the Greek funeral. Prior to this, however, a series of purification rites took place (Alexiou 10). Death was considered unclean; therefore, the cleansing of the home, all possessions, and the women themselves who were close to the dead was necessary. The vessel positioned outside the front door was filled with water for purposes of purification. After the appropriate amount of cleansing was performed, women supervised the preparation of an elaborate banquet at which the deceased was thought to be present (Garland 39). The duality of marriage and death suggest significance of rituals and rites in Classical Athens (Rehm 32).

Both the bride and corpse are covered with a white veil and sheath. Both events involve a night journey to a new home, taken by a cart or chariot in a procession with torch bearers and song and dance. Just as the wedding is consummated on a nuptial bed, the dead are laid out on a bed as well (Blundell 47). Each ritual contains blessings, both over the married couple and over the deceased. Weddings and funerals are both a special concern of the women, and both family festivals represent initiation into another realm (Redfield 187). The purification and adornment of the bride are similar to the washing and adorning of the dead.

Loutrophoroi are linked with weddings and funerals since they are used to bring water for the wedding bath and serve as grave offerings for those who died unmarried. The bride and groom, like the dead, are ritually washed in sacred water, dressed, adorned, and crowned by women. This passage emphasizes especially how cutting the locks of hair features in both rituals as well: In the funeral, the mourners cut a lock of hair and leave it to be buried with the dead; they thus enact their bereavement by sending a part of their life to die with the dead. Before the wedding, brides often dedicated a lock of hair; they thus left behind them a part of their life as they set off to a new life (Redfield 190). These two ceremonies are so intertwined that if a girl died before she married, she was buried in a wedding dress so she could be the bride of Hades. The death of an unmarried girl was especially lamented because of her failure to fulfill her role as a wife.

Epitaphs express this feeling and the loutrophoros, used in weddings to transport water for the nuptial bath, are often buried with the girl and represented on her tombstone (Blundell 45). The dead maiden is portrayed as a bride on these memorial vases (Pomeroy 104). Sophocles' Antigone tells of a young unwed girl who was sentenced to die. Antigone laments that she is to be the bride only of Death.

She goes to her grave and cries out; No, Hades who lays all to rest leads me living to Acheron's shore, though I have not had my due portion of the chant that brings the bride, nor has any hymn been mine for the crowning of marriage. Instead the lord of Acheron [river of the underworld] will be my groom (810-816). She also refers to her tomb as her bridal chamber (891). Paradigms of marriage and death are frequently encountered in Greek tragedy. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter links marriage and death when Persephone marries death himself. Pluto, lord of the dead, snatched her as she was gathering flowers in the field.

He carried her off in his golden chariot to be his bride. Procession in a chariot was typical in Greek weddings. Also, like the traditional Athenian bride's incorporation rites, Persephone eats a pomegranate, binding her to marriage with death. This fruit is both a symbol of blood and death and marriage and fertility. Also in this story, Demeter's role as mother corresponds to that of the bride's mother, since she is the person who is most affected by her daughter's separation (Avagianou 134).

Demeter, 'holding torches ablaze in her hands,' imitates the experience of the mother of the bride who carries flaming torches in the bridal procession (Foley 4). Evidence of the duality of marriage and death is also expressed in Greek art. Scenes of ritual gestures, wedding preparations, nuptial processions, or visits to the deceased's tomb allude to the Classical Greek way of ritual. The events practiced in their every day society are eloquently expressed in their imagery.

The similarities between marriage and funeral rites in Classical Athens derive from the parallel natures of two rites of passage, whose function in each case was to assure separation from a previous status and incorporation into a new one. Through examining the Greek attitude toward the institution of marriage and death, an understanding of the ancient world is developed for the modern world. WORKS CITE Do Alexiou, Margaret. The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition. Cambridge University Press: New York, 1974 o Avagianou, Aphrodite. Sacred Marriage in the Rituals of Greek Religion.

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The Belknap Press: Cambridge, 1992. o Foley, Helene P. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Princeton University Press: New Jersey, 1994. o Garland, Robert. The Greek Way of Death. Cornell University Press: Ithaca, 1985. o Humphreys, The Family, Women, and Death, Routledge and Kegan Paul: Boston, 1983 o Kurtz, Donna, John Boardman.

Greek Burial Customs. Cornell University Press: Ithaca, New York, 1971. o Morris, Ian. Key Themes in Ancient History: Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge University Press: London, 1992. o Pomeroy, Sarah. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves.

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Marriage to Death: The Conflation of Wedding and Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy. Princeton University Press: New Jersey, 1994. o Seaford, R. 'The Tragic Wedding,' Journal of Hellenistic Studies cvii (1987) 106-130. o Shop corn, Jana. Till Death do us part. Tufts University. 22 March 2005. o Sophocles. Antigone.

Ed. Sir Richard Jebb. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1891. o Vermule, Emily. Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry. University of California Press: Los Angeles, 1979.