How to beat your son-in-law: shocking wedding customs around the world

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Every country in the world has its own traditions and rituals, which have been observed for centuries and passed down from generation to generation. Their sacred meaning is forgotten over time, and now many of them seem, if not strange, then ridiculous. The diversity and difference of cultures is the best way to demonstrate wedding rituals and customs of different countries.

For a European, the wedding traditions of African tribes and peoples will probably seem the most unusual. In Kenya, there is a custom that in the first month after the wedding, the groom must wear women's clothing in order to fully understand how difficult it is to be a woman. In the Surma tribe in Ethiopia, a girl removes her lower teeth before marriage, pierces her lip and inserts a clay disc. From time to time, the disc is replaced with a similar, but larger diameter. The larger the disc, the larger the bride's dowry.

Slavic women who exhaust themselves with diets would appreciate Nigeria's wedding traditions. Here, the bride must get curvaceous before the wedding, otherwise the groom has the right to send her back to her parents. In the Sahara, brides start fattening at the age of 12! In addition, the groom to the bride must go through the line of her relatives, who amicably accept to beat him with sticks. Of course, the father-in-law and mother-in-law are trying more than others! It is believed that in this way they test the future son-in-law for strength and readiness for any adversity. In Yemen, the groom's affairs are no better: on his wedding day, he is supposed to pinch, kick and beat him, fostering humility!

On the island of Java, as in most countries, a couple must pay a fee to the budget before registering a marriage. But not money, but rat tails! As a wedding fee, the newlyweds must deliver 25 tails to the local administration.

In Albania, the concept of the first wedding night is very conditional. There is a tradition according to which a newly-made wife must resist the fulfillment of marital duties for three days. This is done in order to confuse evil spirits. But in Samoa, the bride and groom spend their first night at their parents' house, in complete silence - so as not to wake their relatives!

On the island of Trombrian, near New Guinea, the bride must eat from the same plate with the groom before the wedding in front of the other family members. But if you get to a wedding feast in Bali, you will see only women at the table. The men are resting after they have prepared all the dishes!

German rituals are also very funny. There is such a tradition - Polterabend, when friends get together before the wedding for an informal party. But not for a drink and inviting strippers! They break dishes, flowerpots - almost everything except mirrors. The bride and groom must clean up all this, which symbolizes well-coordinated work and harmony in the future family life. Surely German crockery sellers appreciate this custom very much!

And other customs are closely related to wedding customs, for example, 10 sexual traditions of the ancient world that can shock