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Roman Marriage Ceremony

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by SafricanAndy (U7173046) on Sunday, 12th August 2007

  Just curious...was wondering what a Roman wedding would've been like i.e. what rituals were performed etc (this was obviously in the days before the Church, so that is why i'm asking)...and what literary sources do we have that inform us of this?
  
  Did Romans get married purely for political/financial reasons? Or did they have a notion of marrying a person they were "in love" with?

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• Message 2

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  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Sunday, 12th August 2007

  Romans got married for all the same reasons people do today. Upper social echelons - just like with today's aristocracies and elites - tended with much more regularity to do so for political and financial reasons, and the peculiarly powerful position of the 'patrician' in a family meant that at all levels of society the female had little or no say in things, at least publicly.
  
  The Roman wedding ceremony changed from family to family according to each family's traditions but some things were pretty common - including exchanging of rings and even carrying the bride over the threshold (but not normally by the groom). This website gets the last one wrong but lists off the other more common aspects pretty accurately, even if it infers that they were more common than they really were.
  
  

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  Posted by SafricanAndy (U7173046) on Tuesday, 14th August 2007

  Interesting link...so, it is pretty much the same as today, really...So I guess the Church just hijacked the ceremony and added the bits that pertain to Christianity...

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  Posted by SafricanAndy (U7173046) on Tuesday, 14th August 2007

  Although, I must say...If they got married just for political/economic reasons ammongst the higher classes, infidelity must have been the order of the day (given what I know and have witnessed from human nature)...Is there any literary sources that shed light upon how they viewed their marriages from this perspective?

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  Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Tuesday, 14th August 2007

  I gather some sources indicate that having an affair (frequently with a gladiator) was so common amongst high born Roman women that you'd almost think it was compulsory! Women were legally entitled to divorce their husband although such behaviour was likely to cause raised eyebrows.
  
  The question of love is an interesting one; more likely amongst Plebians than the higher classes probably. There are numerous love poems, of course, and archaeologists have found a ring often thought to be a love token or possibly wedding ring, engraved "ANIMA MEA" ("My soul").

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• Message 6

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  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 14th August 2007

  Quite a lot. Contrary to what Hollywood would like to have us think the Romans were really a rather prudish lot, with very hard and fast ideas of rectitude with regard to marriage and fidelity. This extended even into the empire, when politicians, even emperors, could have their images and reputations indelibly and irrecoverably tarnished just with allegations of playing around.
  
  Very hypocritical of course. Plenty of exceptions existed to prove the rule. But if you go by the writings of Virgil, Cicero and Ovid - to name but three - you can see that the Romans at least aspired to be morally upright and self-controlled in their private affairs, and that this attitude survived from republic to empire.

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  Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Tuesday, 14th August 2007

  I love the like of Suetonius, who delight in recounting tales of debauchery and gossip whilst at the same time being very disapproving.

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  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 14th August 2007

  Ovid was a bit like that too - very upright and condemnatory of those who betrayed Rome's traditional family values and the dignity of motherhood. Then the dirty old bugger had a fling with the emperor's grandchild and ended up banished to a Black Sea resort with a sentence of being gelded should he step over the white line.

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• Message 9

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  Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Tuesday, 14th August 2007

  Lest this be misinterpreted, I think that by 'grandchild' you mean 'grand-daughter' ie the promiscuous, and then adult, Julia, who was banished. I thought Ovid was banished because of his risque writings.

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• Message 10

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  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 14th August 2007

  That too. Especially when Julia began to be judged as the subject of some of them.

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• Message 11

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  Posted by SafricanAndy (U7173046) on Wednesday, 15th August 2007

  Nordmann, didn't Augustus institute laws prohibiting
  "immoral" behavior like infidelity, whilst he himself was dipping his hand into the cookie jar every once and again?
  
  I expect most of those writers were also heavily influenced by Stoicism, especially it's adherence to self-control...they couldn't condone such behavior, at least not openly...

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