# Breaking glasses after a toast **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 17, 2014, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-glasses-after-a-toast/701585 "2014-10-17T14:43:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-glasses-after-a-toast/701585/1 "2014-10-17T14:43:53Z")
This post in another thread prompts the question: > [@Arch of Titus vase smasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arch-of-titus-vase-smasher/701578/3): > > The Jewish tradition of breaking a wine glass at the wedding supposedly derives from > > > [@](#): > > > > The tradition is traced back to the Talmud which tells of a Rabbi who broke a vase at a wedding because he didn’t want people to be too happy We’ve all seen movies where people drink a toast and then smash the glasses in the fireplace. I’ve always thought that the idea went something like this: ‘That was so great a toast to so great a man, than no other toast could possibly be worthy of the glasses we used to make it. Thus we must destroy these vessels so that they can never be used for a lesser commemoration.’ Is that the idea? Or have I been wrong all these years? ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-glasses-after-a-toast/701585/2 "2014-10-17T14:54:49Z")
For Eastern Russian/Siberians its pretty much as you understand it ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-glasses-after-a-toast/701585/3 "2014-10-17T20:52:22Z")
That was certainly the rationale for bachelor-party toasts [as described in 1922 by Emily Post’s _Etiquette_](http://www.bartleby.com/95/21.html): > [@](#): > > The breaking habit originated with drinking the bride’s health and breaking the stem of the wine glass, so that it “might never serve a less honorable purpose.” A perfectly high-minded sentiment! And this same time-honored custom is followed to this day. Toward the latter end of the dinner the groom rises, and holding a filled champagne glass aloft says: “To the bride!” Every man rises, drinks the toast standing, and then breaks the delicate stem of the glass. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-glasses-after-a-toast/701585/4 "2014-10-17T20:57:13Z")
[Prior thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=696761) > [@](#): > > The breaking habit originated with drinking the bride’s health and breaking the stem of the wine glass, so that it “might never serve a less honorable purpose.” A perfectly high-minded sentiment! And this same time-honored custom is followed to this day. Toward the latter end of the dinner the groom rises, and holding a filled champagne glass aloft says: “To the bride!” Every man rises, drinks the toast standing, and then breaks the delicate stem of the glass. And not one bit of symbolism there, friends… ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-glasses-after-a-toast/701585/5 "2014-10-17T21:24:08Z")
A similar custom was claimed, [in an 1889 short story by Rudyard Kipling,](http://www.bartleby.com/195/22.html) to have prevailed in parts of the military during the early part of Queen Victoria’s reign: > [@](#): > > The wide-eyed mess sergeant filled the glasses in dead silence. Once more the colonel rose, but his hand shook, and the port spilled on the table as he looked straight at the man in Little Mildred’s chair and said, hoarsely, “Mr. Vice, the Queen.” There was a little pause, but the man sprang to his feet and answered, without hesitation, “The Queen, God bless her!” and as he emptied the thin glass he snapped the shank between his fingers. > > Long and long ago, when the Empress of India was a young woman, and there were no unclean ideals in the land, it was the custom in a few messes to drink the Queen’s toast in broken glass, to the huge delight of the mess contractors. The custom is now dead, because there is nothing to break anything for, except now and again the word of a government, and that has been broken already.