I searched the archives, but after getting seven or pages deep into the search feature, I concluded that this hasn’t been covered…
::ahem:: Anyway… a friend (a lazy friend, since she’s too lazy to become a member here and ask the question herself) has lain the task upon my shoulders of asking the Teeming Millions about a superstition that it’s bad luck to be married in May. Supposedly, she found it in a book “A long time ago” along with other, well-known ones.
I’ve never heard of this, but if such a superstition really exists (and is generally spread throughout the populace), she wants to know how it got started/what it’s based on/etc. Anybody have any idea? Or should I tell 'er that she’s outta luck?
Stasticially, it is true that a high percentage of marriages in May end in divorce within five years. The same is true of a few other months, mainly, September, January, June, November, April, February, July, March, August, December, and October.
My mother swears it is! This is some old wives tale I’d never heard until she married my stepfather, the Sadist, when I was 9. We were all miserable for 10 years!
When I was in Ireland I browsed through what was called a “Celtic Datebook” (or possibly “Yearbook”?) in the gift shop at the National Gallery. It was sort of an almanac/history of important or mystical dates. One listing in the month of May said that it was indeed unlucky to marry in May.
I had never heard of this idea until I saw that. Sorry that I can’t remember the exact name of the book but maybe that could be a starting point to get some more info on this, i.e. is it a more prevalent idea in that part of the world?
Marriages that occurred in June were supposed to be lucky because it was the month of Juno,
The Roman goddess whose specialties included faithful marriages (ironic because she was married to Jupiter).
The month of May was named after the nymph Maia, a shy little floozie that Jupiter had an affair with. The god Mercury was the son of this affair.
WAG - it may have to do with May in primarily agrarian and pastoral societies being the time of heavy-duty sowing, planing, building repair, lambing, moving the surviving livestock to spring pastures, etc. after winter. Get married in May and you are likely to be too exhausted to get your sex life off to a solid start. You can take a breather in June to start the marriage right and have something to celebrate.
While probably this has nothing to do with the real issue that the OP is asking about, there are few Jewish weddings in May, since May usually coincides with the Omer, a period of tragedy in Jewish history in which semi-mourning customs, including refraining from holding weddings, are practiced.
Didn’t say there were none, just said there are few.
There’s one day during that “Omer” period, the 33rd (of 49) on which weddings are allowed (because the tragedies that I had been referring to abated on that day). There are quite a few weddings on that day, which almost always (if not always) comes out in May.
However, since during the rest of the year (except for a similar period of 3 weeks in July-August) weddings are allowed the whole month, there will most likely be fewer Jewish weddings in May than other months of the year.
