This morning, I was riding with a associate to work, along with his wife (they’re both from India). As he dropped his wife off at friend of theirs, I noticed they didn’t kiss upon departure. Instead they waved at each other. I suggeted that maybe they should perhaps give each other a peck on the cheek. My understanding friend replied that they don’t kiss in public in India. Nor do they do so at weddings
It got me to thinking. We like to kiss in the US. In public. Sometime modestly, sometimes not. I don’t know about the rest of the world. But the tradition I’ve been raised on is that one kisses the bride after the marriage vows are made. Was it always this way? Or did they just shake hands in more conservative times?
No facts to back this up, but the feeling I always got about it was that back when these traditions were being spawned, pre-wedding, absolutely no hanky-panky of any kind happened. No, sir! Not even a kiss! Now that you’re married, you can go ahead and indulge, so start now. In front of everybody. So they know you’re married.
But seriously… Yes, in India you will not see people kissing in public. Doing so could even get you into trouble with the police. But in private, I’m sure Indians are really at it… what with a population of over 1 billion…
I read about this (somewhere) (a while back). In many cultures the wedding night was witnessed by the community. Yes, the “act” itself. When the christians took over they substituted the kiss to symbolize the nuptial bliss.
Sound’s reasonable to me. Can’t have folks humpin’ in church.
Peace,
mangeorge
While it may be true that Orthodox Jews have no such marriage ritual, kissing has long been a ritual sign of greeting, welcome, and the sealing of compacts as attested throughout the bible, both the Tanakh and the Christian testaments. In the sense that it indicates the sealing of a compact, it is quite appropriate to weddings (where neither its indication of affection nor its erotic overtones are very far out of place).
Note that if you review the kisses mentioned in the bible, they are often formal public acts between men. (I believe that part of the medieval ceremony of knighting involved a kiss–certainly it occurs between friends in Malory’s le Morte D’Arthur with a certain regularity.) In societies where the kiss had no public associations with greeting or compacts, there would be no reason for it to carry over into public displays of affection, either.
As to the Church “cleaning up” earlier voyeuristic acts, I am more than a little skeptical. (I am not skeptical that such scenes have been reported and I do not doubt that mangeorge encountered such a tale; I simply suspect that some people reporting on the “old ways” get carried away with just how “open” earlier societies were.)
