One of the things I was thinking about the other day was what the wedding of the past looked like. I of course have pictures of my mom's wedding and my aunt's weddings but these were all very tradition. Where did the untraditional wedding come into play? Today's wedding girl has options that she fully embraces to have the wedding that is "Her", oh and "him" :). I would however, argue that most weddings are still very traditional. And why would they not be? ingrained in our little girl brains are Barbie's wedding, her friends Midge (Thats whose wedding I had), princess Diana, our mothers....numerous images of what a Wedding should and should not be. So I thought it would be fun to look up some stuff on where our ideas of wedding come from and maybe how ideas have transfered from generation to generation:
35 and older:
19th century guidebook: "the Unmarried Gentlewoman of England"
* True Womanhood: "purity, piety, submissiveness, and domesticity"
* Poem: "Thirty-five": "Have we no charm when youth is flown/Midway to death left sad and lone?"
*80 years later: Dr. Clifford R. Adams: 35: an age "when an unmarried woman can no longer consider herself a 'young maid'"
* Living alone: "an abnormal state for a woman", "except in unusual cases women who live alone will become neurotic and frustrated."
1949: essay "Why Are you Singe?": singleness, " a form of social delinquency-a private betrayal of the greater needs of society as a whole"
Causes of Singleness:
Coitophobia: a morbid dread of martial relations
Gymnophobia: fear of the naked body
Apheophobia: Fear of being touched
or, "a morbid obsession against household duties, a dread or intense dislike for housekeeping." (nope, I have this and I am engaged!)
(1962) Helen Gurley Brown: Sex and the Single Girl: "by herself and her well meaning but addlepated friends...that her whole existence seems to be an apology for not being married."
fitness and diet: "fanny cute enough to be patted" ( Oh Boy! to only have my fanny patted!)
(1978) Audrey Gellis: How to Meet Men...Now that You're Liberated. suggested job options: cocktail waitresses, receptionists, "craft peddlers" ( I'll gladly peddle my crafts. hehe!)
(1966): Marie and Hector Roget: Swingers Guide for the Single Girl: Key to the New Mortality
on the pill:
A touchy bit of indecision that bothers many girls, when first entering into sexual
relationship with a man, is about which one of them should be insuring that conception
does not occur. Don't let the question fill your pretty head. The average man prefers not
to be annoyed with remembering such details, regarding conception in the Age of the Pill
to be the women's responsibility.
(1971) Zsa Zsa Gabor (Didn't her husband admit to being Anna Nicole Smith's baby's daddy?): How to Catch a Man/How to Keep a Man/How to Get Rid of a Man: "the best way to attract a man immediately is to have a magnificent bosom and a half size brain and let both of them show."
(1953) Charles Contretras: How to Fascinate Men:
Wherever there is a chance of meeting men Jane makes a point to be present and is always very careful to appear at her very feminine best... Jane's attire is of most feminine design and unless there is some special occasion, she avoids, "jeans," "slacks, "peddle pushers" and "shorts" like the plague, for she knows that such apparel accentuates the worst features of the female form, in addition to which she is aware, only too well, that there is nothing cuddly about a woman wearing pants. Bare feet, even at the beach, and dandles that show the toes are taboo, for this girl is smart enough to realize that there is decidedly nothing attractive about a bare foot She wears sheer stockings as much as possible. (Then where did the term "barefoot and pregnant come from?)
* several years back I purchased numerous books on the history of women. I have finished several and still have several more to go :(... This information is from one chapter called: Something Old, Something new, Something borrowed, Something.... Pink: Weddings, Marriage, and Heaven Forbid, the Single Girl.
From:
Peril, L. (2002). Pink Think: Becoming a Woman in Many Uneasy Lessons. W.W. Norton & Company: New York, NY.
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