The Roma ethnic group is the largest in the world, because there are representatives of the Roma people in most countries. By the way, the gypsies trace their origins to distant India. Centuries later, and in the 21st century, freedom-loving people are trying to observe the customs of their ancestors. One of the brightest traditional celebrations is the gypsy wedding.
A feast for the whole world, to the last penny
From time immemorial, a wedding celebration has been a significant event for the Roma people. Of course, no money was spared for noisy festivities and ransom. The gypsy wedding ceremony is still distinguished by ostentatious pomp and high cost. Many families spent their last funds on luxurious festivities, fell into debt and finally went bankrupt.
An abundance of guests, tables in the courtyard that are bursting with treats (in the modern version - expensive cafes and restaurants), richly decorated bride's outfits, an abundance of gold jewelry on the future wife are integral attributes of a gypsy wedding feast. And, of course, you can’t do without music and cheerful national dances.
How do gypsies marry off their brides?
Their parents make choices for their children. Teenagers can hang out in the same group, and then find out that they have already been matched. If the parents think that this is a good match for their son, then they go to negotiate with the girl’s parents. Because of this, children can be engaged from the age of 10-14, and sometimes 8-year-old girls become brides.
They can have a wedding without an official wedding ceremony, and they begin to live as husband and wife. And they sign when they come of age, so as not to violate the laws of the country. These are the traditions of the gypsies.
Basically, few people know what is happening in the camp, if not for isolated cases that shed light on their lives. This concerns a 12-year-old woman in labor, for whom doctors began to worry that she would not be able to give birth normally. And her husband turned out to be a 14-year-old young man. In almost complete contrast, a union was concluded between a 14-year-old bride and an 11-year-old groom, or when the bride is 19 and he is 12 years old. And these are just some episodes from the life of gypsies, because it is customary for them to give birth at home.
Gypsies are calm about such marriages. At the wedding, the happy father of the 16-year-old groom happily says that he is now expecting grandchildren, although he himself is only 32 years old, and his last child was just born a week ago. It is considered normal for a 24-year-old mother and a 36-year-old grandmother to stand next to a 12-year-old bride.
ALSO READ: Gypsies marry their children early for several reasons
Traditional matchmaking
Every wedding begins long before the holiday itself, namely, with matchmaking and engagement. Parents send desired matchmakers to the bride. If the father and mother are satisfied with the well-being, origin, reputation of future relatives, the candidacy of the bride or groom will certainly be approved. And modern gypsy brides do not get married as early as was customary in the old days, at 16-20 years old. But gypsy beauties cannot stay too long as old maids, otherwise they will forever be without their own family.
But such free morals, independent choice of the other half, were not always permissible for young people. Back in the 20th century, as centuries earlier, families matched children as soon as they grew up a little, in infancy. They verbally discussed the conditions: what age would their boy and girl be when the time came for the wedding. No one could violate the concluded agreement.
It also happened that a girl at the age of 9 was already sent to be raised in the house of her future groom. And the parents of the chosen one raised the bride “for themselves.” And at the age of 12-13 we had a loud, crowded wedding. Why did you choose such an early age? It is important for gypsies to guide young people along the traditional path of their ancestors, stop the possibility of revelry, and acquire numerous offspring as early as possible.
Why do gypsies marry their children early?
If you notice a flag or scarlet ribbon over a gypsy house, it means that a wedding ceremony is being held here on that day. If the bride or groom is still old enough to attend school, from the moment the family is registered, this formality will no longer be observed. Together with the official status of a spouse, they become adults who are not supposed to study. Often, Roma send their children to general education institutions only with the goal that they learn to read and write, and for this a few classes are enough.
Parents of newlyweds believe that getting married at such an early age is very beneficial. After all, with age, single guys often become addicted to alcohol and begin to visit drinking establishments. Thus, they forget about the importance of education and give preference to a wild lifestyle. If a man understands that he is the head of the family and is aware of his functions, he himself will raise a loving family man. In the case of girls, reaching the age of 19 without a family makes them “old maids”, which are not held in high esteem by the Roma. Not every groom wants to marry a woman who has remained unnoticed by others for many years. A father selects a wife for his son. Then the parents of the future bride are offered a ransom, which can include gold jewelry, money and other material goods.
All guests who come to a gypsy wedding are given gold ribbons by their relatives. It is believed that such an attribute is intended to bring prosperity to the new family. On the big day, the bride should wear all the jewelry that was passed down to her from her grandmothers. These can be bracelets, rings, earrings and other jewelry. Every gypsy woman hopes from an early age that she will get a caring, handsome, competent and wealthy man.
A gypsy wedding begins with the first rays of the sun. The celebration must be loud, so it is celebrated in two houses at once - where the bride and groom grew up. However, there is a tradition according to which all financial costs fall on the side of the groom's parents. For this reason, from the very birth of the boy, little by little his family saves money for the upcoming wedding. Relatives from different regions and countries of the world are invited to the celebration. The bride must remain virgin before marriage, because if this condition is not met, the wedding will be cancelled.
At the end of the wedding ceremony, the wife remains at home with her husband. In the first years of their life together, they do not have children, as they are too young for this. For this reason, the young daughter-in-law is entrusted with the tasks of cleaning the home, cooking and helping the new family, where she gradually adapts and continues her acquaintance with adult life, becoming a housewife. If the couple is not delighted with each other, the gypsy divorce procedure is very complicated. For this reason, girls very rarely even think about this option for developing family relationships. To prevent quarrels, the spouse must be submissive, forgive her spouse and support him in everything. But if the new spouse decides to leave, she will have virtually no chance of getting married again, because such behavior puts a stigma not only on her, but also on her children.
The ancient custom of exchanging brides
Often the groom's family could not afford the price set for the girl. After all, it was necessary to give away a huge amount of gold. Then a special ancient custom came to the rescue, in which families exchanged chosen ones. A daughter-bride left one family. And from another they took the groom’s own sister into their clan. Who became the wife of their son. In the gypsy language, such barter sounds like “te keres pe skimbate.” In this case, the groom’s side no longer had to pay a huge ransom.
Gypsy wedding traditions
Gypsy wedding traditions and customs
Many people associate a gypsy wedding with endless songs, dances and unbridled fun, which can last a week or even ten days. This is partly true, but the traditional duration of a gypsy wedding is three days. It is interesting that going to the registry office is absolutely not important for gypsies; it is enough just to obtain the consent of the community. As for divorces, they are not welcome here at all.
Chastity for gypsies is not an empty phrase, so during the wedding feast the bride and groom are seated separately. Until they have become husband and wife in the full sense, they have no right to even touch each other.
Matchmaking at a young age
In gypsy families, it is customary to match children starting from infancy. It is clear that these families have warm, friendly relations with each other and in the future they want to become related through children. The girl may not even be notified that she is being matched. The gypsy usually finds out about this closer to the wedding. In Gypsy families, the power of the man is very great, so the daughter does not dare to contradict the will of the father.
The groom's relatives, when they come to woo a girl, bring a bottle of wine decorated with expensive coins to her parents' house. Gypsies living in Russia sometimes use “drevtse” instead of a bottle, which is an ordinary branch with scarves and coins. A special pie prepared by the groom's relatives is served with a festive bottle of wine or a branch.
If the girl’s father orders all this to be put on the table, it means he is not against this groom and his family. During gypsy matchmaking, the bride's viewing takes place, and the amount of the ransom is determined. Since gypsies like to pay in gold, we need to talk about volume. For example, relatives may ask for a three-liter jar of gold jewelry for a girl.
As compensation, each gypsy girl prepares a dowry: bed linen, dishes, jewelry and other things that will be useful in the house.
Selecting the day and month of celebration
A gypsy wedding is a significant and very important event. The celebration is held in the summer, when guests are warm and comfortable and can have fun in the fresh air until the morning. The choice of the warm season is also associated with the long-standing tradition of the gypsies, when low tables were installed for guests or carpets were spread directly on the ground. Nowadays, gypsy weddings on carpets can only be seen in movies, however, the custom of celebrating the occasion in the summer remains unchanged.
Bride theft and ransom payment
Paying a bride price is a matter of honor for a gypsy groom. In this way, the young man partially compensates the family for the loss of their assistant. If there is money in the groom's family, then the bride price will be worthy; it is not customary to save on this. It’s another matter when the groom could not pay the amount that the bride’s side insisted on. Then he had only one thing left - to kidnap the girl from the family. Today, bride kidnapping is a very rare event.
Blessing with an icon or bread
If the Roma community adheres to the Orthodox faith, then here they bless the young with an icon and a loaf of bread. Moreover, only elders - the gypsy elite - can perform the ritual with an icon; those of lower rank bless only with bread. This “inequality” clearly reveals the caste structure of Roma society. Only those women whose family life is going well are allowed to bake a wedding loaf.
Tradition "Take out of honor"
A very important gypsy wedding ritual is the “Carrying Out of Honor”, which takes place after the celebrations and actually unites the newlyweds. This happens as follows: the bride and groom approach the oldest relatives to listen to their parting words. The newlyweds eat a piece of baked goods, after which they go to the bedroom, where they are left alone for the first time. Then the guests are shown the bride's shirt with red spots.
Instead of a shirt, a sheet can be taken out on which the girl was deflowered. “Bringing out honor” actually records the beginning of a new family, when young people become close not only spiritually, but also physically. After this ritual, the gypsy young wife must appear before the guests in a red dress. But the saddest thing is if there are no traces of blood on the sheet or shirt. In this case, the marriage is immediately dissolved, and the girl and her family face shame and humiliation.
Rite of “Brotherhood” – unity of blood
After the “Brotherhood of Honor” ritual has been successfully completed, another gypsy ritual is performed between the young spouses, which is called “Brotherhood.” The newlyweds make cuts on their hands, after which the wounded places come into contact with each other. Thus, the blood of husband and wife mixes. After the “Brotherhood” ritual, the husband and wife become blood relatives, now they are obliged to share all the joys and hardships in half, and take care of their children together.
Video: traditional gypsy wedding
Perhaps for modern people of Slavic culture, a gypsy wedding seems like some kind of medieval phenomenon. In many ways, this is true, since its rituals take their origins from ancient times, in the era of the classical patriarchal community. Something similar existed among the ancient Slavs. In this video you can watch fragments of a modern gypsy wedding, which has undergone serious changes, but the gypsy people carefully preserve some of their traditions.
In what case does the groom steal the bride from home?
In addition to matchmaking, representatives of the poor gypsy family often practiced bride theft. It happened that they could not scrape together funds not only for the ransom, but also for the wedding celebration itself. Often the parents of lovers did not allow them to get married, then the groom would steal the sweetheart he liked from his home.
And then - either master or disappear: if the pursuit of the stolen bride does not overtake the couple, over time the passions subsided, and they returned to their native camp. The culprits were forgiven. But if the pursuit overtook the thief and his prey, then there was bloodshed.
Why is the bride older than the groom, or vice versa in gypsy families?
The ancient people, the gypsies, have been faithful to their way of life and traditions for thousands of years. Therefore, much becomes incomprehensible to an ordinary person who leads a normal social life and adheres to established laws. This is especially true for marriages. They look at it calmly when the bride is older than the groom, or when a girl who is still underage is married off. The same goes for boys or men.
It is customary for gypsies to start families early. They believe that this is how the purity and chastity of the partners are maintained. Because of this, marriages take place when children have not yet reached adulthood. In addition, they do not understand who is suitable for whom by age. Therefore, the bride may be several years older than her groom, or in comparison with him she turns out to be a very young girl. However, it is not customary for them to get divorced. Gypsies create families once and for life, although they do not make the choice themselves.
ALSO READ: An old maid at 19: why do gypsies marry girls off so early
At the wedding, they show all the guests the “honor” of the bride
On the wedding day, the older women of the family lock themselves with the bride in the bedroom to check if she is a virgin. The deflowering takes place there, without any participation of the groom, after which a white sheet with a blood stain is taken out on a beautiful tray and shown to all the guests.
Their women always wear two skirts and an apron
Gypsies believe that a woman is “unclean” from the waist down, which is why touching her skirt can “defile” both the object and the person. To prevent this from happening, a woman should always wear two skirts. Moreover, the second skirt is considered to be a little “dirty” from the lower one, so only the apron is “clean”. Only it can be touched and only it can be used to lean dishes or wipe hands.
Gypsy wedding: traditions of the past to the present
This people has no nationality, but at the same time, they have a rich past and fundamental customs that are observed to this day.
Matchmaking
A gypsy wedding begins with matchmaking. Many years ago, a girl could be matched in infancy, sent to the groom’s house at the age of 7-9, and married at 13-15.
Today, more and more often, girls get married of their own free will, but still early (at 16-18 years old), and the matchmaking ritual remains unchanged. According to the customs of this nomadic people, the final word always belongs to the natural father or godfather if the daughter is adopted. In the modern world, parents usually approve of their daughter’s choice if it does not contradict any principles.
In the groom's family, things go something like this: the guy's parents go to matchmaking with the parents of the bride he has chosen. There, both families already agree on the amount of the ransom, as well as the date of the celebration and the distribution of expenses. According to customs among gypsies, the wedding is paid for by the groom's family.
Preparation for the holiday
For such an important, sometimes even the most important event in a gypsy family, like a wedding, no expense is spared, because everything should be beautiful, and most importantly rich. City residents prefer to celebrate their weddings in restaurants, while rural residents prefer to celebrate their weddings in the open air, in their own yard. But what they have in common is that an incredible number of people come to the holiday. Young people may not even know many of them. But that’s how it is with them: when the family is walking, the whole clan is walking, or even several if the guy and girl are from different clans.
The image of a gypsy bride
City brides go to the most expensive salons to buy their wedding dress and spend a lot of time there to choose the best outfit. There is no place for compromise, minimalism and modesty. The gypsy bride chooses a dress that looks like an expensive museum piece. It must be made from the most expensive fabrics, with crystals, lush drapery, etc. Such a dress should delight the guests!
The hands and neck of a young woman are usually strewn with jewelry: rings on almost every finger, ringing and sparkling bracelets, several chains, pendants and pendants on the neck, very noticeable earrings in the ears.
Local dressmakers sew dresses for rural girls. This takes a lot of time. Lots of fittings, a long process of choosing fabrics and decorative elements. By the way, the fabric used is usually the most expensive: brocade, silk or velvet.
Festive table
If in the city restaurant workers are responsible for preparing dishes, in the village they cook themselves. To do this, all women in the family are called to help. The traditions of a gypsy wedding imply the presence on the tables of such dishes as:
And, of course, a large amount of alcohol. After all, there will be a lot of people at the holiday, most of them are men. The traditional drink of this people is Moldavian wine, but today on the tables there is vodka, cognac, whiskey, brandy, martini and sometimes even good beer.
They swear in the coffin
The most common oath among gypsies to prove they are right is considered to be an oath on an icon. And the rarest, which is used only in the most intractable situations, is the oath in the coffin. The gypsy lies down in a special coffin and utters an oath, where he says that if he is lying now, then in the near future he will lie in this coffin.
Source: travelask.ru
They often adopt children
A gypsy must have at least one son in his family. If the heir does not appear for a long time, then the parents adopt the boy from the orphanage. Moreover, the child can be of any nationality and have any appearance. This is partly where the common myth that gypsies kidnap children comes from.
They do not consider it necessary to send their children to school
As a rule, gypsies send a child to school only so that he learns to write and read, since from the age of 6-8 he begins to be accustomed to the family business. Therefore, if after the 3rd grade a child still continues to go to school instead of helping his parents trade, he is considered to be wasting his time.
Rituals among gypsies after the first wedding night
"Breakout of Honor"
The key ritual at a gypsy wedding is the custom of bringing together or “carrying out honor”, which follows the first wedding night. The newlyweds will be forever sealed by marriage, but before this event the bride needs to prove her innocence. A prerequisite for marriage is young virginity. How is it checked? There are three versions of assumptions:
- The newlyweds retire to a special room where the meeting takes place (the first wedding night), after which a sheet with characteristic marks confirming the girl’s innocence is brought out for public viewing by the gypsies.
- The bride leaves with three respectable women, who deflower her using a sheet wrapped around her finger. The groom does not participate in this ritual.
- The first wedding night, according to some opinions, takes place right on the banquet table in front of the guests. In fairness, we hasten to reassure you - this version is considered the most ridiculous and implausible.
During the absence of the newlyweds, some gypsy families organize theatrical performances - they recapture the stolen bride from the groom. It looks very natural, which is why there is an opinion that a gypsy wedding without a fight is not a wedding. However, drunken fights are completely unacceptable. Although the festive tables are laden with a variety of dishes and alcohol, getting drunk at a gypsy wedding ceremony is tantamount to disgrace.
After the newlyweds have been brought together, a bloody sheet (or, according to another version, a shirt), strewn with red ribbons and flowers, is brought to the guests on a tray. Women participating in the honor ceremony congratulate and thank the bride's relatives for their decency, and red ribbons are given to each member of the groom's family. The bride herself, after the first wedding night and the gypsy custom of taking it out, changes into a red dress and from that moment becomes a woman. There are those who braid their hair. Now she is obliged to walk only with her head covered. An Azerbaijani wedding has some similarities with providing evidence of the bride’s chastity.
Interesting: If there is no proof of innocence, the marriage is immediately dissolved, and the girl remains unmarried forever, which is a heavy burden for gypsies. In addition, the family of the spoiled bride will face lifelong shame and it is better for them to immediately leave their hometown. There are times when a girl still manages to get married, but it costs the family enormous efforts.
Rite of "Fraternity"
Immediately after the first wedding night and the “carrying out of honor,” the ritual of blood unity or “fraternization” follows. The newlyweds make cuts on their hands with a sharp knife and join the two bloods together. From this moment on, everything in life is divided in half for them, including household responsibilities. They are forced to raise children together and are considered relatives.
Wedding customs and rituals of gypsies differ significantly from the standards we are accustomed to. Strictness and submission are the basis of the relationship between parents and children. The most important advantage of a gypsy bride is honor. Severe rules are now found not only among the gypsies. You can read about the peculiarities of the first wedding night among Muslims on our website Svadbaholik.ru.
