Spousal Ceremonies: An Introduction

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Something Old and Something New: Illustrating Spousal Ceremonies in "Religious Ceremonies of the Known World"

Spousal Ceremonies: An Introduction

What images come to mind when someone mentions an upcoming wedding? Maybe you think of a friend’s recent wedding, or your own. Maybe you think of a beautifully decorated church, a gorgeous bouquet, or a stunning white dress. Maybe you remember shedding a tear over sweetly written vows, or the joyful exchange of rings. Maybe you think of delicious cake… or, a not-so-great entree served way too late at night. Maybe you remember the bridesmaids’ dresses, or the way the groomsmen grinned at their friend while his bride walked down the aisle. These are all very common, traditional associations. They are also, all of them, determined by both culture and history.

A wedding is a cultural revelation, steeped in tradition. The old adage "something old and something new" really do intertwine together, as families celebrate a new branch. Celebrations surrounding marriage have existed for thousands of years and play out differently all over the world. Writer Jean-Frederic Bernard and engraver Bernard Picart knew this as they began collecting information for the epic, seven-volume tome Religious Ceremonies of the Known World, first published in 1723. Rather than staying within the boundaries of their home in eighteenth-century Amsterdam, they ventured further, delving into the religious cultures of indigenous peoples of North and South America and Asia as well as the Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish traditions in Europe. These “spousal ceremonies,” recognizing marriage, divorce, and widowhood, revealed similarities amongst religions around the world. By placing all religions and cultures together in one work, Bernard and Picart created a stunningly tolerant anthropological collection—one where every belief system has value for study.

Almost thirty of Bernard Picart’s drawings illustrated worldwide spousal ceremonies are included here, along with annotations and descriptions of what that particularly ceremony may have looked like. It is difficult to know exactly what is entirely factually correct in these illustrations; Bernard and Picart never left Europe, and relied on occasional primary sources and hearsay to write much of Religious Ceremonies. What these illustrations reveal is both something old (traditions that have existed for thousands of years) and something new (the dawning recognition in Europe that religion and religious figures can be fallible and are defined by historical context). In including all different types of religions, Bernard and Picart invited Europe’s religious skeptics as well as religiously devout to consider how their beliefs interacted with others, even those thousands of miles away from them. Everyone, in their view, could learn from each other—a truly radical narrative.

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