Weddings in The Middle East, Europe and America - Research Paper Example

How the food is prepared and what they eat is significant to the ceremony. Furthermore, there are related religious ceremonies and meals that accompany wedding celebrations with concomitant health connotations. Therefore, this paper will compare weddings among Middle Easterners, Europeans and the Americans discussing their history, food symbolism, religious celebrations and health connotations. To begin with, the history of wedding in the United States is rather interesting. Traditionally, weddings were seen as a means of wealth and not necessarily out of desire or love.

In fact, wedding symbolized the financial security that the groom provides to the bride’s family when the couple marries. Furthermore, brides were chosen in line with their economic worth. It precisely had nothing to do with affection. However, at the turn of the nineteenth century, couples began marrying for love (Wallace, 2004). In contrast to American wedding, Arab weddings were arranged marriages. When a young man reaches the appropriate for marriage, his family will go out and search for a potential bride.

The process of investigation takes into account the girl’s physical beauty, cleanliness, education, educational level and her qualities as a house wife. Additionally, the groom’s family takes consideration of the behavior and reputation of the bride’s family (Monger, 2004). On the other hand, European wedding traditions are largely borrowed from other traditions. It is worthwhile noting that wedding traditions vary among European nations. Traditional European customs involved kidnapping bride and fighting off the bride’s tribesmen using a sword.

Thereafter, the groom would hide the bride for one month in an unknown location; a process known as the ‘honeymoon’. However, things changed during the Victorian era. In the contemporary Europe, wedding borrows heavily from Christian practices. Notable is the white dress, denoting ‘white wedding’. The white dress