Tag Archives: marriage

The Rites of Passage

The Rites of Passage: a classic study of cultural celebrations by Arnold van Gennep, a paperback from University of Chicago Press, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

Arnold van Gennep The Rites of Passage from University of Chicago Press

“Birth, puberty, marriage, and death are, in all cultures, marked by ceremonies which may differ but are universal in function. Arnold van Gennep (1873–1957) was the first anthropologist to note the regularity and significance of the rituals attached to the transitional stages in man’s life, and his phrase for these, ‘the rites of passage,’ has become a part of the language of anthropology and sociology.” — back cover


The Homeric Hymn to Demeter

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and Interpretative Essays, edited by Helene P Foley, 3rd printing of the 1994 paperback published by Princeton University Press, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

Helene P Foley The Homeric Hymn to Demeter from Princeton University Press

“The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, composed in the late seventh or early sixth century B.C.E., is a key to understanding the psychological and religious world of ancient Greek women. The poem tells how Hades, lord of the underworld, abducted the goddess Persephone and how her grieving mother, Demeter, the goddess of grain, forced the gods to allow Persephone to return to her for part of each year. Helene Foley presents the Greek text and an annotated translation of the Hymn, together with selected essays by Helene Foley, Mary Louise Lord, Jean Rudhardt, Nancy Felson-Rubin and Harriet M. Deal, Marilyn Arthur Katz, and Nancy Chodorow. These essays give the reader a rich understanding of the Hymn’s structure and artistry, its role in the religious life of the ancient world, and its meaning for the modern world. The authors also study the Hymn in the context of early Greek epic and cosmology, examine its critical attitude to the institution of marriage, and analyze the dynamics of mother-daughter relations in the poem.” — back cover

The Wedding Book

Hermetic Library fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Wedding Book: Alternative Ways to Celebrate Marriage by Howard Kirschenbaum and Rockwell Stensrud.

Howard Kirschenbaum Rockwell Stensrud The Wedding Book

In 21st-century America, same-sex marriages are a matter of social contention. In the 20th century, public concerns about marriage tended to dwell on differences of race and religion. In The Wedding Book (1974), though, there’s no sense of conflict or controversy. A wave of experiment starting in the 1960s had progressed to the point where “traditional” wedding features were less taken for granted, and the authors here advocate for the “personal wedding,” in which all details of the event are tailored to the character and ambitions of the wedding couple themselves.

Unsurprisingly, some aspects of this 40-year-old book are quaintly dated, if not obsolete. There is an assortment of advice about how to announce an engagement, for example, that is happily ignorant of Facebook and Twitter. (It even mentions newspapers!) Still, the “Handbook for Personal Weddings” is an approachable and highly practical examination of the scope of possibility involved in wedding procedures and practices. The book as a whole is replete with examples of 20th-century “personal wedding” custom and liturgy, ranging from the hypertraditional to the innovative. The authors assume a desire for sanctity on the part of wedding participants, but they admit a range of exclusivism, ecumenicism, and secularism to accommodate the varying religious dispositions of marriage couples.

There are two historical chapters: “The Origins of Marriage” and “The Roots of Wedding Ritual.” These are accessible accounts, but not awfully sophisticated ones. The authors occasionally present anachronisms, as when, for instance, they retroject into earlier eras a modern notion of the division of church and state. They also offer some explanations rooted in anthropological studies that were a little shopworn and past crediting even in the 1970s. Even without the accompanying etiological theories, though, these chapters do offer a usefully broad inventory of marriage concepts and customs.

Today’s appetite and even need for “personal weddings” far exceeds the one framed in this 1970s account. Not only the precedent violations of interreligious, interracial, and same-sex marriages, but the increased frequency of second and third (and higher-ordinal!) marriages incline couples towards modifications of wedding practices. As the authors point out, the personalization of any wedding is an opportunity for the couple to articulate their shared will and to communicate it to the society in which they live. I will keep this book in my collection for reference in my ministerial work, and I view it as a highly useful resource for clergy of my sort. [via]

 

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In Nomine Babalon, CXLVI

CXLVI

The chemical wedding, the marriage divine,

For the act of creation do lovers entwine!

Truest love, once given, is never withdrawn!

I raise up the cup and adore Babalon!

— In Nomine Babalon: 156 Adorations to the Scarlet Goddess

 

The Hermetic Library arts and letters pool is a project to publish poetry, prose and art that is inspired by or manifests the Western Esoteric Tradition. If you would like to submit your work for consideration as part of the Arts and Letters pool, contact the librarian.