Wedding, without a doubt, one of the most exciting moments in the life of any girl. Today it is a joyful event, filled with a mass of diverse traditions, however, the meaning of almost all these rites has been forgotten. Many people know that in the old days the bride wept at the wedding, but why?
Let's start from the end
What was waiting for a girl after the wedding? She went to another family for good, she could come to her parents' house only a few times a year. Even if she marries a loved one, it is not known how her new family will accept her. Where does the joy come from?
In general, the entire wedding ceremony is built exclusively around the bride, the bridegroom is a nominal creature, he should just physically attend the wedding, nothing more is required of him. He may not even actively participate in the ransom, but stand side by side until the boyfriend (that is, the witness) does everything for him.
Crying - are tears? Not at all!
Crying tears at his wedding was considered bad. And this does not contradict any of the above. So, what is a wedding cry? This is a special folk song genre performed by the bride during a certain period of the wedding ceremony. What turns out, the bride at the wedding did not cry at all, but ... she sang? In general, just like that!
In both musical and textual terms, the bride's cry is performed improvised. There are only certain formulas characteristic of a particular area, on the basis of which the bride performed a unique composition. By the way, if a girl didn’t know how to cry, which was quite rare, her parents specially hired a woman who mourned her.
When is it time to cry?
As mentioned above, the bride's crying was performed only in a certain segment of the wedding ceremony. The father “drinks” his daughter. Parents of the future bride and groom agree on the wedding, dowry and other organizational issues. After that, the girl "died" for her family: she did not participate in everyday household chores, did not go for a walk with her friends, and they came to her home, helped to sew a dowry. And in many regions, especially northern ones, from that moment on, the girl should start crying.
No, of course, the wedding crying does not take several days without a break, but if a relative or acquaintance came into the house, the bride must have “complained” about his evil fate. At such moments it was said that the bride "splashes" or "beats."
Inevitably came the morning of the wedding day. Now the groom had to buy the bride from her friends. Well, the bride herself still had a bit of time to mourn her share, because she leaves her family, where she was raised and protected. If a girl marries with joy, does not cry, then she was considered an ungrateful daughter.
But not in all cases, the crying of the bride is appropriate. When all the drums are sung, and the ransom is paid, the groom takes his bride and takes her out of the house. And now neither crying nor tearing can not cry! The girl is accepted into the new family as her own, and if she cries, is going to marry, then she is ungrateful daughter-in-law! While she is sitting at home, she should cry, but as she has gone beyond the threshold - in no case. That's it.
Little about semantics
Each region of Russia has its own characteristics and manner of execution of crying, but its meaning remains unchanged. The bride says goodbye to her parents and friends, persuades her father not to give her away, remembers how good she was in girls to walk, crying over a girl's scythe, which she would unravel and clean under a headscarf, from now on she will always wear it in public. Mourning her former life, she leaves her behind and starts a new one, where there is no place for regrets and feelings from the past.
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