Marriage ceremonies in Morocco / by Edward Westermarck.

  • Westermarck, Edward, 1862-1939.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Marriage ceremonies in Morocco / by Edward Westermarck. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that there are so many dangers at weddings because the devil wants men and women to indulge in lust- fulness, and is therefore displeased when they marry ; but this explanation cannot be primitive. I have previously emphasised that similar cere- monies may be practised from different motives in different cases, and that also the same ceremony in a given case may have a mixed origin. This is obviously true of many of the marriage ceremonies which I have classed as prophylactic or purificatory. 1 certainly do not maintain that they in every case or exclusively are, or have been, intended to avert or expel supposed dangers or even to serve any definite object at all. Ceremonies which once had a purpose may, in the course of time, become entirely meaningless, and yet continue to be practised ; and ceremonies may also be direct expressions of emotional states, whether combined with a special purpose or not. Just as funeral rites and mourning observances, even when they are intended to protect the survivors against the dead man’s ghost or the contagion of death, are very largely similar to or identical with natural expressions of sorrow or grief,1 so the precautions taken at a wedding readily assume the shape of joyful performances, such as dancing, music, singing, the quivering noise of women, and the powder-play of men, which well agree with the mood of persons 1 See Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, ii. (London, I9°8), pp. 308, 528.