Why does the Father of the bride "give her away" , but the father of the groom doesn't do the same ?

[UndertheOcean]

Sounds extremely sexist to me ... like the woman is a commodity exchanged between men.

[auntAgonist]

1. from arranged marriages ..

The tradition of the father giving away his daughter has its roots in the days of arranged marriages. Daughters in those times were considered their father's property. It was the father's right to give his child to the groom, usually for a price. Today a father giving away his daughter is a symbol of his blessing of the marriage

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/weddinglore1.html

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. You have it exactly right...the bride was property.

And she was given to her groom...

Things have changed a lot, but that tradition carries on. My dad "gave" me away, but I didn't mind. I was not his property; it was just a custom...

[Kaleva]

3. When my stepdaughter was married...

the bride and groom were both "given away" by the parents of each. When my eldest stepson gets married this weekend, the bride will be given away by both her mother and father but the groom will not be given away. My wife was given away by her eldest son when we got married.

[MiddleFingerMom]

4. The father of the groom would be awfully presumptuous...

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...in thinking HE could give the bride away.
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Hope that helped.
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[jobycom]

5. The bride was given away because she was joining the other family.

In the olden days, the bride was given to her new family by her father as a sign that she was no longer his family, and that all parties understood that. Same reason, or one of them, the bride took the name of her new family. In practice, of course, the marriage formed an alliance between the two families, since any offspring would be a product of both, and maybe an heir to both, depending on inheritance laws. Marriages were as often, probably more often, business arrangements and political alliances as loving relationships, although the Christian Church always demanded that two people who weren't in love couldn't marry. Even in peasant families, marriages were arranged between two families who could both provide something to the other--joining the two largest landholdings, for instance, if they held land. There were even regulations--the lord had to give permission for a marriage to prevent one family from becoming too large.

The much-maligned capitalism made a lot of that obsolete. Once money became portable and people were legally freed from their feudal bonds to the lord and the land, employment became more important than land as a source of wealth for most people, and marriages weren't as strictly regulated. As capitalism began to take root in the later Middle Ages, the Church increased it's demands that love be central to a marriage, and the whole concept of courtly or romantic love (something we borrowed from the Muslims) began to flourish.

That's one reason I'll never be a communist. Any system which binds people to the land or a job or a government for employment is too exploitive. Capitalism has its problems, and certainly needs to be regulated, but it is necessary for real freedom. Most of the complaints people have now about capitalism aren't really about capitalism, but about the fact that it is so deregulated that it has moved over to feudalism.

Sorry, I sort of rambled away from the point, but not completely. The bride is given away as a lingering tradition from the days of feudalism when most people were owned and controlled by an immediate lord who was also their main source of employment. The bride was property, or at least a financial asset, but so was the groom, who was the property of the lord, and so was the lord, who was the property of someone, on up to the king, who owned everything and was the sole political power as well.

The Middle Ages sucked in terms of personal liberty. :)

[Gormy Cuss]

6. The hell you say.

Brides as chattel? Why would modern women want to continue the vestiges of this tradition?
:eyes:

[jobycom]

9. Hell if I know. I don't understand weddings in the first place.

I eloped. If I remarry, I'm eloping again. No white dresses, no "honor and obey" in the vows. I won't wear a tux. I even asked my spouse if she was sure she wanted to take my family's name instead of keeping hers. Sometimes people are so romanced by traditions they don't really care what the traditions mean.

[iris27]

7. Got it in one - it is a "fun" little holdover of the extremely sexist origins of marriage.

Hubs and I walked up the aisle together (*not* to "Here Comes the Bride", btw). Our parents were the last ones down the aisle before we entered, and in place of the "who gives this woman" crap, we had a little blurb about two families joining together before our parents sat down.

[MajorChode]

8. Because it's more acceptable than pimping them out

[rurallib]

12. yes - yes indeed

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

10. I was at a wedding last year where the grooms father did the same

not sure it is in need of much over-thinking,

[AngryOldDem]

11. Because at one time the woman was considered to be property?

:shrug:

[applegrove]

13. Because women are property...

[triguy46]

14. Our 25 yo daughter got married in June. I walked her down the aisle...

but there was no 'giving away.' She and wife and I were in total agreement on that.

[WolverineDG]

15. I can't recall the last wedding I heard that at

Now they say "Who presents this woman" or some such. It's also an honor to be asked by a bride to escort her, if her father can't.

dg

[6000eliot]

16. Because the son isn't a burden to be gotten rid of.

[SwampG8r]

20. with 2 sons and a daughter i could argue that

cant get these two feeders off the ranch
daughter went to college and whoosh
a burden is in the eye of the emburdened lol

[6000eliot]

21. Strange how this remnant from the past still hangs on, though.

I don't know what my mother would do without my sister.

[proteus_lives]

17. One of my sisters had a big Catholic wedding.

My father and mother gave her away, "Who gives this woman?" "We do".

The old sexist pattern has no power if people strip the tradition of it.

[rucky]

18. At least he doesn't try to sell her.

[Odin2005]

19. Misogyny, Patriarchy, dowries, and all that sick BS.

It's why I hate traditional wedding ceremonies in which the brides dad brings the bride down the aisle and "presents" her to the groom, so fucking sexist.