Giving Away The Bride - But Who Will Give Away The Groom?

There are some funny traditions in British weddings. One of them is the "giving away" of the bride. The bride's father is meant to hand his daughter over to the new most important man of her life. This is of course a rather old-fashioned idea, but it can, never-the-less, be an emotional moment for both father and daughter.

So why are the mother and son deprived of such a ceremony? In modern times, isn't the father daughter relationship quite similar to the mother and son relationship? When a girl is a baby, her father is the first man she ever gets to know. And this is the same with a baby boy and his mother. Yet somehow a "daddy's girl" is a more acceptable fixture of modern life than a "mummy's boy".

There are old sayings about this sort of thing. One saying goes that when a son marries, the mother loses a son, but when the daughter marries, the family gains a son. The implication behind this is might be that the daughter is better at staying in touch with the family, and bringing her own loved ones into the fold of her family. Perhaps it's also suggesting that when a man marries, he wants to please his wife more than he now wants to please his mother.

So maybe the mother of the groom should give away the groom at the same time as the father of the bride gives away the bride. On the other hand, maybe the mother doesn't want to think she is losing a son. If the old saying above still holds true, then the father isn't actually giving away the bride, he is in fact going to collect a son.

So, if we dissect more of these wedding traditions, and put them alongside old sayings, will we find that the opposite is true of many more of them? The throwing of the bouquet for example? Who knows.

But even if some of these traditions stem from ideas that are now a little passe, it doesn't mean that they can't be enjoyed for the fun or the sentiment that they bring. For a father, giving away his daughter can be a very emotional and moving thing. It is the right way around, of course. It is like saying goodbye to your eighteen year old son or daughter before they go away to college or university. It is good that it is happening, and everyone is happy for everyone else, but still, a few tears might be shed.

People like to laugh, and they also like to cry happy tears like this. So any tradition that creates either one of these responses, has to have it's place in a good wedding day.