It was the wedding day of my friends Ben and Amy today. It’s been a long time coming and they’re going to have a very long and happy life together, I’m sure.
One thing that struck me during the ceremony, though, was how odd ceremonies as a concept are. Very formalised and based in tradition, they’re a far cry from the way you act in regular day to day life.
And I guess that’s the point; a wedding ceremony isn’t something you do every day (hopefully) so it stands to reason that something should make it extraordinary. So why not infuse rings with meaning and symbolism, and why not insist that people are facing each other at the correct time, and why not delve into Old English when necessary?
It’s all about tradition. Concepts such as marriage and the like are almost as old as society and civilised living itself. To modernise them after they’ve been the same (or at least similar) for so long would be to break with years, decades, centuries of tradition.
That doesn’t mean people don’t do it, of course. Unconventional weddings are great fun to be a part of. But there must be a reason that so many people choose to do things in the “traditional” and apparently antiquated manner. For all the trappings of modernity we have these days, it seems that there are some traditions and ceremonies that we still respect.
I wonder if we’ll still be theeing and thouing in two hundred years time? Smart money’s on yes.
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