The happy event of Dom and Melanie’s wedding reminds me of Michael Medved’s 1996 piece recommending that new couples look to a Jewish wedding tradition. The new couple doesn’t take off for a fantasy honeymoon in isolation, but spends the first week being installed in their new home and being welcomed by the community they’ll live in.
5 comments
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
H’mm. What’s wrong with a honeymoon in isolation, especially if it serves as a precursor to the isolation for which a couple may strive (quite happily, thank you) after the honeymoon is over?
Because married life isn’t all about you.
No, married life isn’t all about the couple. It’s also about the community. Regardless, when my wife and I were married (on a Saturday), we made sure that it was a community and family event. We then went to Mass at our parish the next day. We left Monday for our honeymoon (which wasn’t a fantasy trip – just a bed and breakfast about an hours drive away).
After the stress that modernity puts onto even an easy-going wedding, the new couple needs time away to relax and to learn about each-other in ways that the shouldn’t before marriage.
Yes, but it doesn’t take a village to marry a couple. And what community? My wife and I were married in the area in which we live; both sets of parents travelled some distance to witness the event. What were they going to do – hang around in Alix’s two-bedroom condo with us for a week? Move into the room I vacated on my wedding day? Stay with our friends in the area? The parents went home, and, since the friends wouldn’t have expected us to be receiving visitors immediately, why not go?
I wonder if people who wait for marriage are more insistant on a private honeymoon, than those who have been having sex for some time.