[princessbelle]

Originally Posted by IslandScout

Thanks Kobi, for pulling this information together.

I was poking around online last week and reading about the carry-over-threshold tradition, and learned that in addition to what you share above, the bride was carried because it was believed that if a bride tripped walking over the wheat thresh people kept at the door to minimize mud tracking, bad spirits would seize the moment to enter the home.

Apparently no one was worried about the groom tripping, or providing somehow, in the process of tripping, a way for evil spirits to take advantage as they seek access to a home or family or group of people.

A theme in many of these traditions is that women are weak links, among humans; that women are more vulnerable to doing and abetting evil. It's a misogynist view of women and prevalent in a lot of cultures.

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Other people have said this but I want to add that what I would do if I were getting married is pick and choose from all the traditions and go with whichever ones resonate for us or which we can re-invent, to fit my and my partner's values.

Thanks Island Scout and Kobi!!!!

Just goes to show *us* so many, many traditions were made on the backbone of women and in a very negative light. Shouldn't surprise me really. Anything to make us look weak or less than. Ugggg. Things we take for granted as not being full of misogyny that turns out it is.

And here i thought the "carrying over the threshold" was somehow being sweet or kind or something.

Makes one wonder what else we do or say in everyday life even that is not what it seems.

Certainly opens my eyes.