Showing posts with label ancient wedding rings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ancient wedding rings. Show all posts

Monday, February 7, 2022

How we mirror Ancient Egyptian wedding ring traditions

When looking into the history of wedding traditions, it is surprising how many of them can trace back to ancient Egypt. The wearing of wedding rings, for example, was recorded within 6000-year-old Egyptian papyrus rolls. These first wedding rings were crafted from braided hemp or reeds and worn as a marital status symbol. The husband placed the ring on his wife’s finger, a custom which entrusted and entitled them both to each other. Over time, this practice evolved to include more durable rings crafted of leather, bone, or ivory, and eventually, they advanced enough to work with various precious gemstones and metals such as gold.

 

 

Ancient Egyptian wedding ring beliefs

 

Ancient Egyptian pharaohs considered the circle to be a symbol of eternity because it had no beginning or end, and with this in mind, the wedding ring served to signify the perpetual love of the spouses. These beliefs are still held by many today, but one belief the ancients held that we haven’t adopted is the belief that the opening in the ring denoted a gateway to the unknown.

 

The custom of wearing the wedding ring on the fourth finger of the left hand also originated in this culture because the ancient Egyptians believed a special vein, the vena amoris (vein of love) ran from this finger directly to the heart. The ancient Romans adopted this belief and wore wedding rings on the same finger. While this belief isn’t anatomically correct, today in the West, we still call this finger the “ring finger.”

 


Passing on the wedding ring tradition

 

One of the oldest ring symbols in the world is the Egyptian ouroboros ring. It portrays a serpent swallowing its tail creating the eternal cycle of things. The word ouroboros means “tail devourer” in Greek. 

 


Later history includes ornamental finger rings worn by wealthy Egyptian women. This included the famed scarab design. Rings became more common, and by the Middle Kingdom grew more complex. Over time Greek and Roman rings styles supplanted Egyptian styles during the Ptolemaic dynasty. 

 

When Alexander the Great conquered the Egyptians, the Greeks adopted the practice of giving rings to their lovers. These rings were thought to represent devotion, and many of them depicted Eros or Cupid, the god of love. Then Rome conquered Greece. They also adopted the wedding ring tradition but with iron and copper wedding rings. The iron rings sometimes bore key designs that symbolized that the wife now had control of the household goods. By the 2nd century CE, most wedding rings were gold, and by the 3rd and 4th centuries CE the style of gold wedding rings became more luxurious and a way to flaunt the giver’s wealth.

 

We mirror the Ancient Egyptian wedding ring traditions in that we even have wedding rings, that we wear them on our left hand ring finger, and that they indicate our marital status. Over 6000 years, rings have changed but why they are worn has not.

 

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

The history of wedding rings leads to Rome



While the origin of wedding rings isn’t one hundred percent certain, based on archeological evidence dating back 3000 years, historians have pointed back to ancient Egypt as the first culture to exchange rings to commemorate marriage. The rings were given by spouses to each other as a symbol of the love between them, but it wasn’t a part of any ceremony. It was a private gift shared between them. However, to find the origins of the tradition of metal wedding rings exchanged today, we look back to the ancient Romans. At that time and in that culture, marriages had to conform to Roman law and were categorized by social class. This included three different categories of weddings: Usus, Coemptio, and Confarreatio



Ancient wedding rings didn’t always represent love
 
In plain English, the Usus was marriage for the lowest class. Today, we might compare it to what we call common-law marriage. The next "step up" was the Coemptio which involved purchasing the bride. Historians don’t totally agree on whether this was an actual purchase or a symbolic sale, but that’s what the ring in these marriages represented. Then there was the Confarreatio – the only “legal” marriage and it was reserved for the elite upper class. This marriage was presided over, and the groom presented his bride with a ring. Most of these rings were made of iron or gold which is what led to the tradition of metal wedding rings. Unlike the Egyptian rings which were symbols of love, historians believe the Romans looked at the metal wedding band as a symbol of possession. Thus, the wife belonged to the husband once that ring went on her finger.



Ancient Romans owned two wedding rings
 
As I mentioned, the ancient Roman wedding rings were made of iron or gold. What I didn’t mention is that the wealthy women in ancient Rome actually were presented with two wedding rings, an iron one and a gold one. The first was to be worn at home and thought to represent strength and permanence. The gold ring was worn in public to impress people. Laws actually prohibited those from the lower classes from wearing gold rings, but these laws were somewhat difficult to enforce, because historical evidence shows that even slaves plated their iron rings with gold if they could.

 
Motif of the clasped hands, signified love, betrothal, and marriage.
 
Laws of ancient Roman marriage
 
Back in ancient Rome, couples had to have connubium which denoted the legal right to get married. Needless to say this was a requirement for marriage and it wasn’t a permission granted to people who were already married, eunuchs, and people who shared certain blood relationships. Parental consent also played a role with the minimum age for marriage set at age 12 for girls and age 14 for boys.