Significance of Prenuptial Rituals as Ethnic Definitional Ceremonies among Immigrants

Abstract

This article adopts the paradigm that claims the non-disappearance of the ritual and ritual changes in modern and postmodern society. A wedding is an event in which a group of people speaks to itself and about itself. Images of the social structure and cultural content, of couplehood, family and personal and group identity surface through this cultural act. Weddings and their customs thus comprise a window through which the social values of a group can be observed, be it a modern or a traditional society. The anthropological study of the prenuptial rituals of immigrants from Georgia to Israel, and my experience with the ethnic pride of the celebrators, most of them young, lead me to conclude that these rituals serve as collective ethnic definitional ceremonies for them, where crossing between ethnicity, culture and identity takes place. The new ritual tradition in Israel fulfills an important role in the identity of the youths of this community and in the solidarity of the Georgian family and community. Tradition was processed anew and interpreted through the renewed ritual patterns, and became intertwined with modernity. A process of syncretism was thus created.