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MARRIAGE ~ Marriages are the union of two bodies, souls, and families. Marriages are decided in the heavens and celebrated on earth.
This is the legit and purest form of union where parents allow their daughter to shift her thoughts, luggage, and herself to another house, full of new people, new places, and new hardships sometimes.
MARRIAGE RITUALS
Every country, tribe, and nation has some traditions and civilizations for happiness and funerals. Society is bonded to accomplish those traditions. In my country, there are THREE main rituals of marriage.
And a lot of extra ones. Some of us celebrate all of them and others merely follow the RELIGIOUS perspective and that's all.
Let's learn marriage rituals in SOUTH, PUNJAB PAKISTAN.
SEARCH FOR MARRIAGE PARTNERS
It's obvious, two individuals are joined together to call it marriage. Some tribes don't marry out of their tribe while others don't bother, they only need two persons and all that.
If the boy selects a girl within their tribe it's very ok parents will accept their choices, but for girls, ONLY PARENTS are responsible for the selection of a man to who she will be getting married.
Things kept in mind while selecting partners,
- AGE
- FINANCIAL STATUS
- QUALIFICATION
- BEAUTY
- LIFESTYLES
ACCEPTANCE BY FAMILY MEMBERS AND MUTUAL CONSULT OF PARTNERS
Once parents are done with selection for their children. They will ask the person who is going to marry, for their consent, if he/she says yes they will proceed with further procedures.
ENGAGEMENT
Two people, family, and the tribe are agreed on the specific couple, it comes to engagement now.
Some families only put the ring into the fingers of the girl and boy separately and that's fine. While others arrange a proper function to celebrate the occasion. For my tribe, both are acknowledged. Engagement is the basic step towards marriage.
SHOPPING AND PREPARATIONS
Once the engagement is done, everyone hustles for their preparation. All cousins are advised to complete their shopping on time. For a girl, it's DOWRY which is the main consideration of shopping and for a boy, it's MALE DOWRY. For dowry, the bearer of expenses is the girl's family and for MALE DOWRY it's the male who pays.
DATE FIXING FOR MARRIAGE DAY
This day is purely concerned with parents and grandparents. They gathered to finalize the day of marriage. It's usually weekends and days off for the month. To facilitate the jobs students.
In my tribe mostly marriages are decided in December after the December assessments of students or in April once everyone is done with their exams etc.
When everyone is conceded to a specific date they congratulate each other. NOTHING CAN CHANGE THIS DATE EXCEPT NATURAL CALAMITY.
INVITATION DISTRIBUTION
Soon after the date is finalized, both parties start the distribution of invitations to their friends, family, and other tribe members. Everyone is invited. ONE SPECIAL person is assigned to distribute the invitation cards. The receiver of the invitation pays some money to the distributor as a gesture of happiness.
FINAL SHOPPING OF BRIDE AND GROOM
When the date is fixed, it comes to the final shopping of the bride and groom. They are allowed to shop their things together, bridal dresses, groom dresses, and accessories, etc. If they don't agree on this, the sisters of both parties do shop for both.
UBTAN/BRIDAL SHOWER
Ubtan is a kind of tradition, girls are advised not to PUT MAKEUP, once the date of marriage is finalized, the beauty of bridal is interconnected to this superstition. I don't know if it's true or not but we don't bother putting on makeup usually.
Ubtan is a kind of celebration, where DIFFERENT PRODUCTS are applied to the body parts of both bride and groom to give them brightness and shine.
A bridal shower is specifically designed for girls. Friends of bridal gather with the same dressing and rejoice in their friend's happiness.
PREMARITAL SONGS
Songs, dance, and gatherings are solitary enjoyment for young people of the tribe. Usually, cousins gather, to celebrate, folk songs are played, girls are called DHOLKI. We sing and dance competitively, GIRLS and BOYS are two teams. It's the girls who always won. Hehehe.
NIKKAH
This is purely a religious aspect of marriage. Marriages of Muslims aren't acceptable until NIKKAH is performed. Both groom and ride accept each other by the oath of their faith. They agree to fulfill the mandatory facets of marital life.
MEHNDI/HENNA
Some families entertain NIKKAH before MEHNDI and some others don't. We, I mean my tribe follow this because we perform MUTUAL FUNCTIONS, both the girl and boy are together from the MEHNDI. It's called mutual functions. At the same time at the same place. Girls apply different sorts of MEHNDI on their arms and feet, design varies from girl to girl and area to area.
BARAT
This is the main ritual. Groom, his family, friends, and other tribe members jointly visit the BRIDE'S place to bring her back to GROOM'S place. This is lunch from a girl's family for the groom's family. The girl leaves her home with a lot of prayers and promises.
WALIMA/RECEPTION
Walima is followed by BARAT. Some of us perform Walima before Barat. Walk a is the second day of marriage and it's a lunch or dinner from the groom's end.
OTHER RITUALS
Some other common rituals are also observed in my area. Like the breakfast for the girl for the walima morning. The girl is carried to her parent's home after walima. Sometimes the groom also accompanies them. Some visits the next day to bring his wife back. Also dodh pilai at Barat and many more.
This is how marriages are celebrated in Pakistan's south region.
Thank you for having your eyes on my blog.
