Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

The People 75
The Wedding Ceremony
Marriage created a much more violent and abrupt disruption in
the life of a woman than it did in the life of a man, because the bride
went to live in her husband’s house. Removed from her family at
an age when she was scarcely past playing with dolls, she had to
take on a number of onerous duties, chief of which was to produce
an heir for her husband toute suite. One of the most moving Greek
myths, that of the abduction of Demeter’s daughter Persephone by
Hades, the grim god of the underworld, explores the underlying
tensions generated by this violent disruption. Persephone is innocently
plucking flowers in a meadow when she is snatched away
to become the bride of an aged and forbidding stranger whom she
has never seen before. Although the myth in the version that has
come down to us, an anonymous epic known as the Homeric Hymn
to Demeter, focuses on the grief of Persephone’s mother Demeter
rather than on the trauma experienced by her daughter, it nonetheless
reveals a profound insight into the institution of marriage from
the female point of view.
The most popular time for marrying was in the winter month
of Gamelion, which means “the time of wedding.” The ceremony
began with a sacrifice to the gods of marriage, Zeus and Hera, to
whom the bride consecrated a lock of her hair. She also dedicated
her childhood possessions to Artemis to appease the goddess’s
anger at her impending loss of virginity.
On the day of the wedding, an Athenian bride took a ritual bath
in water. This was poured from a special vase known as a loutrophoros,
which means literally “a carrier of loutra (sacred water).” This
bath prepared her for her new life. It was followed by a feast held
at the house of the bride’s father. Here, the bride, who was veiled,
sat apart from all the men, including the bridegroom. Beside her sat
an older woman called a nympheutria, who guided her through the
ceremony. Instead of a tiered wedding cake with fruit filling covered
in icing sugar, little cakes covered in sesame seeds were served
to the guests. These were believed to make women fertile. Toward
evening, the bridegroom led his bride, still veiled, from her father’s
house in a wagon drawn by mules or oxen. A chest containing her
dowry probably accompanied her. The bride sat in the middle with
the groom on one side and the best man, or paranymphos, on the
other. A torchlight procession preceded the wedding party along
the route, and wedding hymns were sung to the accompaniment of
the flute and lyre.