20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

Albanian Wedding Rituals(Influence of oriental elementsin Albanian wedding rituals)Spartak KadiuUniversity of Tirana – TiranaMarriage, the most important event in one’s life means the foundationsand creation of a family. Out of three life’s period, marriage is an eventexperienced in the most conscious way by the people, because birthand death are two stages of life that cannot be controlled directly by theindividuals.Being weak in influencing in life-death binomial, naturally man focusesin the preparations of the marriage. Meanwhile, the family relations arerelated to principles and customs related to the marriage. The weddingceremony includes rituals that reflect the physiology and mentality of thepeople. In this work, we will try to treat marriage and wedding ceremonyin its ethnological aspect, referring to the period from the second half of the19 th century, to nowadays. In general, the rituals belong to rural Albanianfamily, due to the fact that it covered majority of Albanian families.In Albania, in the second half of 20 th century, generally, marriagepreserved the character of an agreement between two families orparents – father of the son and father of the girl, without consulting thegroom and the bride. This phenomenon was spread all over the country.These families used to consider marriage, an agreement to strengthentheir position, increase their power and wealth for the continuation ofgeneration of good renown. This concept for marriage has also beenpresent in the medieval times, within commerce and artisan nobility inthe city, where different families of the same class or social level wereestablishing intermarriage relations. A suitable marriage for this part of the