The Best Man - Wedding Custom

Creative Cowboy

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The Best Man stands in for the Groom in case the Bride becomes a widow. He helps provide for the Bride in the event the Groom is unable to do so.

If I recall properly, this is a European custom that dates back before the 20 Century when women were economically disadvantaged and, before that, when women were considered chattel. The Best Man's role has/may have changed since the tradition was established. I am trying to locate the origin of this role as described above.

Or did I just dream this? Can someone here, please, help me out with this question? Google keeps informing me that a Best Man organises parties and return tuxes but really does not delve into history.

In ancient Mesopotamian culture, the next eldest brother of the Groom performed the same role as Best Man, except he was expected to wed himself to his deceased brother's widow. The first three hundred entries on Google fail concerning the tradition of Best Man.

Please help?
 

waylander

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My wife who is from rural County Galway in the west of Ireland knew of such a couple. The groom didn't show up to the wedding so the the bride married the best man. I never heard what became of the missing groom. The bride and best man went on to have a large family.
 

draosz

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There's no one single tradition which was invented in one place and spread around the world. Which culture are you interested in?
 

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I would be interested in identifying different culture's origin of the Best Man (where such a role exists, of course). Specifically, I am interested in European custom carried forward from The Goth and Roman periods. But if someone knows the Indian or Mayan custom, for examples, I'd like to learn about this too.
 

draosz

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Last year, I've read an article in a Croatian journal for anthropology I have. I could take a look again, but it concerns a local variation of a regional "best man" custom. It does discuss origins, so it could be of some help to you.

I believe the same word, as for godfather, best man and other forms of witness, is also found in Polish: Ancient Slavonic *kumъ (kum) ? ← *kъmotrъ (russ. kmotr) ← lat. compater. It appears to have found its way as far north as Finland: kummisetä.
 

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Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Never heard of the Best Man taking care of the bride in case she becomes a widow here in the States.

Sikhs and Hindus do not have a Best Man tradition connected with their weddings. I don't think Baha'is do either.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

GeorgeK

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AFAIK in most of America the purpose of the Best Man is to throw a bachelor party for the groom and that's about it, other than maybe be the ring-bearer if the bride doesn't have a little brother, nephew etc.
 

frimble3

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The bachelor party is an afterthought - if the groom runs off, his best friend is likeliest to know where he's gone.:tongue

All joking aside, I was told that the origin of the best man and other groomsmen was in earlier, rougher days, when the groom might need assistance to wrest the bride from her family, or hold the family (or other objectors) off while the ceremony took place.

The 'Best Man' would be leader of the gang.

In these gentler, more law-abiding times, the role is reduced to a bachelor party, making speeches and helping organise things.
 

Roxxsmom

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AFAIK in most of America the purpose of the Best Man is to throw a bachelor party for the groom and that's about it, other than maybe be the ring-bearer if the bride doesn't have a little brother, nephew etc.

That, and in a strictly legal, minimalistic sense, couples are generally required to have a minimum of two witnesses who "stand for them" during the ceremony. My cousin (my matron of honor) and my husband's best man were the people who signed the paperwork along with ourselves and our celebrant as witnesses at our wedding, once the ceremony was over (which was a family and close friends thing). Of course, any two guests would have sufficed, but by tradition, the best man and maid/matron of honor fill that role.

I think the practice has a longer history, however, in English common law and probably had special importance in the case of licenses that were sometimes granted for couples to marry without first posting their banns.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the "maid of honor" also has an older tradition of being available to the groom to marry in case the bride backs out or dies at the nth hour. Obviously in this day and age, when many best friends of brides and grooms are already married, and people play with traditions in all kinds of ways, the role of the best man (and maid or matron of honor) is whatever the people involved decide it is. I don't think either my husband or my cousin (or her then husband) would have wanted to have her stand in for me, and while our best man was single at the time (and I love him dearly), he's not someone I'd want to marry, or vice versa :greenie
 
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JJ Litke

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Try googling history of best man tradition. A whole lot of sites talking about different countries' customs show up.
 

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The bachelor party is an afterthought - if the groom runs off, his best friend is likeliest to know where he's gone.:tongue
Likely the before party is to make sure the Groom is too hungover to even consider running off.... and, of course, there will be all those blackmail photos, and someone has to help wipe off all that lipstick and whipped cream.

All joking aside, I was told that the origin of the best man and other groomsmen was in earlier, rougher days, when the groom might need assistance to wrest the bride from her family, or hold the family (or other objectors) off while the ceremony took place.

The 'Best Man' would be leader of the gang.
You're referring to ancient times, according to Google. "They" (the random Internet people) report the Goths and Romans doing the old caveman thing: the best man runs interference from everyone while the groom drags the woman off by the hair.

I am looking for something a little more progressed than that during, say, the Dark Ages (aka early to high Middle Ages). In Mesopotamia, as I mentioned, the Best Man was a real job, for "a Man" some might say.
 

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Likely the before party is to make sure the Groom is too hungover to even consider running off.... and, of course, there will be all those blackmail photos, and someone has to help wipe off all that lipstick and whipped cream.

Of course all the jokes and innuendo about the groom cheating on her the night before their wedding and his being all urpy and farty and possibly vomiting down her bodice during the ceremony is likely to make her run off instead...
 

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I seem to remember reading somewhere that the "maid of honor" also has an older tradition of being available to the groom to marry in case the bride backs out or dies at the nth hour.
This the sort of memory I am seeking an online/book source for.

Google, the way I do it at least, is always a big time waste. The first three pages I looked at earlier today were unhelpful.
 

draosz

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I looked around my ethnographical journals. From a couple of articles as well as Google searching I found only a patchwork of information, so I'll only tell you what I was able to synthesise from it.

The custom is indeed ancient. Modern Western customs seem to have ancient Roman tradition as their common ancestor, but it was already widespread at least among cultures which left written evidence, which dates to late Roman Republic at the earliest as well as Ancient Greece during its classical age, 5th and 4th century BC.

Roman marriage customs seem to have endured and spread along with Christianity, which is no surprise as marriage is one of the sacraments. Romans sealed the marriage with (iron) wedding rings, for example.

The best man's duties were concerning various legal matters over transfer of potestas from bride's father to the groom (in marriage cum manu), dowry, escorting the bride to groom's house, act as a witness etc.

As for Greeks, I found a curious word for it, paranymph (παράνυμϕος). It has its own Wikipedia article.

Thankfully, the New Testament was written in Koine Greek, so I found that John the Baptist in John 3:29 refers to himself as "the friend" of the bridegroom (Jesus, his bride being the Church)

"The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete."
Various commentaries, as seems easy to discern, explain his role as groomsman (Meyer's NT commentary) :

The friend of the bridegroom (κατʼ ἐξοχήν: the appointed friend, who serves at the wedding) is the παρανύμφιος, who is also, Sanhedr. f. 27, 2, called אוהב, but usually שושבן. Lightfoot, p. 980; Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. s.v.; Schoettgen, p. 335 ff.; and see on 2 Corinthians 11:2

From there I took a look into Hebrew customs, which is difficult due to mostly antisemitic sources. I'll give an example from the 19th century Encyclopaedia Metropolitana:

The duties of the Hebrew Paranymphs, שושבן, were so revolting and unmanly, that nothing but that inveterate prescription, which so often divests national customs of unseemliness in the eyes of those to whom they have become familiar, could have reconciled a comparatively civilized People to their toleration and practice. We dare not quote, even in a learned language, the very curious, but somewhat too broad particulars, upon which Selden has ventured in the XVIth Chapter of the IId Book of his Uror Ebraica. (Opera, ii. 636.)

However, I've found that the word mentioned, שושבן, denotes best man in an article "Susapinnu: The Mesopotamian Paranymph and His Role". This concerns Akkadian (also Semitic) culture. I no longer have Jstor access, but if you know someone who does, on these forums perhaps, you can check it here.

In other scattered articles, essays and sources, I've only found various local and regional flavours of the vastly similar custom of person outside the blood relative group entering a formal relationship between two families in a sort of spiritual kinship. Reading about customs in Croatia, I've found numerous sources claim that some families have for over hundred years or more offering and expecting best men from each other, in a form of interfamilial alliance.

All this leads me to believe that some form of custom, or its early form, is as old as recognition of kinship, as old as families, although of course, more easily found where a family is able to establish roots, that is, with the advent of agriculture after the Neolithic Revolution around 12000 years ago. In any case, if the earliest possible written sources (Mesopotamia) contain mentions of the practice, it's safe to assume that it existed way before.

As for your initial question on groomsman taking care of the widow, it may very well be the case, and expected, due to strong familial bonds. However, here we enter the territory of local custom which may wildly differ as close as the next village. Waylander mentioned a story about bride taking the best man as husband after the bridesgroom absconds. If there is a strong bond between two families or clans etc. who are expected to marry between each other and obliged to be each others' best men, as used to be the case in scattered locales in Europe, it would be no surprise at all.

About Goths and Romans raiding villages for women, it's as close to truth as ius primae noctis, Columbus sailing west in order to prove that the Earth is not flat, notion that Stone Age people grunted and seduced women with stone clubs. At best, it's fanciful bullshit, most of which we were infected with by 19th century. It holds that all history before us consists of primitive people being stupid for our amusement or to make us feel superior. I'm sure it will spread inside the blogosphere and eventually spill outside, but I do recommend that you read such sources with assumption that they are wrong. Then go and verify.

The source of this factoid is a book titled Save the Date: The Occasional Mortifications of a Serial Wedding Guest by Jen Doll, a humorous "chick lit" memoir described by a reader as "bitchy". Not the best source, really.
 
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Iron Wedding Rings & Best Man

Roman marriage customs seem to have endured and spread along with Christianity, which is no surprise as marriage is one of the sacraments. Romans sealed the marriage with (iron) wedding rings, for example.

IRON! That is interesting.

About Goths and Romans raiding villages for women, it's as close to truth as ius primae noctis, Columbus sailing west in order to prove that the Earth is not flat, notion that Stone Age people grunted and seduced women with stone clubs. At best, it's fanciful bullshit, most of which we were infected with by 19th century. It holds that all history before us consists of primitive people being stupid for our amusement or to make us feel superior. I'm sure it will spread inside the blogosphere and eventually spill outside, but I do recommend that you read such sources with assumption that they are wrong. Then go and verify.

The source of this factoid is a book titled Save the Date: The Occasional Mortifications of a Serial Wedding Guest by Jen Doll, a humorous "chick lit" memoir described by a reader as "bitchy". Not the best source, really.
I quite agree here. Having a mature appreciation for ancient civilizations, seasoned by my current anthropological research, I certainly expect better than "caveman behaviour" into the 4th century CE. Thank you very much for your post, and for the scholarly information within I will need to rustle up.
 

GeorgeK

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. Romans sealed the marriage with (iron) wedding rings,.
I wonder if there's any connection with that and the myths about Fae not liking / getting injured by iron?
 

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I wonder if there's any connection with that and the myths about Fae not liking / getting injured by iron?
Marriage customs is definitely a topic worth exploring.

Maybe someone else will come along to offer more on the topic of the Best Man tradition, and even about the topic of Iron Ring exchanges. Iron is a very poor piece of jewelry, in comparison to what was available at that time juxtaposed to what more expensive jewelry would signify about one's status (same as today).
 
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ArtsyAmy

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I wonder if you might find out more about the historical role of the best man by looking into the historical role of godparents. Seems to me there are similarities--both best men and godparents used to (and perhaps these days still do in some circumstances) take the place of others if needed, but nowadays it seems that for many people, the roles don't carry much responsibility. Maybe you'll come across an article about changing roles that includes info on both godparents and best men. Hope you find what you're looking for.
 

draosz

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Marriage customs is definitely a topic worth exploring.

Maybe someone else will come along to offer more on the topic of the Best Man tradition, and even about the topic of Iron Ring exchanges. Iron is a very poor piece of jewelry, in comparison to what was available at that time juxtaposed to what more expensive jewelry would signify about one's status (same as today).

A wedding ring was not jewelry used to be pretty, it was a sign. Romans used iron because it was more durable than plant material used by Greeks and even ancient Egyptians before them, also symbols and not jewelry. Gold is rare and expensive. Plebs couldn't afford it just as they couldn't afford richly coloured cloth. Besides, earlier Romans shunned such luxury. Ornate gold rings did become popular later, but first among the rich.
 

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But the Celts (i.e. all Bar-bars above Italy on the continent) were accomplished jewelry craftsmen as later archaeological excavations have show. [documentary DVD Celts: The Complete Epic Saga; Dark Age England: A Journey Back in Time; The Germanic Tribes;] I had not specifically focused on marriage jewelry but given the importance of familiar alliances, dowry and such, it would not be inconceivable to think of a ring of precious metal as a wedding gift.

The Northmen on Viking wore simple rings of precious metal around their arms they would use for trading. Which is to say that precious metal wedding bands would not be beyond function in a marriage vow or inconceivable on the continent for the period of late antiquity.
 

draosz

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La Téne culture excavations, as well as those of the Halstatt culture indeed contain excellent jewelry, ornate ceremonial carts and occasional Greek import like Corinthian helmets and muscle cuirasses. They are status symbols. If you excavate such a grave, you can safely tell it's a member of the ruling elite. They also didn't use wedding rings. Most similar thing you could find in a La Téne grave is a torc, but mostly fibulae.

Vikings were more than 1200 years into the future at that age.
 
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I was thinking more 8th Century and later with my Norse reference, but you're correct in reference to the period before.

It is awfully romantic to think of Iron wedding bands in the context of "What therefore God hath joined together,let no man put asunder." ...or demon.
 

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That's fine to use in writing, just don't go Dan Brown and present it as fact.
 

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Do you know when wedding rings stopped being made of iron? (This is an interesting side topic.)


Is there any historical indication noting when wedding rings came under the protection of the Best Man?
 

draosz

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They didn't wake up one day and say, it's year X, we have to start using golden rings instead. Over time.

I mostly used Google to do previous research, and so can you.