J PS: 11:2 Myrvold: Wedding Ceremonies in Punjab

Wedding Ceremonies in Punjab

Kristina Myrvold
Lund University

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While the religious specificities of different religious communities are
underscored, the paper focuses on the shared cultural values and symbols that
frame marriage ceremonies in the Punjab. The study concludes with how ritual
theories help us analyse these ceremonies and assess the impact of modernity on
their nature and function.
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Traditional cultural practices in a society do not fade away or disappear in the
face of modernization, but rather these practices transform and even become
revitalized. This is illustrated in the case of religious and cultural rituals that
Punjabis perform in relation to different stages of life. Rites of passage refer to a
genre of rituals that people perform at major events in life--like birth, puberty,
marriage and death. These types of rites characteristically mark a persons
transition from one stage of social life to another. The authoritative traditions of
the world religions have sanctioned and institutionalized their own life-cycle
rituals, which the followers share across different cultural and geographical
contexts. Historically, religious authorities have often displayed a keen interest
in defining these rituals to mark religious boundaries. Several studies that detail
how Hindus, Jains, Muslim, Sikh, and Christians celebrate the birth of a child,
perform weddings, and handle death in different parts of the world. Similarly, in
the Punjab the core ceremonies related to these life events are distinct for every
religious community, but yet they are performed within a shared Punjabi culture.
This paper focuses on marriage (viah), the most celebrated life event in
Punjabi society. Different religious communities use distinct symbolic tools of
legitimating the institution of marriage. Whereas the Hindu and J ain couples
exchange vows while participating in seven circumambulations (sat phere)
around the fire (havan), the Sikhs circumambulate around their scripture (the
Guru Granth) four times (char lavan) as part of the contractual act. Among
Muslims it is the marriage contract (nikah) after the consent of the bride that
solemnizes the event, and Christian bridal couples exchange wedding bands and
vows in the presence of a priest.
Surrounding these contracting rituals, however, are clusters of ceremonies
that do not necessarily stipulate a marriage, but work as a cultural overlay to
the religious practices. For instance, there are ceremonial acts of betrothal,
practices related to the preparation of the bride and bridegroom, as well as
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ritualized exchanges of gifts for establishing new kinship ties. The religiously
sanctioned ritual remains at the core by contracting a marriage and transforming
the social status of the groom and bride, but is enclosed by cultural ceremonies
that are considered equally significant for implementing a marriage and new
social relations. It is possible to argue that while religious rites of passage work
as a marker distinguishing one religious community from another, cultural
practices and ceremonies carry the opposite function of providing a common
denominator within a shared cultural context.
Over the years, anthropological and sociological research has accumulated a
considerable array of data on the social and economical aspects of life-cycle
events. By viewing marriage as a social institution, governed by rules of caste,
class and kinship, these studies have focused on the internal dynamics of
arranged marriages, the criteria of spouse selection, the dowry system and
generational changes in attitudes to marriage practices due to the impact of
modernization.
1
Similarly, the extensive Punjabi out migration during the
twentieth century has encouraged interest in how social norms and customs are
maintained or challenged among Punjabis in these new lands.
2
Quite often,
studies in anthropology and sociology start from a functionalist paradigm,
presuming that rituals are systematically related to social practices and have a
function of executing the cultures most significant and guarded indigenous
norms, values and concepts. Subsequently, life-cycle rites are often mentioned
in research studies focusing on broader cultural and social phenomena (such as
caste, kinship structure and migration), since it is generally presupposed that
people who perform certain rituals are communicating or confirming social
facts in the society.
If we follow this functionalist approach, we see that Punjabs folklore stores
many references to the preparation and celebration of weddingsinformation
that is sometimes shadowed in scholarship that privileges classical sources and
high culture. With rural life forming the backdrop, Punjabi literature, poetry,
folksongs, and folk art often return to the theme of marriage and capture values
and sentiments of the common Punjabi culture.
3
People of the Punjab can easily
recognize the image of a young woman preparing her own dowry at the spinning
wheel or embroidering her phulkari. These themes may not correspond to the
social reality of today, but in more subtle ways Punjabi folklore weaves values
and emotions into the web of contemporary practices. In almost every wedding
ceremony family members, friends and professional folk musicians perform
different sets of folksongs which use themes from a nostalgic past, but
communicate feelings of separation, joy, fear, and hope in the present.
There is currently a need for more comprehensive studies on the rituals and
ceremonies practiced by people of various communities in the Punjab. In this
article, we will introduce the readers to some of the more common practices and
ceremonies that work as a cultural overlay to the religious wedding rituals and
run across various Punjabi social and religious groups. Naturally, there will
always be local divergences in the performance of these ceremonies.
Furthermore, rituals are always transmitted and performed by people who adjust
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them to contemporary conditions and needs, and attribute them with their own
meanings. Here we will offer only an overview of some common cultural
practices related to weddings.

I. Arranging a Marriage

At first glance, the different rules and guiding principles of arranged marriages
offer a major challenge to understanding the institution. Studying marriage
practices requires a careful approach in order to avoid rude generalizations of a
multifaceted social reality or falling back on extreme relativism that could easily
make the picture incomprehensible. Among the different social groups and
tribes in the Punjab there are complex systems of endogamy and exogamy
social rules that require the person to select a spouse from within certain groups
or rules that forbid the selection of a spouse from certain clans or certain
regions. Some groups practice marriage by exchange (vata sata) in which sisters
and brothers of two families are exchanged. While some communities encourage
cousin marriages, others strongly prohibit it. Similarly there are varying attitudes
to polygamy, inter-caste marriage, inter-religious marriage and divergent
customs related to hypergamous arrangements, in which a boy or a girl from a
lower caste is married off to a spouse of a higher social strata in order to
enhance the status of the family. The impact of modernization, migration and
generally changing attitudes to marriage will only paint the picture in even more
perplexing colors. There are however two guiding principles that Punjabi
families share: basic kinship conventions of patrilineal descent and patrilocal
residence, according to which the woman moves into the household of her
husband and in-laws after marriage. These conventions emanate from a society
that is grounded on patriarchal values.
Traditionally, marriages have been arranged between a young aspiring bride
and groom. While the groom had often reached early puberty (twelve-thirteen
years), the bride to be was often still a child at the time of marriage. In many
areas of Punjab these child marriages related to the idea of kanya dan, the
offering of a daughter or a virgin to a family. Several studies on marriage
customs in South Asia have observed that pre-pubescent girls continue to be
treated with sanctity; even like goddesses in some religious and social contexts.
4
Thus to give away a virgin daughter is considered a gift to a family of higher
status. As marriage life presupposed sexual relations between the newlywed
couple, the actual consummation of marriage often took place many years after
the wedding ceremony when the bride became sexually mature. On the wedding
day the young bride followed the groom to his house, stayed with the female
members of his family for one night and returned to her own home the following
day. If the bride was very young she returned directly to her own house, while
the groom was symbolically given a cake of brown sugar to bring home. In any
case, the young bride did not have any intimate relation with her husband, but
stayed at her parents home until she got her first menstruation. At that time she
was taken to the house of her in-laws in a ceremony called muklava, which was
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regarded like a second wedding and in practice was the final return of the bride
to her in-laws. Today child marriages and the ceremony of muklava are rarely
practiced. Hershman (1981) observes that people delay marriage arrangements
to older brides because they are considered to be a financial resource to the
household; women employed outside the house contribute to the family budget
and sometimes bring their own dowry.
5
Even if women have entered the
professional spheres and the society has become more open for premarital
relations, there still exists a strong cultural ethos of preserving and protecting the
womans virginity until the consummation of marriage.
The mediator between two families planning a marriage is called vichola. In
earlier times, when a matrimonial couple was not to meet before the wedding,
the vichola worked as the communicating link between two families and was a
significant source of information about the qualities of the prospective spouse
and the familys social and financial status. The vichola was often an elder
member of the community, who was known to both the families. Many social
groups in the Punjab also used a professional vichola who was either the barber
(Nai) or a person belonging to the Muslim Mirasi community. These
professional mediators often kept track of girls and boys of marriageable age in
a village and suggested alliances between families. For instance, when a boy
reached puberty, the vichola could propose that a family not put off his wedding.
As J yoti (1992) points out, the role of these professional mediators has declined
during the twentieth century as families chose to arrange marriage alliances by
themselves, often by meeting the prospective spouse and his or her family.
6

Simultaneously the society has become more accepting of premarital contacts
and relationships. Traditionally, the face of the bride should be veiled until after
the marriage and it was only the vichola who got to see the bride in advance. As
a part of the wedding ceremony, there was a specific ritual related to the
unveiling of the bride: in the house of the in-laws, the younger brother of the
groom should lift the veil and expose the face of the bride, while her in-laws
were giving comments on her looks and offered her some money, minimally a
silver coin. As the traditional seclusion of women disappears, the physical
appearances of the bride and groom have today become a significant criterion in
spouse selection. Today parents often consult and seek the consent of their
children. At first the prospective couple may get to see a photograph and
eventually meet in order to decide whether they like each other or not. Among
the urban middle and upper classes, parents may permit the couple to meet
outside the house at some restaurant, and stay in contact by phone calls, letters
or emails. Young people, especially in urban settings, are also dating on their
own initiatives, sometimes secretly or with consent of the parents. Today the
concept of having a girlfriend and boyfriend before marriage is becoming
common, and couples are finding out about their backgrounds and family status
by themselves.
A twenty one year old girl in Chandigarh explained that a more common
strategy among youth is love becoming arranged, i.e. a premarital relationship
is made to look like an arranged marriage. When the parents are about to arrange
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a marriage they usually ask their daughter or son if there is someone she or he
likes. Being informed about an ongoing love affair does not always please them,
but if the prospective partners social and financial status is acceptable they do
take into consideration the wish of their child and transform the premarital
relationship into an arranged marriage. A general impression is that youth seem
to be well aware of their parents preference of hypergamous marriages and the
favored criteria in the selection of a spouse, such as caste and financial security.
In order to avoid impediment to marriage they confirm to these standards by
choosing a match accordingly. In the process of locating suitable spouses
matrimonial services in newspapers and on the Internet have become popular
means. A glance over a matrimonial supplement mirrors conformity to
traditional values, in the sense that caste, clan, and religious belonging are
significant criteria in the search of a desirable spouse. It is quite common to find
information about the boys annual income, as he will be the breadwinner, while
the qualities of brides are often combining the homely and the beautiful with
notes of their educational degrees. If the marriageable age in the past was during
puberty, it is now expected that young couples finish their education before they
settle down in marriage.
In the context of marriage arrangement in South Asia, dowry is an
unavoidable subject that has been discussed by scholars.
7
From the perspective
of the Punjabi society it is important to distinguish between the practices of
voluntary gift giving (dan) and the institution of dowry (dahej, daj). As Sheel
(1999) observes in her study on the dowry system in North India, in earlier times
it was customary that the brides family offered a voluntary gift to the grooms
family in order to establish a good relationship between the two families and to
provide the bride tangible assets in her new home.
8
In the Punjab there was a
special custom of giving bedding sets as a part of the dowry. During her
childhood the girl would prepare sheets, pillows, blankets, etc., which later were
placed in a wooden chest (peti) and brought with her on the wedding day. The
dowry was usually open for public display after the wedding ceremony, but was
only to be transferred to the grooms house along with the bride. According to
Sheel dowry was furthermore intimately interlinked with the institutions of
hypergamous marriage and the inheritance of property. Thus dowry worked as a
means to enhance the status of the brides family by giving gifts to a family of
higher rank and compensate the girl her full inheritance. However, along with
the modernization and an expanding consumerism over the last century came a
shift in the meaning of dowry, as the moral ethos related to the voluntary gift
giving was transformed into a forced institution creating financial strains on the
brides family. Demands of cash and articles of consumerism from the grooms
family has undermined the voluntary aspect of dowry, resulting in serious
social-cultural problems such as harassments and violence directed at women
when families fail to meet the financial requirements.
9
During the twentieth
century the system of dowry has created ill will among common people and has
resulted in organized protests and proceedings against it. This does not mean
people are not requesting dowry, but they are doing it in more discrete ways. In
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reality it will remain very hard to distinguish between voluntary and forced
giving of gifts. As we shall see, many of the ceremonies surrounding a wedding
are linked with the giving of gifts and counter gifts, but it is still the brides
family who will answer for the major expenses of these transactions.
Traditionally, marriages have been formally settled by a betrothal ceremony
called mangni, (literally to ask for). The family of the bride usually
approached the grooms family to stipulate a marriage agreement. The ceremony
of mangni was an affair of men and the elders in a village. Together with the
barber, a selected group of male relatives on the brides side travelled to the
house of the groom to be, bringing lumped brown sugar (gurh), dry fruits,
money and other gifts depending on their financial status. In the presence of
village elders, and some religious functionary, the brides party ceremonially
would hand over the gifts to the groom seated on a wooden platform. He bit a
piece of sweets and sometimes the brides party put money in his lap, while the
union of the two families was verbally declared. Another practice of confirming
the betrothal was to put a silver coin and sugar in the palm of the groom. In
some communities it was the grooms party who went to the house of the bride
to perform the mangni ceremony by offering sweets, money, clothes, and
jewellery that was distributed to the brides relatives.
10
In either case, the
betrothal was seen as an agreement between the families. The bride did not
participate in the ceremony. As her relatives returned home, she and her family
members were often given gifts from the grooms family, such as ornaments,
sweets, dry fruits, money, and often the bridal shawl (chunni). If the families
had not already settled a date for the wedding, it was the duty of the brides
family to determine an auspicious date. The barber, or some other messenger
from the brides side, conveyed a regular invitation by letter (sahi-chithi) to the
family of the groom. Except for proposing a date, this letter also indicated the
number of guests the brides family were capable of hosting. When receiving the
letter the boys family would reply by returning shagan, auspicious gifts to the
house of the bride.
If we turn to the contemporary practices related to betrothal we see just
as many similarities and differences. Based on his studies of marriage practices
in the J alandhar district, Hershman (1981) observed that in order to reduce the
expenses of weddings his informants chose to perform a more simplified
ceremony called thaka or roka, a reservation, instead of the traditional mangni
ceremony. He writes,

Unlike the engagement ceremony, the roka (reservation) is a
quiet family affair and is often carried out secretly in the
village of the groom. It is a type of promising which
precedes the engagement so that the ritual of mangni is
performed prior to the viah at the village of the bride on the
arrival of the grooms marriage party. By this, both
engagement and marriage are performed together and the
grooms side is saved the expense of having to feast their
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kinsmen twice as they were enjoined to do traditionally both
at marriage and engagement.
11


Roka is a modern custom reflecting that marriages are more considered to
be a concern of individual families than the community at large. The parents get
together to settle the wedding, either in the house of the bride or at some public
place. Sometimes they meet in a gurdwara or in a temple in company with the
religious functionary present who may suggest an auspicious wedding date. J ust
like the mangni ceremony, the bride and her family receive monetary gifts or
gold when the agreement is finalized.
Two more ceremonial events have been added to the betrothal or
engagement. By influence of Western traditions, many families in urban settings
have come to perform a ceremony, in which the couple exchanges golden rings
to wear during the wedding. Generally, the brides family organizes this
ceremony, including a music program, at their residence or rented assembly
rooms. The ceremony known as shagan resembles the traditional mangni and
has more or less replaced it. One day before the wedding, the family of the bride
will visit the groom and his family to present them with gifts. The groom is
often seated on a platform holding a red cloth in his lap on which the gifts will
be placed. The brides father in particular feeds the groom with sweets and
places a tikka, vermillion, on his forehead as a blessing. In addition to household
articles, ornaments, clothes, and money, the groom will be given a decorated
basket filled with dry fruits and sweets. From this basket he should pick a piece
of dry fruit, bite off one half and return the remaining half to the bride. Shagan
provides an opportunity to invite all relatives and friends for celebration and the
ceremony often includes some religious program, as well as singing and
dancing. The only one who does not participate in the celebrations is the bride
and her mother. In the evening of shagan some female relatives from the
grooms house visit the bride in her home and hand over a set of counter gifts,
including her bridal shawl, henna, make up kit, and the dress she will wear when
being escorted to the house of her in-laws after marriage.
II. Preparations

Depending on the different local customs, the behavior of both the bride and the
groom is chaperoned for forty days before the marriage and from three to ten
days preceding the wedding day they should be confined to their respective
houses. This period of seclusion is called maiyan and is marked by different
preparations for the wedding day, including several ritualized acts that can be
interpreted as symbolizing the traditional stage of their social status. In some
families and communities the period of maiyan formally starts when the boy and
girl separately get a red thread (mauli) tied around their wrists by some family
member or the barbers wife. During maiyan both the bride and the groom wear
more simple and quiet clothes than in daily life, providing added contrast to the
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exquisite wedding day adornment. They will also be well fed, often with sweet
and fried food that is coming from the house of their mother and the maternal
uncle. At this time the boy and the girl are considered to be passing to a different
phase of their lives; their seclusion during this period sometimes evokes popular
beliefs of ghosts and the evil eye. The couple is considered more vulnerable to
spirits and should be protected by isolation and by maintaining a simple
appearance.
12
In some communities the groom is taken out in a procession in his
village, wearing dirty clothes and holding a sword to shield him from the
harmful influences of spirits.
13
Furthermore, the Punjabi culture holds the
concept of bhanimar, people who try to ruin a new relationship by commenting
on the couple and insinuating doubts in the minds of the people, in contrast to
the role of the matchmaking vichola. The preparatory stage of becoming a
couple is thought to accentuate these malevolent forces of spirits and backbiters.
One of the more significant ceremonies during maiyan is the ritualized
anointing of vatna-a paste consisting of mustard oil, barley flour and turmeric
mixed up with fresh curd. In their respective homes the groom and the bride
should sit on a small wooden platform under a canopy or an embroidered
phulkari while female relatives anoint their bodies with the paste. In the case of
the bride it is usually her sisters and female friends who are rubbing her arms,
feet and face while singing songs, whereas in the house of the boy this is done
by his sisters and his brothers wives, who jokingly entertain the groom-to-be
with naughty commentary. In both cases it is their maternal uncle who
symbolically lifts them from the wooden platform.
On the wedding day both the groom and bride discard their old robes, are
given a bath, and then dressed up in their special clothes. The bathing is
sometimes performed in relation to the anointing of vatna, and many families
will give their child several baths during the days preceding the wedding.
Customarily the barbers wife (nain), together with her sisters, wash and untie
her braids. When the bathing is complete both the groom and the bride crush an
earthen jar with their feet to mark the transformation from one social stage to
another.
On the evening prior to the wedding day the bride and her unmarried girl
friends create ornamental henna (mehndi) designs on their hands and feet or
invite professional henna painters to beautify them. This ceremonial
beautification of the bride is sometimes connected with ideas of good fortune in
the house of her in-laws. As one saying goes, if the applied mehndi turns out
very dark on the hand of the bride it is a sign of the affection of her mother-in-
law to be. Women therefore try to make the henna color as dark as possible.
Sometimes the hands of the groom are similarly decorated with more simple
henna designs or just a small mark to indicate that he is getting married.
Like most events in Punjabi culture there are special songs associated with
mehndi to communicate sentiments of the marriage preparations. A few days
prior to the wedding the women on both sides will gather in the evenings for
singing of specific folksongs associated with the occasion. In the house of the
bride these songs are called suhag, which refer to the marital felicity or a happy
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married life. As the dominant social values in Punjabi society remain
patriarchal, the preservation of the familys health and happiness is generally
considered to be the responsibility of the woman. In emotional ways these suhag
songs are expressing the womans uprooting and separation from her family and
home and the unknown fate she will have to adjust to. The suhag songs are often
structured as dialogues between the bride-to-be and her father, who tells her to
bow to the inevitable. The songs sung in the house of the groom are called
ghorhian and are usually composed as blessings of the mother and sisters to the
knightly groom who will go to meet his bride. On this event some women may
tie a turban on their head and jestingly imitate the groom amid great laughter.
The traditional bridal dress is exceptionally ornamental, alluding to a royal
symbolism. The maternal uncles of both the bride and groom play a significant
ritual role in the preparations by giving the clothes worn by the bride and groom
on the wedding day, along with jewelry, clothes and other gifts to their sisters
family. At the wedding of his niece, the maternal uncle should give the bride her
red ivory bangles (churha), signifying that she is a married woman, and tie a red
thread (gana) around her wrist. To signify the brides transfer from her natal
house to that of her husband, she changes her dress after the wedding. The bride
arrives at her wedding in the suit given to her by her maternal uncle, and departs
for her in-laws wearing a dress offered by the grooms family.
From top to toe the bride is adorned with ornaments. On her forehead she
wears a trinket (tikka). A nose ring (nath) is linked with a chain to her earrings
(jhumke). It is customary to wear two kinds of necklaces, of which one is a
golden garland (har) and the other a necklace with ornamental designs similar to
Muslim amulets (taviz). Except for the ivory bangles, the bride will also wear a
red thread and bangles on each wrist that are attached with a hanging trinket or
bells (kalira) given by her maternal aunt. One saying proclaims that any
unmarried girl who is hit by these bridal kalira will be the next one to wed. The
bride is also adorned with finger rings (mundrian), anklets (jhanjharan) and
colorful strings with bells (parandi) braided in her hair. Upon arrival at the
wedding ceremony she will be veiled in the shawl given to her by her soon to be
in-laws.
The marriage party of the groom (barat) travels in a ceremonial procession
to the wedding, which is performed in the house of the bride or at some other
place representing it. The image of the groom as an armed prince riding on a
mare to meet his bride still appears today. The departure from his house is a
joyful event when people sing and dance. At some places in Punjab a custom
called garauli is celebrated on the morning of barat. In this ceremony, the
women of the family fill a vessel with water from a nearby well while singing
songs and dancing. Later they bathe the groom in this water and he will be
dressed up in new clothes, wearing a turban in red or pink colors and shoes (juti)
embroidered with golden threads. Before he leaves his sisters or his brothers
wives will attach a small plume (kalgi) on his turban and apply surma, collyrium
powder, to his eyes in order to protect him from evil influences. Over his turban
the sisters will tie a chaplet (sehra) which will cover his eyes until the wedding.
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His mounting of the mare before departure includes several customs: his sister
feeds the horse, ties a thread around its neck, and teasingly holds the reins to
prevent the marriage party from leaving until they have been given some gifts.
The groom also symbolically tests his sword (talvar) before setting out on his
marriage procession in company with his sarbala, a younger brother or cousin
who will act as an escort.
The night before the wedding the grooms maternal aunt (mami) and other
female relatives dress up in beautiful clothes and organize a night procession of
light called jago. Whereas women used to arrange the jago procession after the
barat had left the house, it has more recently become a ceremony that is
performed on the night prior to the departure of the marriage procession. On this
occasion the grooms maternal aunt carries a decorated pitcher full of water on
her head with lit flour lamps that are placed on top of the pitcher. The women
walk around their neighborhood, waking up people, and dancing and singing
songs in order to convey the message that a fortuitous event will soon occur.
The reception of barat in the house of the bride was traditionally carried out
in the presence of the whole village the night before the wedding. All the male
relatives would meet in a ceremony called milanhi to exchange gifts and share a
meal, while the women often celebrated separately after the wedding. The
groom did not participate in this formal meeting but stayed at a place outside the
village until his wedding day the next day. Today families often combine the
formal meeting of male and female relatives, in which relations on both sides
embrace each other, exchange gifts and flower garlands, and share a meal before
they continue to the religious wedding ritual.
III. After the Wedding

The ceremonies following Punjabi weddings are often charged with mixed
emotions of joy and sorrow. J okingly, the brides sisters often play a game with
the groom, in which they hide his shoes, while his friends try to prevent the girls
from doing this. The sisters-in-law make sure to give the groom a hard time and
negotiate over monetary gifts in return for his shoes. Framed by sadder emotions
is the brides final departure (vidai) from her parental home. After the marriage
ceremony, performed in the house of the brides parents, the brides departure
signifies the final separation from her home and family. In a symbolic gesture of
the transition she dresses up in a suit given to her by her in-laws. At the gate of
her parents home she throws rice, barley or pulses over her head, while wishing
prosperity for the family and house she is leaving. The brides brother lifts her
up into a palanquin (doli) that escorts her to her new home, the house of her
husbands parents. When the newlywed couple begins their journey the elders
on the grooms side throw coins over the doli and to the crowd on the road.
People still perform these rituals even if decorated cars have replaced the
traditional palanquin. At the vidai people again sing sad songs on the theme of
separation and departure.
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Upon arrival at the house of the grooms parents, the grooms mother is
responsible for ceremonies related to the reception of the newlyweds. At the
gate she receives them by circulating a small water filled metal vessel over their
heads and then drinking some of the water. The mother either sprinkles or
smears the threshold with mustard oil before they are taken into the house. To
familiarize the bride with her new family and make her feel at home the couple
usually engages in a set of games in the evening. For instance, they fill a pot
with milk and water and throw a ring or coin into the pot. Whoever gets the coin
into the pot the most times wins the game and, as the saying goes, becomes the
dominant partner in their married life. They also try to untie the thread that they
had tied on their wrists before the wedding. While the girl is allowed to use both
her hands, the groom must use only one hand. This is an occasion for the bride,
as well as relatives and friends, to tease the groom if he is unable to undo the
knot. In the past these games probably provided the new couple the opportunity
of making one anothers acquaintance and initiating the first physical touching
of the opposite sex.
In the morning after the wedding night the bride performs two symbolic
acts. Presuming the couple has been intimate in the night, the bride touches the
feet of her parents in-law, both mother and father. In return they bless her by
wishing her a long life as their sons wife (suhagan). She then makes a meal and
serves her new family on this first morning after the wedding night. As the
woman becomes a new member of a family and clan, these two acts initiate her
responsibilities in the family and confirm her new status as a married woman.
IV. Concluding Reflections

Scholars in ritual studies have often emphasized the convention, formalized, or
rule governed character of ritual action, even if they have followed quite
divergent and conflicting courses in terms of the functions, meanings, motives
and forces of ritual activities and behavior.
14
Rituals often display recognizable
and repetitive patterns and structures that are framed by a ceremonial event. For
example, if we look at the Punjabi betrothal (mangni) or its modern counterpart
(shagan), the core act of this ceremony is the verbal announcement of the
betrothal and the giving of gifts to the groom, either in his hands or his lap.
Kinsfolk may also perform other acts, such as feeding the groom and decorating
him with a tikka. Within the frame of betrothal, these separate acts are often
carried out in a highly prescribed way and jointly they constitute a structure of
acts contained by the ceremony. Thus if the word ritual signifies a specific act,
the term ceremony connotes the broader events in which various rituals are
enclosed.
A basic question that has interested scholars during the twentieth century is
why people carry out rituals. Within the theoretical schools like symbolist,
structuralist and functionalist, a number of researchers have proposed their own
analytic constructs to the interpretation of ritual activities.
15
Typical of the first
two schools is a search for meaning of ritual activities i.e. what values and
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notions are expressed in symbols and symbolic actsand how these meanings
correspond to patterns in the larger society and even conduce a persistence of
social systems. Functionalists have been more focused on the social utility of
ritualshow rituals affect a social group or society at large, even civilizations
and contribute to the functioning of social systems. If we try to apply some of
these ideas to a simple analysis of Punjabi weddings it is possible to discern
some cultural notions that these ceremonies communicate. In many cultures
weddings often employ symbols representing royalty, fertility and prosperity, as
it is an exclusive event establishing socially and culturally approved relations for
reproduction. In Punjabi weddings there are several items, such as different
food, clothes, ornaments, colors and seeds, which could point to these meanings
if we are acquainted with the symbolic universes of people in the Punjab. In the
context of an agrarian society, grains, which a newlywed bride throws over her
shoulder, may signify the prosperity she wishes for her family and native home.
On a structural level there are sets of symbolic acts within the ceremonies that
may signify the transformational processes of the bridal couple when these acts
are compared. Following Van Genneps three staged process of rituals, the
marriage ceremony qualifies as a rite of passage that comprises three stages in
which the person leaves behind one social group or identity, then passes through
a phase of no identity before admission into another.
16
This process of change is
manifest in the treatment of the bridal couple: bride and groom wearing simple
clothes and are held in seclusion during the period of maiyan but after the ritual
bath they are symbolically crush a pot and consequently are dressed in their
wedding gowns. In this ritual process the couple hovers between two
extremesfrom seclusion and a neglect of the outward appearance to the most
exclusive bodily ornamentation as royalties at public display. Overall the
wedding ceremonies transform the identities of a couple, from virgin-daughter
to suhaganh and from bachelor to husband. As patrilocal residence is the
prevalent social custom in Punjab, the uprooting of a bride and the process of
separation from her native home and family have become ritualized in
ceremonies like vidai and doli.
From a functionalist approach it would be possible to assert that these
ceremonies have much broader effects on the organization of the social group.
For instance, many ceremonies include the giving of gifts and counter gifts to
confirm kinship ties within the individual family as well as facilitate new
relations between two families. The symbolic act of offering the groom gifts in
betrothal ceremony establishes a marriage agreement that will decide and
regulate interaction between old and new relatives in social life and in
ceremonies to follow. The sisters in-law are fully entitled to make fun of the
groom within the context of a wedding as their defined roles in a newly
established relationship allow for it. From this viewpoint, wedding rituals may
have a function of maintaining order and rules for social interaction in the
society.
At the same time, Punjabi society is going through a major process of
modernization, resulting in radical changes of social norms and attitudes,
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especially amongst the younger generation. A general trend reflected in this
process is that people seem to keep marriage customs and perform traditional
rituals even if many of the foundational social values supporting them are
changing. A college girl in Chandigarh asked about this replied, We do not
have these things in society anymore, but the ceremonies convey feelings and
for that reason they are important. We should not abandon, but maintain our
culture. To follow these ceremonies is about maintaining our own cultural
identity.
Keeping traditional ceremonies becomes a way of preserving a cultural
identity in a society that is becoming more influenced by global trends. J ust as
wedding practices may work as means of communicating tradition and a sense
of cultural continuity in Punjabi society, the ceremonies will always be exposed
to a variety of changes since they are not isolated from the context in which they
are performed. People maintain ceremonies as traditional while
simultaneously appropriating them for changes in the broader society. Punjabi
weddings once spanned a long period of time and now they are completed
within a week; cars have replaced the palanquin carrying the bride, just as fancy
resort hotels or restaurants serve the same function as the brides home.
Womens increasing access to new social spaces and the reinterpretation of
gender roles will certainly exert a major influence on these ceremonies in the
future.
In recent years, many scholars have attempted to move away from a
common proclivity to treat rituals as independent sets of activities that exude
meanings of different kinds or implement conceptions. These scholars have
come to view rituals as actions that contain certain qualities or as processes of
transforming ordinary acts.
17
Some have focused more explicitly on the
properties of ritual action and human agency in the process of transforming
ordinary acts to rituals.
18
Partly this shift of focus critiques scholarly tendencies
to create abstractions that often fail to correspond with a social reality. In their
search for meanings, symbolists, structuralists, and functionalists have
sometimes been guilty of superimposing their own neatly systematized
interpretations while neglecting their informants voices and changes in the real
world. Instead of looking at rituals as objects with intrinsic meanings or
functions, many scholars today prefer to study the processes of how humans are
ritualizing acts and constructing their own and sometimes quite divergent
meanings. From this viewpoint the meaning of ritual practices is not necessarily
a treasure to be found by digging deep enough into ritual performances. Rather
the meaning may be humanly constructed out of interpretations of beliefs,
conceptions, and norms that are attached to formalized and stipulated ritual
action. These meanings may vary and contradict themselves, but they may also
refer to quite conventional ideas and notions of authoritative traditions since
people are socialized and situated within a given socio cultural framework. To
put it more metaphorically, rituals could be likened to a vessel: it seems to keep
its basic shape and structure, i.e. it is formalized and has stipulated features, but
it is continuously filled with new content and meanings of various kinds. If we
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want to understand why people in the Punjab perform wedding ceremonies the
way they do, why they keep them in the face of radical changes in society, and
how they construct meanings and appropriate ritual practices in a globalized
world, more studies are required that take into consideration all of the social and
cultural aspects without losing the perspective of the actors, the people of the
Punjab who continue to perform these rituals in their daily lives.

Acknowledgement: I am grateful to Giani Gurdit Singh of Chandigarh and
Professor Surjit Singh of Punjabi University, Patiala, for sharing their wealth of
knowledge of Punjabi culture with me and also help me understand the details of
the ceremonies discussed in the paper.

Endnotes
1. See e.g. Mathur 1964, Singh 1966, Kaur 1967, Mahajan 1967, Rajagopalan &
Singh 1967, Singh 1974, Parry 1979, Hershman 1981, J yoti 1992. See also the
project on the people of Punjab launched by the Anthropological Survey of India
(ASI), Singh 2003.
2. See e.g. Ballard, R. & C. Ballard 1977, Ballard 1978, Bhachu 1981, Bhachu
1985, Bhachu 1986, Barrier, Gerald & Verne Dusenberry 1989, Ballard 1990,
Leonard 1994.
3. The renowned Punjabi author, Giani Gurdit Singh, is often employing cultural
practices and rituals as themes in his writing. His book Mera Pind [My
village] from 1961 has become a classic in the genre of Punjabi literature (Singh
2003(1961)). See also Harjeet Singh Gills short story A Phulkari from
Bhatinda, which portrays a traditional Punjabi wedding (Gill 1970).
4. Hershman 1981:158, Parry 1979:147.
5. Hershman 1981:159.
6. J yoti 1992:164.
7. See e.g. Van der Veen 1972, Madan 1975, Vatuk and Vatuk 1976, Paul 1986,
Fruzetti 1990, Sheel 1999.
8. Sheel 1999.
9. Sheel 1999.
10. Wikeley 1991:36, Rose 1999(1919): 784 ff.
11. Hershman 1981:162.
12. Hershman 1981:163.
13. J amous 2003; Wikeley 1991: 37.
14. For a summary of some significant definitions of ritual by scholars in the
twentieth century, see Platvoet 1995.
15. For an overview, see Bell 1997.
16. Gennep 1960.
17. See Bell 1992, 1997.
18. Humphrey & Laidlaw 1994.

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