THE BUSINESS OF WEDDING

Contrast with romantic love and one or two sharing their lives along, however, is that the `business side’ of wedding and sex. historian reports that each girl, a minimum of once in her period of time, had to sit down outside the temple of Semitic deity (Inanna) and conform to know with no matter alien selected her. this practice was thought to confirm the fertility and continuing prosperity of the community. As a woman’s status was thought of requisite for a wedding, it'd appear unlikely that divorced ladies would have taken half during this and nonetheless historian states that `every woman’ was needed to.  The follow of sacred vice crime, as historian describes it, has been challenged by several modern students however his description of the bride auction has not. historian writes:

Once a year in every village the young ladies eligible to marry were collected all at once in one place; whereas the boys stood around them during a circle. Then a herald known as up the young ladies one by one and offered them purchasable. He began with the foremost stunning. once she was sold  for a high worth, he offered purchasable the one UN agency stratified next in beauty. All of them were then sold  to be wives. The richest of the Babylonians UN agency needed to wed bid against one another for the loveliest young ladies, whereas the commoners, UN agency weren't involved concerning beauty, received the uglier ladies together with financial compensation…All UN agency likable may come back, even from distant villages, and bid for the ladies. This was the simplest of all their customs however it's currently fallen into decline (Histories I: 196).

So whereas romantic love did play a vicinity in Mesopotamian marriages, it's true that, in keeping with the customs and expectations of Mesopotamian society, wedding was a legal contract between the daddy of a lady and another man (the groom, as within the case of the bride auction wherever the groom paid the girl's father the bride-price) or, a lot of normally, between 2 families, that functioned because the foundation of a community. The historiographer Bertman writes,

In the language of the Sumerians, the word for `love’ was a compound verb that, in its literal sense, meant `to live the world,’ that is, `to mark off land’. Among each the Sumerians and also the Babylonians (and terribly probably among the Assyrians as well) wedding was basically a business arrangement designed to assure Associate in Nursingd uphold an orderly society. although there was Associate in Nursing inevitable emotional part to wedding, its prime intent within the eyes of the state wasn't friendly relationship however procreation; not personal happiness within the gift however communal continuity for the longer term (275-276).

This was, no doubt, the `official’ read of wedding and there's no proof to recommend that a person and girl set to easily marry on their own (although there's proof of one or two habitation while not marrying).  Bertman writes, “Every wedding began with a legal contract. Indeed, as Mesopotamian law expressed, if a person ought to marry while not having initial required and dead a wedding contract, the lady he `marries’ wouldn't be his wife…every wedding began not with a joint call by 2 folks dotty however with a negotiation between representatives of 2 families” (276). Once the wedding contract was signed within the presence of witnesses, the ceremony might be planned.

 the marriage ceremony had to incorporate a feast so as to be thought of legitimate. The course of the wedding method had 5 stages that required to be discovered so as for the couple to be lawfully married:

The engagement/marriage contract;

• Payment of the families of the bride and groom to every alternative (the dowery and bride-price);
• The ceremony/feast;
• The bride moving to her father-in-law’s home;
• Sexual intercourse between the couple with the bride expected to be a virgin on her night and to become pregnant.

If anybody of those steps wasn't performed, or not performed properly (such because the bride not changing into pregnant), the wedding might be nullified. within the event the bride clad to not be a virgin, or couldn't conceive, the groom may come back her to her family. He would got to come back her dowery to her family however would retreat to the bride-price his family had paid.