One of the most anxious and exciting days for every person is the wedding day. However, few people know that before the rite of marriage, an engagement was previously obligatory in Russia, and this day was considered as important as the direct binding of marriage ties. After all, an engagement is a solemn proclamation of the mutual consent of two hearts in love, after which he and she received the right to be called the bride and groom.
In ancient times in Russia, on this day, a solemn meeting of the parents of the bride and groom was held, where they gave their parental blessing for a happy and long life. By tradition, at the festival there was an exchange of bread and salt between parents, after which everyone fell silent for several minutes. Before dinner, a man gave his beloved a beautiful engagement ring with a precious stone, after which they called the bride and groom. Engagement is the most significant day before the wedding, so the young people prepared for it especially carefully. In rich and noble families, as a rule, this was a dinner party or ball, to which influential people from all over the district were invited. The guests gave gifts to the bride and congratulated the young with the first step towards joining the holy marriage.
Today, not everyone celebrates the engagement, and most often on this day an official meeting of parents takes place, after which a party is organized. The future husband gives his bride an engagement ring, which indicates serious intentions to marry her beloved girl. The future wife can also give her beloved some important thing for him, which he will keep for a long time as a memory of this important day for him. In fact, an engagement is a kind of discussion of intentions to marry young people, since the word itself is based on the concept of “say,” that is, to conspire. Parents “got engaged” to marry their children, after which they finally scheduled the wedding day.
However, if you study this Slavic tradition more closely, you should know that the engagement is not the first stage of betrothal. Before him there was still the so-called matchmaking, when the groom sends the matchmakers to the future bride with an offer to get engaged.
We must also not forget that in the old days, in addition to marriage, young people were also married in the church without fail. Since ancient times, our people have been pious, therefore faith in God is traditionally inherent in most people. It is noteworthy that the Bible does not say anything about the rite of engagement, which gives grounds for many churchmen to claim that this rite appeared at a later time. At the same time, there is information that even the ancient Slavs before the era of Christianity in Russia already had established traditions that included this custom.
Engagement in the church is understood as an announcement to God of his voluntary and firm intention to marry and to provide a marriage vow. It is noteworthy that parents may not be present here, since the main thing in this process is to inform God of the firmness of their intention. On the day of marriage, many believing young people perform a wedding ceremony in the church, after which it is believed that the bride and groom are bound by marriage for the rest of their lives, and God witnesses this.
In different areas of our country there were their own characteristics and traditions of engagement, however, in general, this did not change the essence of the event. Today, not all newlyweds celebrate this day, since many do not even know what engagement is. Despite the gradual loss of tradition, all people should remember and know about such holidays, as they are our cultural heritage, which we must preserve and pass on to future generations.