Text by Timothy Murphy • 126 illustrations, 16 in full color • 192 pages
4 x 4-3/8" • Hardcover • ISBN 0-7892-0524-6 • $5.95
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Excerpt from the Introduction by Timothy Murphy

Charles Darwin didn't put matrimony very high up on his evolutionary ladder. Ever the scientist, in the 1830s, as a bachelor considering marriage, he sat down to weigh the advantages of remaining single versus tying the knot. Among the former, he listed "freedom to go where one liked" and "not forced to visit relatives, or bend to every trifle." And in defense of marriage? An "object to be loved & played with," he figured, "—better than a dog anyhow."

Hardly romantic words, yet they get at some of the fundamental anxiety and ambivalence that surrounds what is perhaps life's most monumental passage—the wedding day. The popular imagination seems to be full of images of runaway brides and stand-ups at the altar: Dickens' Miss Havisham jilted by her groom and ever after bitter toward all men, crumbling away in a dark house, her wedding cake a grim temple of mice and cobwebs. Dustin Hoffman interrupting Katharine Ross' nuptials at the last minute to free her from the unhappy bonds of matrimony.

That reluctance doesn't seem to be limited to the western world either: among the Bajju of Nigeria, a girl weeps bitter public tears en route to her wedding because it would be considered tasteless and shocking if she looked happy about her fate. Ambivalence is thus ritualized and given free expression, something Anne Morrow might have appreciated when she wrote to a friend of her impending wedding to Charles Lindbergh: "Don't wish me happiness...wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor—I will need them all."

And yet, despite all the jokes and fears, despite the fact that many women once met theirs with dread and many men still do, weddings continue to take place as they have for centuries. Across eras and hemispheres, weddings have remained notably the same: the day when two people pledge to live the rest of their lives together in the eyes of their family, friends, religion, and state (or some combination thereof). Such hardiness begs the question: with all the cultural changes of the past few decades—greater sexual freedom, women's increased economic independence, soaring divorce rates, declining attachments to religion—why do people still go on having weddings? Love is probably at the center of the answer—but more on that later.

Why else? For one thing, everyone loves parties, both hosting and attending them, and a wedding is an opportunity (or even an excuse!) to throw perhaps the biggest party of a lifetime. The 1613 wedding (or, you might as correctly say, production) of England's Princess Elizabeth and Bohemia's Price Frederick involved mock naval battles on the Thames featuring thirty-six ships, five hundred sailors, and one thousand musketeers; fireworks exploding above four floating castles; giant puppets of Saint George, a beautiful maiden, a fire-eating dragon (all of which eventually burst into flames to the delight of onlookers); and an assortment of masked balls, theatricals, and other spectacles. When all was said and done, the royal exchequer was completely bankrupt and King James was forced to levy taxes to help make ends meet. On the other end of the spectrum, John Lennon and Yoko Ono fled to Gibraltar for their 1969 wedding, a private ceremony during which both wore white tennis shoes and dragged on cigarettes. In between those poles, of course, there's no end of room for all sorts of celebratory self-expression, which is amply represented in the following pages.