Does marriage predate Abrahamic religions?

by QuantumSand
400-Rabbits

Marriage, among the Aztecs, was an arranged process. According to SahagĂșn, it began with the family of the potential groom deciding he was ready, typically after he had completed his time in the telpochcalli (youth house) which consisted his formal education. The father would bring his son before him inform him of that he was mature enough to be married.

After that, there would be a gathering of older men, inclunding the tiachcuah, the "masters of the youths" who were older men who taught in the telpochcalli and had fought in the numerous wars of the Aztecs. Accompanying the older men would be youths carrying axes to symbolize the sundering of the groom from their ranks. After being served tamales, chocolate, and tobacco, the older men would give speeches marking the transition of the potential groom from youth to adult man.

The next step would be obtaining the services of matchmakers. These were older women who would determine which young woman would make the best match, and then beseech the family of the young woman to agree to the match. It was apparently considered inappropriate to accept right away, so there would be a few days wherein the matchmakers would visit the family of the potential bride to plead their case.

Once an agreement was arrived at, the next step would be to consult the calendar for good days to marry. Good day signs for marriage mentioned were Reed, Monkey, Crocodile, Eagle, and House.

A banquet was held the day before the wedding, again with tamales, chocolate, and tobacco. In addition to the families, the masters of youth were also invited. During this time gifts were laid before the hearth for the couple. At this time the bride was ceremonially bathed and bedecked with red feathers on her body and pyrite flakes on her face. The older women, as they did this, would lecture her on the proper behavior of an adult married woman, which included being considerate, respectful, well-spoken, as well as tending to the hearth and taking care of the sweeping.

The wedding itself would take place at night, starting with the female relatives of the groom proceeding to the bride's house. They would then carry her in a black cloak in a torchlight procession to the groom's house where she would be placed on the left side of the hearth and the groom on the right side. The mother of the groom would give the bride gifts of a tunic and skirt to the bride and a cape and breechclout to the groom.

Importantly, the gift of the tunic and the cape would actually be placed on the couple, and would then be tied together by the matchmakers. The next step involved the mother of the groom washing the mouth of the bride and then feeding her four bites of tamale, whereupon the bride would feed the groom four bites of tamale. After this, the couple was escorted by the matchmakers to bed for a four day honeymoon. After the four day their straw bed would be placed out in the courtyard and there would be another feast, during which the female relatives of the groom would give the bride advice, and the female relative of the bride would give the groom advice.

Later, the Spanish showed up and introduced Christianity.

theeasternbloc

Ancient Mesopotamia definitely had a concept of marriage. There are a couple of sources I can grab quickly. The first would be the Amarna Letters that date to the Late Bronze Age (circa 1350's BCE). This royal correspondence between the great kings of the Near East has a real bounty of knowledge. In it, we can find many references to royal unions to solidify alliances between rival kingdoms. This passage between a Kassite King and the Egyptian Pharoah mentions marriage,"With regard to the girl, my daughter, about whom you wrote to me in view of marriage, she has become a woman, she is nubile."

Also, married and unmarried women are referenced heavily in the Laws of Hammurabi which would be dated to around 1750 BCE. Law 162 states, "If a man marries a wife, she bares him children, and that woman then goes to her fate, her father shall have no claim to her dowry; her dowry belongs only to her children."

The goddess Tiamat marries Qingu in the Enuma Elis, the Babylonian Epic of Creation.

There are thousands of records of traders working abroad sending cuneiform tablets home to their wives who are controlling the family estate while the husband is away.

You could even go as far back as the The Epic of Gilgamesh (circa 2100 BCE) in which Gilgamesh takes the right of sleeping with the bride before the husband on their wedding night. This is one of the reasons Uruk is so upset with their king.

Marriage, in all its various forms, existed in Ancient Mesopotamia.

kent_eh

Are you asking if it pre-dates the Abrahamic traditions, or if it pre-dates contact with people following the Abrahamic traditions?

North American and Australian native peoples did have marriage ceremonies and celebrations before contact, but, due to the lack of written records among those people, it is difficult to determine how ancient those traditions are.

There is, unfortunately, not a lot of direct information available to reference on-line. Mostly just passing references.

Here (p14-18) is one of the more in-depth writings available on-line regarding Australian Aboriginal marriage traditions, and even that is pretty sparse.

cleopatra_philopater

Although a specific institutionalised ritual for marriage was not formalised in ancient Egypt, the concept of marriage was central to society and spirituality. I actually describe the history of marriage in ancient Egypt here.