Insert A Png File Into Acad

Marriage in Greece: προαυλία

The marriage ceremony in Athens was a sequence of events that included three days: the eve of the wedding , προαυλ ί α; wedding day , γ ά μος ; the day after the wedding , τ ὰ ἐ πα ύ λια . The terms προαυλ ί α and ἐ πα ύ derived from the verb λια α λ ὐ ί ζεσθαι , sleep rough, spend the night in the open . The favorite month of the Athenians to celebrate the marriage was to gamelion _final January-early February in our schedule and the seventh month of the Athenian calendar, which is named after the feast of ἱ ερ ὸ ς γ ά μος in honor of Zeus and Hera _ and the preferred days, the full moon .

Pollux is which designated a προαυλ ί α the day before the wedding . day was devoted to preparations for the festival and a series of rituals and traditions, which were propitiatory sacrifices, baths and offerings. was one of the few times when it was left to women to participate actively. These sacrifices were given the name of τ ὰ προτ έ λεια . Hesychius of Alexandria says at this point: τ ὰ προτ έ λεια πρ ὸ μι ᾶ ς τ ν γαμ ῶ ῶ ν τ ς παρθ ῆ έ νου . And as he himself says , it was at the same time, a sacrifice and a feast: ἡ πρ τ ὸ ῶ ν γ ά μων θυσ ί α, κα ὶ ἑ ορτ ή . It is therefore a religious act sacrifice was held by the father of the bride and the Artemis consecrated and Fates.

Some critics move the sacrifice of προτ έ λεια the wedding day itself and recognize in him the sacrifice that was made immediately before the banquet wedding. But while in this case the presence of the groom was required in the present one appears, as we can extract the text of Iphigenia at Aulis that it was a sacrifice father of the bride without the presence of one: the messenger tells the rumors in the camp of the Greeks:

have been devoted to the young Artemis, Lady of Aulis, but who is going to marry? (V.433-34)

Ἀ ρτ έ μιδι προτελ ί ζουσι τ ὴ ν νε ά νιδα, Α λ ὐ ί δος ἀ ν ά σση. τ ς νιν ί ἄ ξετα ί ποτε;

And when Agamemnon announces the marriage of Iphigenia near (v. 717 ὅ ταν σελ ή νης ε ὐ τυχ ὴ ς ἔ λθ ῃ κ ύ κλος ), you Clytemnestra question (v. 718 ):

προτ έ λεια δ ' ἤ δη παιδ ὸ ς ἔ σφαξας θε ᾷ ;

Have you offered to the goddess preliminary sacrifice the child?

According Richard Seaford ( The Tragic Wedding. The Journal of Hellenic Studies 107 (1987): 108 ) normal function προτ έ λεια seems to have been to give life to the deity of an animal in place of the life of the bride . In fact, often the Athenian bride was compared with an animal led to slaughter (remember back to about the tragedy of Iphigenia that believing girlfriend, was taken to sacrifice for his own father) Other authors also agree with this view: Avagianou ( Sacred Marriage, 16 ) argues that the wedding ritual is closely related to a holy sacrifice, and that the bride herself would be the sacrificial victim . Moreover, menstrual flow of a woman was often compared with the blood that flows from the slaughtered animal. Related to this, there are also Greek word ἀ μν ί ον (where amniotic ) designating the vessel to collect the blood of sacrifice and is in turn , connected to ἀ μν ς ό (lamb /-a)

Although undoubtedly the ceremony wedding was a major event in the life of man, not represent for him a rite of passage into adulthood as other women accounted for . In fact, this rite of passage to adulthood had been made by the boyfriend years ago. Instead, be the night before the wedding when the bride ofrendaría the goddess Artemis, in the ceremony called the ἀ παρχα ί , everything that represented his childhood, symbolizing well, goodbye to his childhood and entering adulthood. Often also offered to the goddess a lock of his hair or belt (gr. ζ ώ νη ) with magical charge that it entails and that could be interpreted as an invocation to Artemis Lisizona , which unleashes belt, or what is, a call to be a mother, a metaphor procreation.

There different interpretations regarding these offerings : Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones ( Aphrodite's Tortoise: The Veiled Woman of Ancient Greece , Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2003, 219 ) says these offerings to Artemis would leave the bride metaphorically naked and ready to take the next step: becoming a woman . Oakley and Sinos ( Wedding in Ancient Athens, 12 ) say that the offerings were probably intended to ask permission from God to leave his area of \u200b\u200bprotection (as illustrated by the myth of Callisto , leave the protection of Artemis without permission may be dangerous) And, anyway, all this seems a contradiction about what we saw in the previous post . That is, the woman would be all their lives under the guardianship of a male (her father, husband, son, brother ...) and never reach the age not civil enough to command and lead their own lives or their own property . Was legally equivalent to a child . know the text of Aristotle (Policy I 1260 to 11-14):

κα ὶ π ᾶ σιν ἐ νυπ ά ὲ ρχει μ ν τ ὰ μ ό ρια τ ῆ ς ψυχ ῆ ς, ἀ λλ' ἐ νυπ ά ρχει διαφερ ό ντως· ὁ μ ὲ ν γ ὰ ρ δο ῦ λος ὅ λως ο ὐ κ ἔ χει τ ὸ βουλευτικ Ό ν, τ ὸ ὲ δ θ ῆ λυ ἔ έ χει μ ν, ἀ λλ ' ἄ κυρον, ὁ δ πα ὲ ῖ ς ἔ χειμ έ ν, ἀ λλ ' ἀ τελ έ ς

So marriage may simply represent the last step in the process of domestication of women . Since, as a girl, is under the protection of wild free Artemis, the marriage entrains and ased. In Hippocrates found that παρθ έ νοι are vulnerable to hallucinations because your uterus has not been open marital relations. The woman could only be physically healthy if maintained frequent intercourse, and bringing children into this world. Followers Hippocrates prescribed sex and pregnancy as a panacea for many diseases of women. This explains that the company understood the marriage as the surest path to a healthy παρθ έ νος .

The last of the ceremonies yesterday was the bridal bath . General use in Greece, but differed in their practices according to the city. In Athens, the young brides used the water fountain Callirhoe . But the ritual had certain characteristics: the container that was used to collect and transport the water was loutróforo , a very special container also associated with the funeral ritual . The procession should be formed by a child from among the closest relatives and a girl, besides the bride and young people with torches, which implies that the ceremony would take place at dusk . It appears in this image of a loutróforo Archaeological Museum of Athens . In it we see the procession preceded by a young woman carries two torches, which is a child crowned with myrtle playing aulos. Behind the girl is wearing the loutróforo that flies an Eros; followed the bride covered with a blanket and with bowed head and closed the procession two young men, one of which takes another gun.

Finally, we can not fail to note that not only the container carrying the water for bathing is related to the funeral ritual, but also the fact that the sacrifice offered by the father of the bride to consecrate it to Artemis and the Fates . The interpretation seems obvious: marriage was felt as a separation, as the output of a world (the children) and entry into another (adult life), just as death is the final transition from one life to another.