How Did Weddings Begin?

Throughout history, there have been three types of weddings. The first type was the marriage of primitive man, who simply stole the woman he wanted for his wife and dragged her off to his cave.

The second type, as man became more civilized, was marriage by contract or purchase. In this type, the groom bought the bride from her family, using money, cattle, or horses as payment. In fact, among the early Anglo-Saxons, the word “wed” meant this payment the groom’s family paid to the bride’s family, usually when the couple were still babies, to insure the marriage when the couple came of age.

The third type of marriage, practiced in most countries of the world today, is the marriage for love.