The Jewish Life Cycle - The Question of Marriage

Primary Texts

Parallel Activities:

What’s in a wedding?

Counting your blessings

Glassbreaking!

CHAPTER FOUR - The Question of Marriage

A: BACKGROUND

9. The marriage as ceremony: examining the ritual

Having discussed the way that marriage is perceived in Judaism and examined some of the factors that have caused major changes in that perception over time, it is time to turn to the ceremonial aspects of marriage.

We will examine the ceremony and the ritual surrounding marriage, and attempt to understand the practical and symbolic significances of the elements within the ceremony. There are many elements in the marriage ceremony, so they will be addressed separately, and together, at different depths.

It is also important to note that the order of the different elements has changed over the centuries and we will take the elements as they exist nowadays:

The Main Ceremony/ies

In essence, from Rabbinic times until the early Middle Ages (around the twelfth century) there was a betrothal ceremony, which legally bound the two parties a full year before the marriage itself.

At this point in time, because of various problems that had been encountered with this practice, this early betrothal ceremony was discontinued as a legally binding act. Since then, the betrothal (Kiddushin or Erusin) has become part of the actual ceremony, so that the service under the Chuppah (wedding canopy) in fact includes what were once two separate rituals, the Kiddushin and the Nissuin (the marriage itself).

This will be explored in greater detail in relation to the wedding ceremony; there are a number of other elements that should be addressed first:

Rituals - Tena'im

A tradition that has been renewed is that of tena'im (conditions between the couple, or their parents), a ceremony that had generally fallen into disuse in all but the most formal sense in the Jewish world as a whole. This is the signing of a separate document called the tena'im, laying down the terms agreed by the two sides for the marriage to take place successfully, to the satisfaction of both parties. The Yiddish term for this is a "vort".

In the distant past, the tena'im, sometimes verbal, sometimes written, were agreed upon at the time of betrothal, usually a year before the wedding as mentioned above. A plate was broken to symbolise the contract.

From the Middle Ages, this changed, since the betrothal and marriage ceremonies were brought together: this meant that the tena'im tended to become largely irrelevant, because they were signed at the time of betrothal, essentially to guarantee that the marriage would take place.

Today, much of the orthodox world still practices the signature of a formal document simply stating that the wedding will take place. This document is often signed at the same time as the ketubah, just before the ceremony. Where there is a separate ceremony, it is either at the official announcement of the engagement, or closer to the date of the marriage - and it usually retains the broken plate ceremony that characterised it in previous times.

It should be noted that the tena'im, while legally binding, were not a Halachic requirement for the marriage and therefore Halachic Jews have no problem dropping them.

The article by Rabbi Ramon is an explanation of how two modern partners renewed the idea of a separate tena'im ceremony, held in New York prior to the wedding, which was held in Jerusalem. For this ceremony, they created a document of tena'im, stating their specific mutual agreements concerning a number of areas of married life. These included decisions, such as spending some time studying together every week, making time to be together every week, teaching their children certain languages (bringing them up in Hebrew and English, teaching them Arabic at a certain stage), etc.