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Keynote Remarks on Marriage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Riv-Ellen Prell
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Extract

Why do we dance at weddings? What are we marking and celebrating? Scholars of the family and society have abandoned their efforts to discover for marriage a universal definition which was once thought of as helpful for answering these questions. The search for the lowest common denominator of marriage in all cultures that would reveal the universally shared features of the institution offers little insight into this ubiquitous and complex human relationship (Gough, 1959). Love, economy, alliance, and even oppression have all been abandoned as possible common threads weaving together two people in a socially sanctioned union. We must discover alternative questions to ask in order to understand what marriage reveals about a society and how it functions for the group and the individuals.

Information

Type
Dancing into Marriage: Collected Papers on Jewish Wedding Dances
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , Fall 1985, pp. 55 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1985

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References

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