Finnish wedding

The traditional Finnish wedding is rather peculiar ceremony. Actually, the traditional Finnish marriage is the phenomenon of no lesser peculiarity. It is interesting that becoming a wife girl had to live in the house of her husband. But she wasn't a mistress of that home but only a wife of landlord's son. She was obliged to be obedient to her mother-in-law and does everything the mother-in-law will tell her to do. Together with her husband she lived in the house of his parents next to other brothers of her husband and their wives. They had no rights at all and were obliged to follow all of the restrictions mother-in-law created for them.

It is rather tough to live like that, though the traditions are traditions and people have to honor them. To be a good wife and to have a right of living in her husband's house a girl had to be skillful at number of things. She had to be skillful and needling and shaving of ships and so on and so forth. There are also some demands concerning a man who wanted to get married, and those demands mostly concerns house working. There also were the matchmakers though they were not as important for Finnish people as they were for Janise and Jewish people.

There were special nights in spring when men were allowed to visit girls at night. Girls were gathered at special rooms and a man was allowed to enter the room accompanied with a matchmaker. The matchmaker did his best in order to make a deal and to perform previous engaging of the couple. In case if the previous engaging was successful the matchmakers walked out and continue their helping to other men. And the one whose previous engaging was successful was allowed to stay together with a girl in that room. Though, there were certain restrictions about his behavior, and in case if he broke those rules he was droved out and pronounced as the one who is not allowed to perform such visits.

But if everything was okay, there was a special time provided by rules when he had to leave the room. In several days the matchmakers visited house of her parents in order to perform official engaging. As a rule the matchmakers paid their visits in the evening in order to provide their activity with success. So, they visited the house of bride in order to give her a ring and to make a deal. At first the matchmakers were talking with girl's parents about some stuff and then changed the topic of speech according to their aims.

In case if parents of a girl were pleased with proposal they asked their daughter to enter the room that was a first sign of the successful engaging. Though, the final agreement was recognized with girl's acceptance of the ring. In case if girl refused the ring it was clear that nothing will happen and she disagrees to marry him. But, in case if she accepted the ring it was recognized as successful engaging. Once she touched that ring she was considered as touched with the guy. According to finish belief this girl was devoted to him once she touched it and there was no such power that would make her forget about him.