Bedouin Marriage Ceremony

I am not real familiar with Jewish wedding ceremonies, but because of their close association with Bedouins (since Abraham was a Bedouin and many in the Mideast are descendants of Abraham, particularly through Ishmael) this description might find many similarities with the current orthodox Jewish community. If so, an attempt to incorporate ancient Jewish Bedouin marriage elements could be the best route for trying to introduce lost positive cultural elements regarding marriage into the Christian community.

Before covering the wedding, I will go over a bit of history to show some of Satan’s destruction that might have seemed good and proper at the time, but has led to much of today’s licentious behavior.

Many non-Christians like to point to Queen Victoria and the Victorian sexual mores as reflective of Christian behavior. Satan always uses a truth and then adds a twist while blowing it out of proportion. That is what he has effectively done with Victorianism. I am taking liberties with this historical treatment, basing it upon my past knowledge, so it will be lacking academic rigor. I will leave a more rigorous approach to others to fine tune any discrepancies. A basic understanding of Victorian cultural impacts suffices to make the point that things are severely askew.

Not everything from the Victorian time period is bad. The Victorian period provided many wonderful things in regard to sexuality. Here are some of them.

Recognized the sinful nature of man and the need for external constraints. Many restrictions for couples were in place in an attempt to always keep them properly chaperoned.
Men were required to conduct themselves with the utmost chivalry in the presence of a woman and with the utmost propriety.
Any advances by the man toward a woman required permission from the parents (who were the ultimate responsible chaperones)
Even though women lacked some of the rights of men, they were elevated to a very high social status during this period of time.
Men could have benefited the most from this period of time as they had some very good external cultural factors that could have helped them in constraining their natural ravishment and to help to foster the proper element of love that goes beyond physical beauty.

The negatives were:

Women tended to view sex within marriage as a duty.
A man’s ravishing behavior was viewed as animalistic and needing to be held back.
Sex was viewed by many as only for procreation.
Women were required the utmost propriety within marriage with all sorts of rules for proper conduct within the marriage bed.

The result:

It became common for husbands to have a mistress.
The mistress was selected because she at least put on the appearance of enjoying sex and did not see it as dirty.
The wife was merely for social acceptability and for bearing heirs.
The mistress was selected because she would ravish her keeper.
The mistress had none or far fewer restraints on conduct in the bedroom than the wife.
Those who couldn’t afford a mistress opted for prostitutes to satisfy their need for ravishment.

This assessment is rather simplistic and it might not have been the norm, but it created a twisted perception that had a profound impact on the culture and on the development of future cultures. Hollywood loves to portray Christians in this constrained Victorian light.

When I cover the Bedouin wedding, what I want to point out is the following:

How the Bedouin wedding more perfectly fits in with scripture.
How the Victorian culture skews the proper marriage relationship and invites Satan to create havoc within the marriage.

The Bedouins at this wedding were from a Muslim clan that was extremely orthodox. The women in the general public wore the full Abaya and the men the traditional white coverings and the head scarves (some white with embroidered fringes and others checkered).

This was actually a double wedding with both marriages arranged. In most of Muslim society the marriages are arranged, but the couples interact and there is generally consent during this “courtship time” between the parties. During the courtship they are always chaperoned. Not to be chaperoned would be considered a disgrace and could actually result in violence to the point of death.

The wedding ceremony is completely separated between the men and women. I was in a section of the building where there were the men and my wife in another section where there were only females.

In the men’s section there were no boys present. I would assume this is a restriction that is a part of the passage for the males. Once they are of age then they are allowed into the male ceremony and expected to conduct themselves with propriety.

The men’s section was very subdued and proper. The men would sit in comfortable stuffed leather chairs or stand and engage in low volume conversation. A wide variety of non-alcoholic drinks were served and the gathering culminated in a large buffet. After eating, the men’s section quickly emptied and the wedding party and others then drove around honking their horns and making a lot of noise. That was the greatest extent of any bombastic behavior, other than that there was a brief time where about 20 men got into two rows, facing each other while singing a cappella and did some kind of dance where they would kick their feet in unison from left to right. Also, when it was the mosque prayer time about 25% of the group got out some runner rugs, faced Mecca and did their prayers in front of everyone else. I was told that the other 75% had already attended a Mosque.

The women’s section was the direct opposite. In general, they tossed away their Abayas, leaving them with risqué clothing that one would generally associate with women of the night. Then they turned on loud raucous music, talked and squealed loudly (those long screaming tongue rolls), and danced around with few discernible inhibitions. They were not afraid to gyrate and shake in every way imaginable. Their gyrations would sometimes become so frantic that certain body parts would flop out of their clothing with no looks of embarrassment. My wife was absolutely astounded at everything that went on. She said our concept of the subdued Arab women is totally the opposite. It was the Western women who were sitting down and pretty much subdued into silence. And the other amazing element was that the women brought their young daughters and had them dressed up in risqué looking outfits, joining in with all the wild dancing.

Here is why I think this is reflective of a good cultural context for Scriptural marriage.

The joining together of the couples is dependent upon the agreement of both sides of their extended families. Harmony is already in place to help ensure a good and smooth union.
The men’s section conducts themselves with restraint. In a Christian context, it would entail elements that expressed how a husband should love his wife. This love entails understanding her as being the weaker vessel (more delicate) and then conducting himself with tenderness and sensitivity. Here, Christians might attempt to develop a male ceremony where the young boys would be exposed to this corporately, learning to behave themselves with constraint and learning to respect the young girls and women and to have the proper constraints as they grow older.
The women’s side is reflective of the ravishment that men desire from their wives. This does not come naturally with a woman as it does with men and therefore needs to be fostered. Therefore young girls grow up in a culture where the inhibitions are thrown away once you enter into that marriage relationship with their husband. Out in society everything is done with the utmost of propriety, but in the marriage relationship, the Abaya comes off and a husband is presented with extremely sensual undergarments that include a ravishing wife unleashed. These young girls learn this naturally from a very young age. They are learning these concepts experientially whereas if they were only taught cognitively, it would be hard to transcend the cognitive into a natural part of their behavior.

When comparing the Bedouin with the Victorian, you should see the missing component that would tend to drive Victorian men to a mistress: the element of the woman ravishing the man. Most of the scriptural elements are all in place within the Bedouin context. Perhaps from the early days from Noah these Bedouin ways were the least tainted by Satan’s mucking about.

Nowadays in Western Society, the wildness that takes place in the women’s section is thrown into the mosh pit of mixed gender. Men with their ravishment unconstrained are thrown into the pit with women who are half naked and publicly ravishing the men around them, both physically and mentally. Is it any surprise how decadent our society has become, with so many Christians following the same course as the world.

How this could be rectified within Christian circles might seem hopeless. Perhaps you might have a revolutionary idea that would spread like wildfire throughout Christendom. What a blessing that would be as many young women and men would then be given the help they so desperately need to help them achieve the ultimate bliss God desires for those in a God-ordained marriage.

Ralph Wendt