
- 272 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
This enlightening narrative takes a look at the wedding nightâits origins, history, customs, cultural expressions, and fictional representations through the ages. Though just outside of public view, the wedding night is loaded with expectation and consequence. The Wedding Night: A Popular History is an entertaining, accessible, touching, and humorous volume that looks at the previously unexplored topic of wedding history "between the sheets." Covering a kaleidoscopic array of cultural expressions, this unique study zooms in on what's quintessential and shares insights into the history of intimacy through the ages. The book traces the formalization of the wedding night in the ancient Near East and classical world, provides many examples of historically significant unions in European and American history, and describes the lively variety of traditions leading up to the present. Spicing their narrative with many piquant quotes from contemporary sources, the authors explore the rich cultural context for the wedding nightâprocessions, royal rituals, apparel, food-related traditions, and pranksâthroughout Europe and America in the 19th and 20th centuries. Separate chapters examine sex guides, jokes, and the bed as a special conjugal space.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: It Takes Two to . . .
- Chapter 2: The Classical Three-Step: Establishing the Wedding Pattern
- Chapter 3: Virginity to Consummation: The Rite of Passage
- Chapter 4: Proceeding to the Royal Bedroom
- Chapter 5: Merriment and Pranks
- Chapter 6: Tobias Nights
- Chapter 7: Early American Wedding Nights
- Chapter 8: The Spousals of Native Americans
- Chapter 9: Presidential Wedding Nights
- Chapter 10: Elopement
- Chapter 11: The Honeymoon
- Chapter 12: Guide for the Perplexed
- Chapter 13: Between the Sheets
- Chapter 14: The Bride Wore . . . Lingerie
- Chapter 15: The Food of Love
- Chapter 16: Arabian and Other Nights
- Chapter 17: An Occasion for Mirth
- Chapter 18: Do Not Disturb
- Appendix: Wedding Nights on the Silver Screen
- Index