“One Little Hour”

This fancy title is just academese for wedding showers. What purpose do wedding showers (and baby showers) fill? Sure, on the individual level they help new couples just starting out by pooling resources from the community. No one individual gives everything, but through the contributions of most everyone in the couple’s community, they end up with most everything they need. Call it small scale Marxism: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Jes and I are getting married tomorrow. We had little kitchenware, dishes, or other home furnishings. People better established than us contributed crockpots and silverware to give us a hand. This is nice, especially since I am the beneficiary. The expectation is that we will return the favor to those in our formerly less advantaged position.

But wedding showers and gift-giving serves another purpose; it encourages adherence to cultural norms. If a couple follows the culturally dictated path, they reap economic benefits along with the goodwill of their friends and family. If the couple strays from the accepted tradition, they often lose those incentives.

If Jes and I had chosen to elope, have a child out of wedlock, or spurned our cultural tradition in some other way, we would have lost out on the gifts and goodwill. Though people probably don’t think about these incentives on a conscious level, I wonder what affect this system has on cultural traditions.

A study might examine adherence to cultural norms in families/communities located close geographically versus those who have less contact on a regular basis. Perhaps another look could be taken at couples on the basis of gifts given in proportion to annual income.

The use of economics to enforce cultural traditions is morally neutral. Morality is contingent upon the traditions being upheld. Not all traditions are created equal.

PS - I am getting married tomorrow and I promise that socio-economics and cultural mores will not be on my mind for the next week!(-;