Tatar wedding - traditions and customs

Traditional Tatar wedding is the most important event in every family, traditions and rituals of which are rooted in the depths of centuries. Among the traditions can be identified three options for the creation of a new family: leaving the bride from home without obtaining parental blessing, wedding on matchmaking, as well as kidnapping a girl who did not consent to the wedding ceremony.

Matchmaking : As a rule, a Tatar wedding, whose traditions have not changed for decades, was held after the matchmaking. And the bride was usually chosen not by the groom himself, but by his parents, who then sent matchmakers to the girl's family to ask her father for consent to the marriage. If the parents of the bride agreed to a marriage, then they discussed the main "details" of the future marriage, the size of the ransom, and then began the necessary preparations for the solemn ceremony.

A modern Tatar wedding, the ransom of a bride under which is still an integral part of the procedure, differs from ancient ceremonies only in the features of gifts. In the old days, the parents of the bride received money, all kinds of living creatures, luxurious carpets, and now as kalym often used apartment or car. At a dinner devoted to matchmaking, young people are usually not present, and instead of the bride and groom at the banquet, their fathers become the main culprits of the celebration. At the end of the ceremony, the groom's family is offered a sherbet, which indicates that the bride's parents accepted the bride and fully agree with his size.

Religious ritual : Each Tatar wedding begins with the ceremony of "nikah" - a religious ceremony, during which special conditions of marriage are recorded in the book of the mullah's registration. These conditions include all the gifts given to the bride and her parents, as well as the amount of kalym and the products needed for the wedding dinner. Of particular importance in such cases has always been the amount of money that a future husband, if he wishes to divorce, is obligated to pay to his wife.

After the financial conditions of the marriage were fully described in the registration book, the mulla sought the consent of the young to enter into marriage, and since the bride and groom were not present at the ceremony, the fathers answered for them. At that time, the bride usually was either in another building, or behind an opaque curtain, and two witnesses went to her to make sure she agreed to get married. When the mullah heard the affirmative answer from the witnesses, he began to read various excerpts from the Koran, which are devoted to the marriage.

Celebration of the wedding : A classic Tatar wedding began with celebrations in the bride's house for two or three days, and the girl's parents invited and treated visiting matchmakers to themselves. When the guests were leaving, the bride's family began to prepare carefully for the groom's meeting, preparing a beautiful room for the young couple, which was decorated with the most beautiful things from the dowry. In this room, the bride and groom lived for several days after the wedding ceremony, and after a joint bath visit the groom had to change into new clothes sewn by his young wife, and then gave her various valuable gifts.

During the first arrival of the groom in the house of the bride, the young man was to bring a variety of gifts, as well as pay a ransom for the opportunity to enter the courtyard, pay for the right to enter the room to his bride. He also presented gifts to people who drowned a bath and stelishem soft wedding bed, gave small gifts to each of the village children, specially went to the house of the parents of the bride. Therefore, going to his own wedding, the young man usually took with him a large suitcase full of gifts and all kinds of treats.