A Wedding Denied

One of the questions I had for this project was about marriage. Antigone and Haemon were going to be getting married and having a joyous celebration (we had hoped) before these tragic circumstances broke out. What would that wedding in ancient Greece have looked like? Which of the Gods would have been invited? I'm betting Dionysus was probably at the top of the guest list...

These are questions that I assume would have been answered very well in The Wedding in Ancient Athens. A book that has undergone scholarly peer review, it has been reviewed by the journal Women's Studies. The reviewer claims that while it doesn't appear to be a well-researched book, it proves its critical readers wrong. It's chock-full of the rituals the wedding would have had. The authors of the book even used a "plethora" of vases to illustrate their points (246).

While the story of Antigone didn't take place in Athens - what the ceremony would have been like may have been pretty damn close. We'd at least get a sense of how much the family had been looking forward to the spectacular occasion before everything came crashing down. Were there rituals and processes Antigone had to turn away from in order to save her brother? Were there preparations Haemon and Ismene had been helping with? What effects did the battle between brothers have on the upcoming wedding? Etc.

This is a book I wouldn't mind reading. Maybe I should buy it new for $17.95 from Barnes and Noble.

Work Cited

Boland, Catherine. "The Wedding in Ancient Athens (Book)." Women's Studies 32.2 (2003): 246. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 31 Oct. 2010.