Hanging a lock during a wedding is customary in many countries around the world. The modern custom came from the pages of the novel by an Italian writer and took root, despite the fact that Russia has its own rituals associated with castles and weddings.
After painting in the registry office, the newlyweds set off on their wedding journey to the traditional places of attending wedding ceremonies. Be sure to include in the program visits to bridges, where two rituals are performed at once. The groom must carry the bride in his arms along the entire bridge and together they hang the padlock on the fence. The lock is locked and the keys are thrown into the water.
This should symbolize love, tightly closed and protected from unkind interference in the relationship of the couple. But what about free, inspiring love? Somehow locking does not fit with boundless happiness.
Locks are bought in regular stores or made to order. They carry out engraving with names and dates of marriage registration, make inscriptions. What is enough for the invention of the organizers and the financial capabilities of the customers of the ceremony.
Where did this custom come from and how old is it
A custom from the category of newfangled and artificially introduced into life.
The writer Federico Moccia lived in Italy, wrote a book called "Three meters above the sky." And it occurred to him that the heroes of his novel should seal the oath of allegiance with a lock, locked on the lattice of the Roman bridge over the Tiber River.
After the book was published in 1992, the custom rolled around the world like a snowball. Lovers rushed to hang locks on the fences of all bridges in a row, in all cities of the world. The organizers of weddings intercepted him from them and included him in the script of weddings.
The custom became a punishment and a headache for the city authorities. The bridges, which adorned the cities with their openwork lattices, turned into something ugly, bristling with castles of different sizes.
Locks are regularly cut off and thrown away, which completely deprives the custom of the meaning of “fastening eternal love”.
Why, one wonders, hang the symbol of indestructibility if it is banally cut off in the nearest raid and thrown into a landfill?
At the same time, if you ask all the participants in the wedding ceremony, from the newlyweds themselves to the guests, whether they have read the book of an Italian, then few people will answer in the affirmative. “It’s accepted, it seems, to hang locks, so we hang them.”
Signs and beliefs about castles in ancient Russia
Meanwhile, in pagan times, Russia had its own rituals and signs associated with castles and the creation of a new family. They had a slightly different meaning and differed in execution.
It was believed that when the newlyweds carried the young wife across the threshold of their joint home (immediately after this and before anyone else entered), a castle was buried or hidden under the threshold. The key was thrown away in a place where no one could ever find it.
Thus, it was not love as such that was locked, but peace and prosperity, the well-being of a new family nest.
In other versions, the castle was hidden under the threshold of the future home by the bride and groom after the betrothal, so that no one and nothing could violate the wedding agreements and destroy the relationship between the lovers.
This Russian custom, full of meaning, seems to be the most acceptable in a wedding ceremony. And the ceremony is observed, and the appearance of the city bridges is not spoiled.
Now, thanks to Internet awareness, many newlyweds are abandoning the meaningless new custom of hanging locks during weddings. They are looking for rituals-amulets in the traditions of their people, in which our ancestors believed and in which there is much more meaning and wisdom.
