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A shotgun wedding is a wedding arranged in response to pregnancy resulting from premarital sex. [1] The phrase comes from the figurative imagining that the relatives of the pregnant bride threaten the reluctant male groom with a shotgun in order to ensure that he marries the woman.
One purpose of such a wedding can be to get recourse from the man for the act of impregnation; another reason is trying to ensure that the child is raised by both parents. In some cases, as in early U.S. and in the Middle East, a major objective was restoring the social honor of the mother. The practice is a loophole method of preventing the birth of illegitimate children, or if the marriage occurs early enough in the gestation period, to conceal the fact that conception had already occurred prior to marriage.
In some societies, the stigma attached to pregnancy out of wedlock can be enormous, and coercive means (in spite of the legal defense of undue influence) for gaining recourse are often seen as the prospective father-in-law's "right". Often, a couple will arrange a shotgun wedding without explicit outside encouragement, and some religious groups consider it a moral imperative to marry in that situation. [2]
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Premarital sexual relations remain taboo across all social strata throughout the Arab world. In many cases, fornication is illegal and even a criminal offence under Sharia law. Even when it is not, the social response can be extreme, especially against women who have lost their virginity prior to marriage.
In Arabian culture, shotgun weddings serve to obscure the fact that a baby was conceived prior to marriage. When that proves impossible, the social standing of the couple involved is irreparably damaged. Nevertheless, shotgun weddings help prevent the individuals involved, especially the women, from becoming social pariahs.
Apart from instances of regional slang, there is no universal, specific term for "shotgun weddings" in Arabic. This is because they are not recognised as a regular social phenomenon and because a successfully conducted Middle Eastern shotgun wedding is generally unknown to the guests. In some Persian Gulf nations, the term "police station marriage" (Arabic: زواج مخفر) may be the closest colloquial analogue for the concept of a "shotgun wedding". [3]
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Because of the sexual revolution beginning in the 1960s, the concepts of love, sexuality, procreation and marriage began to separate after being intimately entangled in social consciousness for centuries. [12] However, sexual practice had not always followed social convention, resulting in shotgun or Knobstick weddings.
In the United States and Canada, the use of duress or violent coercion to marry is no longer common, although many anecdotal stories and folk songs record instances of such coercion in 18th- and 19th-century America and Canada. Pressure to marry immediately due to pregnancy has become less common as the stigma associated with out-of-wedlock births has declined and the number of such births has increased. As a result, the typical, voluntary wedding during pregnancy might be more neutrally termed a mid-pregnancy marriage. [17] Mid-pregnancy weddings are common enough that many suppliers of both bridal gowns and maternity clothing sell wedding dresses that fit during the later stages of pregnancy. [17]
While a 2016 study suggests that couples who wed while pregnant do not necessarily have an increased risk of subsequent divorce, another study by Duke University from that same year demonstrated that, among whites, divorce rates increased from 19% for non-pregnant brides to 30%. [17] [18]
Handfasting is a traditional practice that, depending on the term's usage, may define an unofficiated wedding, a betrothal, or a temporary wedding. The phrase refers to the making fast of a pledge by the shaking or joining of hands.
A wedding is a ceremony in which two people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnicities, races, religions, denominations, countries, social classes, and sexual orientations. Most wedding ceremonies involve an exchange of marriage vows by a couple; a presentation of a gift ; and a public proclamation of marriage by an authority figure or celebrant. Special wedding garments are often worn, and the ceremony is sometimes followed by a wedding reception. Music, poetry, prayers, or readings from religious texts or literature are also commonly incorporated into the ceremony, as well as superstitious customs.
Cohabitation is an arrangement where people who are not married, usually couples, live together. They are often involved in a romantic or sexually intimate relationship on a long-term or permanent basis. Such arrangements have become increasingly common in Western countries since the late 20th century, led by changing social views, especially regarding marriage.
A wife is a woman in a marital relationship. A woman who has separated from her partner continues to be a wife until their marriage is legally dissolved with a divorce judgment; or until death, depending on the kind of marriage. On the death of her partner, a wife is referred to as a widow. The rights and obligations of a wife to her partner and her status in the community and law vary between cultures and have varied over time.
Premarital sex is sex before marriage. Premarital sex is sex between two people who are not married to each other. Premarital sex is considered a sin by a number of religions and also considered a moral issue which is taboo in many cultures. Since the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, it has become accepted by certain liberal movements, especially in Western countries. A 2014 Pew study on global morality found that premarital sex was considered particularly unacceptable in "Muslim Majority Countries", such as Malaysia, Jordan and Pakistan, each having over 90% disapproval, while people in Western European countries were the most accepting, with Spain, Germany, and France expressing less than 10% disapproval.
Bundling, or tarrying, is the traditional practice of wrapping a couple together in a bed sometimes with a board between the two of them, usually as a part of courting behavior. The tradition is thought to have originated either in the Netherlands or in the British Isles and later became common in colonial United States, especially in Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Bundling is associated with the Amish as a form of courtship.
Elopement is a marriage which is conducted in a sudden and secretive fashion, sometimes involving a hurried flight away from one's place of residence together with one's beloved with the intention of getting married without parental approval. An elopement is contrasted with an abduction, in which either the bride or groom has not consented, or a shotgun wedding in which the parents of one coerce both into marriage.
In Islamic law (sharia), marriage is a legal and social contract between two individuals. Marriage is an act of Islam and is strongly recommended. Polygyny is permitted in Islam under some conditions, but polyandry is forbidden.
Quaker weddings are the traditional ceremony of marriage within the Religious Society of Friends. Quaker weddings are conducted in a similar fashion to regular Quaker meetings for worship, primarily in silence and without an officiant or a rigid program of events, and therefore differ greatly from traditional Western weddings. In some respects a Quaker marriage resembles a common-law marriage.
Bride kidnapping, also known as marriage by abduction or marriage by capture, is a practice in which a man abducts the woman he wishes to marry.
Forced marriage is a marriage in which one or more of the parties is married without their consent or against their will. A marriage can also become a forced marriage even if both parties enter with full consent if one or both are later forced to stay in the marriage against their will.
Marriage law is the body of legal specifications and requirements and other laws that regulate the initiation, continuation, and validity of marriages, an aspect of family law, that determine the validity of a marriage, and which vary considerably among countries in terms of what can and cannot be legally recognized by the state.
Ayako Moriya, formerly Princess Ayako of Takamado, is a former member of the Imperial House of Japan and the youngest of three daughters of Norihito, Prince Takamado, and Hisako, Princess Takamado. She married Kei Moriya, a commoner, on 29 October 2018. As part of her marriage to a commoner, she gave up her imperial title and left the Japanese Imperial Family, as required by law.
Courtship, marriage, and divorce in Cambodia are important aspects of family life. Customs vary as between rural and urban areas, with many city dwellers being influenced by western ideas. The choice of a spouse is usually undertaken by the families of young men and women, sometimes with the help of a matchmaker. A man usually marries between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five and a woman between sixteen and twenty-two.
A mixed-orientation marriage is a marriage between partners of differing sexual orientations. The broader term is mixed-orientation relationship, sometimes shortened to MOR or MORE.
Criticisms of marriage are arguments against the practical or moral value of the institution of marriage or particular forms of matrimony. These have included the effects that marriage has on individual liberty, equality between the sexes, the relationship between marriage and violence, philosophical questions about how much control can a government have over its population, the amount of control a person has over another, the financial risk when measured against alternatives and divorce, and questioning of the necessity to have a relationship sanctioned by government or religious authorities.
Arranged marriage is a type of marital union where the bride and groom are primarily selected by individuals other than the couple themselves, particularly by family members such as the parents. In some cultures, a professional matchmaker may be used to find a spouse for a young person.
A knobstick wedding is the forced marriage of a pregnant single woman with the man known or believed to be the father. It derives its name from the staves of office carried by the church wardens whose presence was intended to ensure that the ceremony took place. The practice and the term were most prevalent in the United Kingdom in the 18th century.
In Japan, the slang term Dekichatta kekkon (出来ちゃった結婚), or Dekikon (デキコン) for short, emerged in the late 1990s. The term can literally be translated as "oops-we-did-it-marriage," implying an unintended pregnancy. Notable celebrities with these marriages include Namie Amuro, Yōko Oginome, Hitomi Furuya, Ami Suzuki, Kaori Iida, Nozomi Tsuji, Anna Tsuchiya, Meisa Kuroki, Leah Dizon, Melody Miyuki Ishikawa, Riisa Naka and Rie Miyazawa. A quarter of all Japanese brides are pregnant at the time of their wedding, according to the Health Labor and Welfare Ministry, and pregnancy is one of the most common motivations for marriage. The prevalence and celebrity profile of dekichatta-kon has inspired Japan's wedding industry to introduce an even more benign phrase, sazukari-kon.
Child marriage in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the eighteenth highest in the world. In a child marriage, one or both parties are under the age of eighteen years old. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 37% of girls are married before they turn eighteen, and 10% of girls are married before age fifteen. Though significantly less than the rate of child marriage for girls, 6% of boys in the DRC are married before age eighteen.
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