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Swedish church leaders seek to ban fathers giving the bride away (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
35 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Popularised by Hollywood and the wedding of the crown princess, the patriarchal ‘handover’ is catching on. Now Lutherans want to stop it

Archived version: https://archive.ph/YLOUl

SpinScore: https://spinscore.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Flifeandstyle%2Farticle%2F2024%2Faug%2F31%2Fswedish-church-leaders-seek-to-ban-father-giving-the-bride-away

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

“Even though the scene feels nice for future bridal couples, we can’t disregard what it symbolises: a father handing over a minor virgin to her new guardian.”

This seems like a silly thing to get hung up on when the bride isn't a minor (and perhaps not a woman) and can choose who they walk down the aisle with. The article even mentions that some choose to walk with their mother, and likely there are others who walk with other important friends or family members. I've never cared too much about wedding ceremonies, but I know that walking down the aisle can be a really important and symbolic thing for the bride and the person they walk with. Seems like taking that choice away is more restrictive to women than, you know, letting the woman decide for herself.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Nobody's taking that choice away, it's a church policy not a law

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago

Oh, banned by the swedish church within it's own facilities, not banned by law in the country. That makes much more sense

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago

The relationship between Christianity and politics in Sweden is quite different than the one in the Anglosphere. In Sweden, if you’re a member of the Swedish (Lutheran) church, you pay a small amount of extra tax, which goes to the church, but get to vote in church elections every few years. In the most recent elections, the left (who ran on a platform of using the church’s resources to help the underprivileged) defeated the right (who ran on a platform of culture-war traditionalism) by a hefty margin.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Conservatives will surely have a totally normal reaction to this (and looks like they're already doing that here in the comments…)

But yeah, as the article says, this tradition has never really been a thing in the Nordics. While I don't think it makes sense to ban it, it's definitely not "our" tradition

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago (2 children)

While I agree that the act could be interpreted as an symbol of inequality, I really think personal choice should be the winner here.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It is still the winner. This is just internal church stuff. The couple can choose a different church, a different religion, a non-religious wedding, etc.

If a personalized wedding with details like this are important to the couple, maybe the Swedish Lutheran church isn’t the right flavor of Christianity or religion for them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

While I agree wholeheartedly with the church making internal policies, but bringing an internal conflict into international media, airing a view that seem rather sensationalistic is what I react to. Having an internal discussion, making a decision and then implement a policy would have been the proper way.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So your issue isn't with anything to do with the wedding, but with the Guardian reporting on it?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

No, I still believe the freedom of choice is the more important here. A couple should be free to chose a ceremony that they want, which the church can support or not. The church is a separate entity and like a corporation, they can set their own rules for what they allow or support, as long as it is within the legal framework of Sweden.

My second point is that the church could have had an internal discussion about this, but they (or more likely some indiviuals) have opted to make this internal debate into a political question, inflaming the topic to such a degree that even international media covers it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

could be interpreted as an

*is a

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Wow, even the Catholic Church is ahead of the game on this one.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I was surprised that they endorse the theory of evolution, too. For such a backwards organization, they can have some unexpected moments of clarity.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The Catholic Church was the source of most scientific discovery on the planet for over 1,000 years and you’re shocked that Evolution has been accepted by it for a long time?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not shocked. Surprised. And yes, I was. The Catholic Church hasn’t made any major scientific discoveries for quite a while, and I don’t often associate religion with the scientific method.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Well, it's not exactly in charge anymore.

And it's not so much "made" as "funded", and that was the one of the issues with Galileo. Galileo turned his anger towards the individual signing his cheques, when it was a layman who was rallying clergy against him. A good analogue would be the lay-led organization "The Catholic League" in the United States of America.

There's so much that's facinating about the Galileo affair, and that's only the most recent thing I've learned: it was a secular opponent, Lodovico delle Colombe, who started adopting the appeal to authority fallacy by using religion as a defence against the theses behind Galileo's studies.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There's a subtle difference between backwards and slow. Slow moves forwards, but... slowly. It turns out "giving away the bride" was introduced by protestants, I'm guessing recognizing pagan practice at the time as a result of no longer treating matrimony as a sacrament.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

By “backwards”, I had in mind church officials surrounded by gold and priceless artwork while there is still poverty in the world, and various child abuse scandals. Some of them practice the exact opposite of what they preach. That seems backwards to me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

If you mean humanity is filled with hypocrites, then definitely. I'm a hypocrite, too. Not that kind, but the "I want to raise my child to be at least not worse than I am" kind. Yes, the scandals are shameful. That's why they're called scandals, and it's absolutely idiotic that the bishops (the administrative heads of particular churches) repeatedly thought covering things up was the right choice. Administrative ability should be a job requirement. Government transparency is a new thing, though, just in the past couple of generations, and business financial transparency more recently, so I imagine ecclestiastic administrative transparency will get will become an expectation in a few more. Give it 100 years or so, at least. Like I said: Slow.

As for the priceless artwork, would you rather the grubby little hands of the public and researchers have access to it, or keep it in a private collection? I suppose both have their pro's and con's.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

They're not that anti science anymore. Just anti equality. Not that that makes them ok.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Of all the insignificant, immaterial, inconsequential things to be bitching about.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

you'd think but this week when we spun the wheel of the-one-thing-everybody-in-the-world-universally-is-allowed-to-complain-about this was what came up