A Romani family
The Romani, also known as the Gypsies has a wedding ceremony that is a blend of orthodox rituals with their own customs. But there have been references to the Romani’s performing immoral acts (Kim 2002). Just as every group of people, there’s always a bad bunch, and the Romani aren’t any different. To judge the whole group on account of the acts of a small section is the same thing the United States used to do towards African Americans. A small part of the Romani people have went into the child trafficking business. This new behavior was sprung up from the effects of globalization. Globalization has modified and changed what some of these Romani people believed in. They have lost their way in the pursuit of monetary gain and had to make adjustments, although the adjustments weren’t good.
The Romani, also known as the Gypsies has a wedding ceremony that is a blend of orthodox rituals with their own customs. But there have been references to the Romani’s performing immoral acts (Kim 2002). Just as every group of people, there’s always a bad bunch, and the Romani aren’t any different. To judge the whole group on account of the acts of a small section is the same thing the United States used to do towards African Americans. A small part of the Romani people have went into the child trafficking business. This new behavior was sprung up from the effects of globalization. Globalization has modified and changed what some of these Romani people believed in. They have lost their way in the pursuit of monetary gain and had to make adjustments, although the adjustments weren’t good.
Believe
it or not, the Romani people have strict rules when it comes to sexual
impurities. They like to maintain tribal and social purity, in doing so, they
marry within the group (Female First 2008). But marriage outside of the tribe does happen from time
to time. It is a worse offense if a woman marries a gadjo (male outsider) than
if a man marries a gadji (female outsider); the gadji will not be accepted if
she doesn’t conform to the ways of the tribe (Kim 2002). This is due to the fact that the
females are the guarantors for the survival of the group. The male serves more
as a protector and he takes responsibility of what happens with the family. The
Romani takes family as a great importance in their society. They put much value
in extended family, everyone is taking care of and problems are solved as a family (Radio Prague 2000).
According to the Rombase ethnology, first priority for the Romani is the
feeling of belonging to their family (Rombase 2003).
When
it comes to the age for marriage, it usually takes place early; the average age
would be in the early-mid teen years. The children are married through arrange
marriages by their parents. The family of the groom would give the family of
the bride a “bride price” which serves as a compensation for the loss of their daughter
and as a promise that she will be taken care of (Kim 2002). It is known to be a disgrace
if a formal proposal is rejected, but if all goes well, the groom’s father will
have a serious but polite meeting with the bride’s father about the future of
their kids. But over the years, young couples have been against arranging
marriages because globalization has modified their view on the importance of
staying pure to their culture. They now leave the group on an extended vacation
together, but when they come back, they are chastised.
At
the wedding, the bride and groom kneels before the elders while holding icons,
here the elders bless the two with bread and salt. Singing, dancing, and food
are a big part to the marriage ceremony. In some weddings, a procession circles
the bride while carrying a staff. Gifts aren’t giving to the newly wed until it
is established that the bride is a virgin; sometimes the bed sheet is even
shown. The gifts are usually money
placed in carved out bread (Advameg, Inc 2015).
References
Advameg, Inc
2015 Gypsies - Marriage and
Family. Electronic document,
http://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Gypsies-Marriage-and-Family.html,
accessed May 24, 2015.
Female First
2008 Romani Marriage
Traditions. Electronic document,
http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/weddings/Romani+Marriage+Traditions-125.html,
accessed May 24, 2015.
Radio Prague
2000 The Romani Family.
Electronic document, http://romove.radio.cz/en/clanek/18241, accessed May 24,
2015.
Rombase
2003 Sociology &
Ethnology. Electronic document,
http://rombase.uni-graz.at/ped/data/impulse.en.pdf, accessed May 24, 2015.
Son-Ung Kim
2002 Romani Social Customs
and Traditions. Electronic document, http://www.sociologyindex.com/romani_customs_and_traditions.htm,
accessed May 24, 2015.
I remember back in middle school when I heard about a place where people could get married at the age of 15. I thought to myself how cool that would be to get married so young. But that was just one of my short lived dreams after I realized that was never going to happen to me. Here I am now about seven years later writing about the group I was so interested in because of their marriage practices. Marrying at a young age doesn’t strike me in any negative way; I once wished that was me. Due to my morals, I am not bothered by their ethics or have to learn to understand their marriage traditions V.S a group where it is ethically correct for a grown man to marry a young girl. I thought it was a cool switch up with the gender roles for the Romani people. Although the man is still the head of the house hold, the woman is the one that keeps the family moving. It reminds me of how my mom makes sure the house is running and in order although my dad is the head.
ReplyDeleteThe Romani has had to conform and lose part of their ways just to have a place to live. The years of oppression and globalization has taken a great toll on the Romani, their culture, marriage, and it’s really getting to the young people that are growing up in the land of the outsiders. It is near impossible for them to shield their selves from going through change. These changes and modifications are apparent among the kids losing interest of arrange marriage and people being involved in child trafficking. They also had to go through some media framing, an example would be the show that is aired on TLC; "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding". If I never got to know the real Romani people, I would have thought they were just a provocative group of people that are involved in illegal businesses. It’s hard for me to say, but I feel as if the Romani people will eventually lose their grip on the children to the outside world which would ultimately bring the culture to the verge of extinction.
Although being ethnocentric is wrong because it an example of activated ignorance with an elitist view point, it slips out of us sometimes by accident. Being ethnocentric is viewing another culture from the standards of your own and judging that culture. An example was when I related the Romani’s gender role to my own family. Although I wasn’t against their culture, I was judging theirs according to mine and if they would have been different, I probably wouldn’t have been openly for it. I admit that some of these comments are ethnocentric but at the same time, I respect the culture of the Romani and wouldn’t call anything they do wrong.