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by HappyGoLucky on June 30th, 2007

HappyGoLucky

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Why do some women have sex before marraige and when they get married they where a white gown that symbolized pureity even though they are not a virgin anymore? Is it just a traditional color or does it have meaning?

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  • by An Educated Optimist on June 30th, 2007

    An Educated Optimist

    Several reasons: The first is that it's tradition. Women wear a white gown because that's what most people wear to weddings, and they don't care to advertise their sexual relationships to their great aunt Ida who came down to see them get hitched.

    Also, a white gown was NOT originally meant to symbolize purity or virginity. It was intended to symbolize wealth -- specifically, Queen Victoria's wealth. She was the one who started the white dress trend, and she did it because it was extravagant. Consider: they did not have dress cleaners or dry cleaners (or, frankly, any method of getting out stains without hurting delicate fabric), so wearing a white dress demonstrated to one and all that she could afford to have a dress made that she could only wear once. Since Queen Victoria did it, other wealthy women of status did so as well. Eventually it became more common to do so. It wasn't until much later that the bit about purity came into the picture. My guess is that since in this culture, we associate white with purity, people simply assumed that was why brides wore white.

    Comments

    • great answer! where can i read about the Queen Victoria thing? Appreciate it, thanks again

      LuvLiving

      by LuvLiving on October 4th, 2008

    • Prior to that, Purple was the best color a woman could wear to her wedding, as purple dyes were the most expensive of all (hence why we still depict cartoon kings and queens as being in purple). Bright colors were reserved for the upper classes, those who could afford it. If you look back at paintings from the 1700 and 1800s, Bright greens, reds, blues and purples were hte standards for wedding dresses.

      mweaver

      by mweaver on October 6th, 2008

    • At least back as far as early Rome (4th century BC), white has always meant purity, and virgin brides have worn white for that reason ever since.
      Latin CANDIDUS = pure. Those who ran for public office wore white in order to appear pure; hence they were called candidates.
      Purple was reserved nor for royalty but for the Emperor. It was a capital crime for anyone else to wear purple.

      Sandman

      by Sandman on January 16th, 2009

    • Purity may be the most common association with white, but nothing "has always meant" anything. Candidus is latin for pure (hence "Candide"), but that fact is unrelated to wedding dresses. Before Victoria, English women did not wear white to their weddings. As to where this information can be found, I have it from some antique etiquette books, but any history of Queen Victoria will tell you the same thing. White became the color of the Western wedding dress in 1840.

      An Educated Optimist

      by An Educated Optimist on February 1st, 2009

    • Nice. Way to tell 'em-- I actually didn't know that so thanks for posting it.

      Mer

      by Mer on July 24th, 2009

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