Jurretta,

You are absolutely right.  I should have said the exchange of *A*
wedding ring (from groom to bride), rather than *rings,* was normative,
since "double ring ceremonies" are very recent in European and American
history. From the long European perspective, we tend to take the
patriarchal slant of society for most of Western history as _a priori_,
whether fair or not.  Whereas you may be shocked that women were
relatively passive in the marriage ceremony, I rejoice that as early as
the ninth century, the woman received the ring instead of her father!
Remember that the (dower) ring was not long separated in time from the
(Germanic)"bride-price," when the bride's role in the contract was truly
passive.  

It should be noted that the "giving (by the groom) and receiving (by the
bride) of a ring" predated the Christian, not to say Anglican, wedding
service, which is why it took place outside the church for a long time.
But just to make things interesting, we note that any "independence" in
the marriage process that women gained during the Medieval period was
cancelled by the re-imposition of classic Roman law during the
Renaissance. Thus, after the 12th century when Gratian published the
_Decretum_ and through the Renaissance, the concept of "Roman Dowry," in
which the bride's family often bypassed the groom and gave the dowry
straight to the groom's family, was canon law in Italy.

I don't know where this goes, exactly, but it's interesting.

Pat


-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jurretta Heckscher
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 10:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: marriage rings

Thanks for this valuable post, Pat.

The only thing I would question--in light of the texts of the various
iterations of the Book of Common Prayer--The information at hand
suggests that wedding rings were *not* "routinely exchanged back in
Britain,"--instead, only the woman received a ring.  Your comments on
the dower symbolism probably explain why that was so.

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