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The Pros of a Western Wedding over a Traditional Shinto Wedding

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Many couples that come from a Japanese background are starting to prefer more of a western wedding than a traditional Shinto wedding. There are several reasons for couples prefer a western than Shinto wedding because they have a different views on marriage. In Japanese traditional wedding both style and culture are involved and that has been known for many years. There are two major differences between a Shinto marriage and western marriage. When a couple is in love and they decide to get married, traditionally that is a western marriage. As in a Shinto marriage, the couple is arranged and told who to marry. The parents choose the bride for the groom or choose the groom for the bride and from there is a contract between both families. …show more content…

The reason towards arranged marriage was that it helped to make a socially agreeable tie, which would often bring some peace with feudal lords. It was important to be alliances than the couples actually wanting to getting married to each other.
During the Meiji Era in1868, the oldest son was the head of the household which meant he had all the property and rights over his wife. The women did not have rights during those times. The name for an arranged marriage is omiai. They still conducted in Japan today, but the percentages of omiai have decreased and marriages for love have started to increase. In the 1930s, over 70 percent of marriages were arranged, but in the modern age less only 10 to 30 percent follows the traditional custom. During those times women did not have a choice to pick their own spouse, it was chosen for them. A reason why a woman would not want to have a Shinto marriage is because they would not be able to have rights. It came a time where the woman saw this as a wrong thing and wanted to be heard.
The arranged marriage tradition is generally a family member that is close to the family and the parent would have met with the mates. The way potential mate is chosen is by their social status, education, earnings, profession, attractiveness, family ancestry. When the final decision is made whether to marry or not meet each other. There was information about the mate

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