Sex and gender: definitions and distinctions

Social Construct of Prenuptial Events: From the Bridal Sheets to the Bachelorette Party

The social constructs of the transition from single adulthood to married life throughout recent history have differed between men and women. In modern construct women and men often share a similar prenuptial event that has many elements of public expressions of sexuality, the bachelor or stag party and the bachelorette or staggette party. (Tye and Powers, 1998, pp. 552-561) In most western societies before 1900 and especially during the Renaissance the prenuptial ceremonies and rituals included a longer period of time that encompassed a gray area that included the business of the marriage transaction and the ritual of becoming publicly aware of the person you were to marry. Historically speaking there was little if any overt display of sexuality during pre-1900 premarital celebrations. (Ruggiero, 1985, p. 26) Changes in public sexual expression from before 1900 to now are evident in countless aspects of today's modern society, in some western cultures more than in others. The effect these changes have had on premarital celebrations and ceremonies is a topic worth considering.

In addition to addressing the changes themselves I will also discuss some of the possible reasons why these changes have evolved into modern Bachelor and Bachelorette parties and the social constructs that surround them.

I will address several aspects that effect premarital celebrations and standards including evolving public sexual expression based on religion, legality, social standard and also female body image.

Traditionally even up to the early 1970's women and men celebrated impending nuptials very differently, men with a possible illicit display of wantonness and women with a more demure event, that some would say more openly celebrated psychological union between the future bride and her female friends and family. Women were more likely to celebrate the end of their single life with quiet and communicative social aspects while men felt the need to both bond and in a sense perform the ritual of the last hurrah. (Tye and Powers, 1998, p. 552)

In a modern male feminists dialogue surrounding his involvement in the planning of a Bachelor party Jason Schultz discuses an even more modern spin on why publicly wanton behavior, such as the vocally appreciated display of a female stripper might appeal to men during an event of transitional sexuality like a bachelor party. Schultz and the group of men involved came to the conclusion that this sort of activity might act as a way to make acceptable the sexual thoughts and feelings that they might wish to enjoy in the company of their male friends. This loosening up might lesson the fear of rejection caused by the reluctance many men have to publicly express intimate thoughts and feelings about the serious nature of the kind of change marriage should bring to a man in his sexual and social development. (Schultz 1995, pp. 394-398)

This idea is very new and definitely worth further exploration, in another thesis but it is worth mentioning because it makes clear that the ideas surrounding the social construct of the societal norms of sexuality are ever evolving and that the patterns of change can not necessarily be seen as linear. The linear timeline mentality of history is an easy and prevalent fallacy when attempting to organize historical changes in sociological perspective and norms, especially those pertaining to moral construct.

The loosening of moral restrictions on men and women, that must be thought of as cyclical rather than linear can be demonstrated in the rotations of conservatism to near hedonism that have occurred just in the last century. One good example of this idea is the strict and dramatic contrast between the socially conservative 1950s and the 1960s freedom-movement backlash. One could argue the same of the pre-1920s conservatism that resulted in prohibition and the backlash that resulted in the scantily clad "Flapper" costume, and persona, that was so popular during the late 1920s and early 1930s. The flapper dress was almost as short and revealing as the mini skirt of the 1970s and 80s. This form of dress was an extreme departure from tradition in a culture that only a few years earlier had refused to accept bloomers. Bloomers are a split skirt that contains nearly the same amount of material as a full Victorian skirt They have many folds and pleats and are gathered at the ankle, hardly risque or really even very pant like. Bloomers were named for Amelia Bloomer the famous suffragist, who invented them. Society almost unanimously rejected them for adult women because of the fact that they were thought to, to closely resemble pants.

There have been many changes, not the least of which is changed prenuptial celebrations. Some of these changes are partly as a result of a general loosening of conservative moral values and partly as a response to feminism and other social movements like those that occurred during the turn of the 19th century modernist movement or the civil rights activism of the 1960s. The public expression of sexuality has become almost commonplace in our society. In the media in literature and most notably in public.

Not even two hundred years ago modernist writers like DH Lawrence, Anais Nin and Henry Miller were challenging the boundaries of public sexual expression in literature. DH Lawrence was quick to inform other young authors of the feet which he had mastered with is subtlety and style in relation to challenging the acceptable notion of public expressions of sexuality "All you young writers have me to thank for what freedom you enjoy, even as things are -- for being so able to say much that you couldn't even hint at before I appeared. It was I who set about smashing down the barriers." (Fordham 61) The results of these artists' works were often met with censorship that was only much later removed. The scandal caused by DH Lawrence's subtle suggestions of internal sexual desire and the implication of it being acted out in an intimate moment was immense. The results of Henry Miller and his some would say misrepresentation of women as sexually driven and remorseless were challenged by across the board book banning. Finally the overt expression by Anais Nin of aggressive female desire and even gender melting scenes of homosexuality were banned and subverted, there are still portions of her diaries that have not been published because of her own desires to protect her family and her legacy.

There are modern cross gender similarities worth noting. A modern Bachelor party and a modern bachelorette party both include elements that are sexual in nature. They also both include elements that are thought of as transitional, the last opportunity to express the abandon that typifies the stereotyped idea of single-hood. (Tye and Powers, 1998, p. 552, Shultz, 1995, p394)

The mere fact that the inclusion of public expression of sexuality exists across genders on this issue is a modern phenomena that relies heavily on changes in social constricts that allow women to more publicly express such behavior without fear of judgment. (Tye and Powers, 1998, pp. 551-561) In a description of a movie plot from a VHS video box cover Joseph Slade gives an example of just how titillating and possibly stereotypical representations of Bachelorette parties can really be:

Dyanna [Lauren] is engaged to Mark [Davis], per her father's wishes. Along comes Colt [Steele], a drifter on his way to Dyanna's heart. Will she follow through with the marriage? Or will she follow Colt to Mexico? (After the incredible bachelorette party, the double dp's, and the wild bar scene, you won't care. You'll be too busy rewinding the tape to watch the whole thing all over again.) Get The Point. Boiling Point. Only from [director] Toni English and Wave Film. (Slade, 1999, p. 246)

In contrast most western cultures Prior to 1900 had social customs that governed the events that ended a young person's single life that were less overtly sexual for both genders. Men would often only partake of a sexual deed or display privately and under the guise of darkness. It is thought that as a result of the transitional attempt to further define the legal situation of marriage, for both financial and personal reasons that a separate illicit underworld of sexuality was furthered. Though it may have been unintentional the less fluctuating rules of marriage according to church and society resulted in the prenuptial, and even postnuptial exploitations of illicit sex and legal prostitution

It may be that an unplanned and largely unrecognized result of this increased concern with the boundaries of sexuality was the gradual definition of two distinct milieus of sexuality -- a licit one that hinged on marriage and childbirth and an illicit one. Both licit and illicit produced their own institutions, artifacts, languages, values, and habits; thus, in a restricted sense they may be seen as diverse and at times competing cultures of sexuality within the broader cultural context of society. On the one hand we have a dominant culture of sexuality characterized by marriage and childbirth; on the other, a much more inchoate and developing culture of illicit sexuality. (Ruggiero, 1985, p. 10)

In addition to this illicit form of sexual expression it is also clear that the length of time it took to actually determine the state of marriage including a rather loose identification of what constituted legal marriage add to the confusion about just what was prenuptial and what was postnuptial.

It was really only with the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century that the matter would be definitively settled. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the issue remained problematic. Jean-Louis Flandrin sums up the Church's position: "From the twelfth century, the Church had held marriage to be a sacrament which spouses administered to themselves by exchange of consent." This could be and was frequently done in secret and without witnesses. The possibilities for problems in such a situation were clearly myriad and only compounded by an urban environment, where family and peer pressure were weakened by the scale and fluid anonymity of daily life. (Ruggiero, 1985, p. 26)

It was also around this time that some cultures embraced and earlier idea of proof of consummation sometimes going so far as to have the wedding party present during the first sexual act between the new couple and in some cases the public display or at least a record of the virginal blood on the bedclothes. Though it may seem very public it was a very serious matter not a matter of frivolity or freedom. A very astute teaching assistant in an Introduction to Art lecture might point out the internal ideas of a very famous Flemish painting titled The Marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini & His Bride by artist Jan van Eyck painted in 1434.

Most people probably have a mental image of the work just from the title. Yet, not many would know that the painting was probably posed for in preparation for a part of the wedding ceremony that included the bridal parties presence in the nuptial bedroom as proof of legal consummation, hence the very elaborate red velvet canopied bed in the. This Flemish couple celebrated real twist on the modern Bachelor party.

Comparing the results of the direct public expression of sexuality and the earlier social representation in a broad sense is hard to do in isolation. Yet, one aspect of the two differing cultural norms can be addressed through female body image issues as they relate to the idea of marriage and commitment.

In a modern situation the accepted and open representation of sex for sale, such as female or male strippers at a premarital celebration might be said to have some negative effect on the psychological ideas of body image and this is most assuredly true yet, as you will see body image has been an issue for much longer than just the last 200 years.

In modern society the youth centered thin woman with large breasts is seen by many as detrimental to the reality that is both male and female. A man might feel disappointment when he is disillusioned by the more typical and natural physical state of a woman in and outside of marriage (Shackleton, 2002, pp. 4-5). This can of coarse effect how he feels about commitment and also how he feels about the reasons he should have a bachelor party, possibly to say a sad goodbye to the perfect image of the stripper who's g-string he might be sliding money into. Furthermore, the disappointment and body image obsession that a woman might feel when facing the true nature of her own more normal body form (Gerhart, 1999, pp. 393-397) are two modern examples of this idea that have been repeatedly addressed and readdressed in both popular works and scholarly works. A good resource to refer to on this subject crosses the lines between popular and scholarly. The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolff or a later work by the same author entitled Promiscuities, which has a more direct correlation to the ideas of sexuality and its development in young women. The first book is almost a household name but the studies regarding body image and its evolving effects on our culture are extensive, cross-gendered and cross-cultural.

It must be made clear that though women and men today clearly have distorted body images it is also clear that under all the heavy dresses and hidden sexual expression women may not have been fat obsessed before 1900 but the body image that produced corsets and bum rolls and the like are arguably equivalent to those of today. Additionally, the image of the female body as weak in comparison to the male was foundational. A most famous quotation from Elizabeth Queen of England gives us an example of the kind of fight a woman might have to wage to receive acceptance without the famous real and literary tactic of cross dressing, like the likes of the popular Joan of Arc: