Greece Travel Tips and Guide

Marriage was regarded as an auspicious relationship in the ancient Greek society. Marriage was very important to carry family chain. In the Greek culture, every respectable woman became a wife if she could. In marriage, there was hardly room for choice. Destiny played an important role in solemnizing marriage. Woman had no alternate than marriage. The sacred wedding rituals were interwoven by the various ceremonies. These ceremonies had ritual meaning and overlapping rites.

There is great evidence for these formalities, both literary and artistic, which helps to provide a complete account of Greek customs. Offerings, dedications and sacrifices were made by the bride and the groom. Marriage consisted of a private contract where woman was transferred to her husband. Marriage consisted of transfer and transformation. Transformation means actually giving the responsibility of the woman. Many things pointed towards her transformation like cutting of hair and offering them to virgin deities. Presenting the hair locks to the goddess often signifies the attainment of womanhood.

Greek society stresses upon the marriage of a girl at the age of fourteen. Boys are found eligible at the age of thirty after they have served military force. Girls are obliged to marry where their father wants. Various types of rituals are followed in the marriage ceremony. Both the bride and groom take bath in the holy spring. On the wedding day, girl is dressed in the traditional attire. She is taken in veil to the banquet hall. She is accompanied by her friends and relatives. Groom attires in the best outfit reaches the bride's home with a procession of friends, relatives and family members. Drums are played and crackers are burst to ward away evil spirit spirits. Music and dance plays a major role in the festivities. Bride and the groom wear a crown or garland to mark the occasion.

The actual transfer of the bride from father to groom takes place at night after the bridal banquet. After the great feast the procession in a chariot takes place from the home of the bride to the home of the groom. Bride stands in the cart as her husband mounts it in preparation for their journey. Families follow the chariot by foot bearing gifts. Bride’s mother carries the torch in the journey at night to light the way. Bride eats an apple as a part of the incorporation rites which demonstrates her new union with her husband. Fruits and nuts are showered on the couple which acts as agents of fertility and prosperity.

One day the after the marriage, an outdoor procession of people is held. It is called the Epaulia. It is an outdoor procession of people who brings gifts. Gifts generally include vases filled with greenery, baskets, pots, furniture, jewelry and combs. Athenian marriage is relationship between a man and a woman who had the primary goal of producing children and maintaining the identity of the social and political community. In ancient Sparta, the ceremony was very simple. After a tussle, to prove his superior strength, the groom would toss his bride over his shoulder and carried her off.

Slaves in the ancient Greek culture cannot marry because marriage was considered only for the privileged class. Any children which were born from their masters were disposed off because the slaves have no right to rear children

The immediate response of the state murder of Socrates saw the people of Athens arise in disgust as one. They harassed and hounded those Governing 30 out of Athens: death, rejection, forever out of any inner council of wiser gentler Athens. This was the Athens Alexander arrived in, and took note. Heroic to a fault, he saw his chance for immortality, and it would seem to live great and die in glory may have become "fixed" in his young mind as a scholar with other princes of other city states.

There may be no published thoughts on this motivation behind Alexander deciding with his life to go for it! But my meditation would suggest he came to feel it was his destiny to make Greece all free and great and master rather than defend from Persia, and rule the known world. Alexander had such early inspirations that would affect other people after his death, as with Socrates. He must be good, he might as well be Great. It seems that Alexander, unlike most of us, had all too many examples on how life could end quickly, and unless that dying man had done good or evil in his life made a difference on how he could die, and expect to go to a better life with God.

This truth is just plain horse sense, as Socrates told Aristotle, and as Aristotle told Alexander, and Alexander to his horse, who you may have heard,told me. Socrates died quietly and told Aristotle, who told his pupil Alexander, that he was going to a better life. Alexander almost died in the desert in Egypt seeking a Wise Holy Man : they blessed each other. 350 years before Christ, men Believed.

Socrates was an ugly little man who walked in rags through the streets of Athens in his later years. But in his youth, during the height of the Golden Age of Greece he had performed with great bravery at three great battles against the ever present army and navy of Persia. As he aged, limping and infirm, he was not fit for any further service to Athens and was allowed to ramble and talk to groups of people. And who can refuse an old man his times of rambling and talking to his neighbors, and then to others who hear of his wise series of questions and answers that he brought you conclude about you own needs or actions.

His purity of mind allowed thoughts of good and ways to improve the human condition and how we all must search our own soul and moral code before causing another a harm. This is often heard from an old warrior, but none spoke with such searching clarity into the essence of a question. What was the seeker seeking, really? All citizens of Greece needed to be on their alert. As at Gettysburg two thousand years later, the fate of democracy could some times hang by threads. Socrates made the leaders of ancient Greece jealous and was forced to die. How the death of Socrates was witnessed by his pupil Aristotle, who within years discussed the meaning of free will and a good life and worthy death and entry in an afterlife of joy with his young pupil Alexander, who would become Great. We talk about that next.