Courtship Rituals

In our piece we want to explore the different courtship rituals of different eras, cultures and species. A traditional Austrian ritual is that women put bits of sliced apple underneath their armpits. They then partake in a dance. At the end of the dance she gives the sweat coated apple slices to the man of her choice, if he accepts or returns her feelings, he will eat it.

In Cambodia there is a tribe in the remote regions where when the daughter reaches a certain age (usually puberty age, mid teens) her parents build her a love hut. Various men then can be invited to stay in the love hut for one or more nights until the women finds a man she wants to marry. Divorce among this tribe is almost unheard of, so people must know what they are getting into before they commit.

We discussed the similarities and differences behind modern day and traditional rituals. In some cultures a daughter would be bought by the husband with money or live stock given to the father. Now when you are in a meeting place like a bar, a man may offer to buy a women a drink if they wish to date or sleep with her.

We also looked at different animal mating rituals. Here is a video with some interesting ones:

A strange but interesting idea we could look at is this idea of animals who reproduce asexually. We could compare this with people who are single and alone and trying to find somebody. A piece where maybe we have an animal looking for its perfect mate, and we can link in human emotions to it. Then to find that there is no perfect mate, only themselves to depend on.