Honeymoon : The Moon de miel is the (lunar) month following the wedding. These 30 days, supposedly the happiest of the young couple, are often devoted to the journey of wedding, so that the expression " Moon de miel often refers to this trip something exceptional for you.
History: The term " Moon de miel » has been used in the French language since at least the 1546th century, but its use seems to have become widespread later, from the second quarter of the 1564th century. It is a copy of the English honeymoon, which is found for the first time in a text published in 1616, the Proverbs of John Heywood. The word evokes the sweetness of romantic relationships like the tender vocative honey that lovers give each other, since at least the time of Shakespeare (XNUMX-XNUMX). Cultural history teaches us that the expression honeymoon is a metaphor that corresponds to the consumption by the spouses of substances sweeteners, before, during and after the award ceremonies du marriage : I'mead among the Germanic peoples, the sucre by Hindus and Chinese and honey in ancient Egypt. These substances were supposed to have vertus aphrodisiacs, promote fertility or bring good omen to newlyweds.
High point of existence, the period immediately following the award ceremonies du marriage, has been and is lived in very different ways throughout history, and according to the culture and religion of each person. It is a continuation of marriage as a rite of passage during which the usual constraints to which individuals are subjected are temporarily abolished. According to Deuteronomy (*) , Hebrews were exempt from military office for a year after their marriage. During the seven days following the wedding, the Jewish newlyweds were not to perform any work, moreover, the bride and groom are invited by family and friends for seven days; a choir sings for them the seven traditional blessings, or Sheva Brachot. Used by Jews, in various Arab countries and in India, the temporary ritual henna tattoo defines the time during which the bride is exempt from domestic work, until the pigment disappears from her body.
(*) Deuteronomy (from Ancient Greek: τὸ Δευτερονόμιον / tò Deuteronómion, "the second law"; Hebrew: Devarim, sayings) can be read as the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament and last of the Torah (the Pentateuch Christian) or as the first book of Deuteronomist historiography.
After the delivery of livestock to the parents of the bride Gusii (Kenya), she is exempt from all work for four to six weeks. Among the Idoma of Nigeria, even the mother of the bride is exempted from going to the market five days after the wot.
This rest allowed or even demanded from the new spouses would be favorable to procreation and is associated with rites intended to improve the fertility of the woman. At Rwanda, the young bride was subjected to post-nuptial seclusion during which she was not allowed to touch the utensils household. Then took place the fertility rite called "cutting the crests", consisting in shaving the capillary crests cut into a crescent, a sign of virginity. It will stay that way and will not perform any task. domesticated until the so-called "overdraft" day when the bride's family and in-laws bring presents to the newlyweds.
In our affluent societies, marriage rituals are followed by a distancing of young couples from their respective families. From the 1870s, the advent of travel wedding symbolically marks this separation by moving towards more and more distant paradisiacal horizons. The "honeymoon" extends the rituals of marriage and completes this important rite of passage with the aim of ensuring the best conditions for the couple to procreate, and different societies will organize, each in its own way, the first stages of the empowerment of the members of the couple in relation to their families of origin.
Other hypotheses: Pharaohs who married drank a drink made from miel and propolis (*) during the 28 days following their marriage to obtain joy and happiness: this is the origin of the “honeymoon”.
The conception of the honeymoon goes back to an old tradition of celebrate the wedding by consumingmead. This term dates from Babylonian times. It would also be a question of an old traditional Germanic which consisted in the couple drinking onlymead during the thirty days following the marriage.
(*) Propolis designates both a resinous material produced by certain plants and a complex material made by bees from this plant resin and wax. The bees use their production as mortar and anti-infective to sanitize the hive.
The French writer, philosopher, encyclopaedist and businessman Voltaire (1694-1778) evokes the honeymoon in chapter 3 of the novel Zadig: "Zadig experienced that the first month of marriage, as it is described in the book of Zend, is the honeymoon and that the second is the moon of theabsinthe »
The Zend-Avesta, that is to say "living word", is the sacred book of the Parsi: it would be the work of Zoroaster and the Zoroastrian religion (*) . As the latter would probably have lived a few thousand years before the siege of Troy, the expression "honeymoon" that he uses in his epicurean book is therefore known from all antiquity.
(*) Zoroastrianism is a religion that takes its name from its prophet and founder named Zoroaster or Zarathustra, born in northeastern Iran during the second millennium BC. AD or the first half of the first millennium BC. J.-C.. The Persian name of Zarathoustra was transcribed in Zoroaster by the Greeks.