University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Senior Theses Honors College Spring 2018 Personalizing the Wedding: A Cross-Cultural Study of Wedding Motivations in the Keralite Indian and Southern American Communities Juliet Joseph University of South Carolina - Columbia,
[email protected] Katherine Alexander University of South Carolina - Columbia,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/senior_theses Part of the Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons Recommended Citation Joseph, Juliet and Alexander, Katherine, "Personalizing the Wedding: A Cross-Cultural Study of Wedding Motivations in the Keralite Indian and Southern American Communities" (2018). Senior Theses. 243. https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/senior_theses/243 This Thesis is brought to you by the Honors College at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. 1 2 Table of Contents Thesis Summary 4 Introduction 5 Literature Review 7 Roles of the Wedding Ceremony and its Components 8 Familial Significance in Weddings 11 American Wedding Traditions 13 Rituals Symbolizing Meaning 13 The Tension Between Ritual and Retail 14 Historical South: The Bible Belt 15 Keralite Indian Wedding Tradition 16 Love Marriage vs Arranged Marriage 16 Dowry 18 Syrian Community within Kerala 19 Research Design and Context 21 Introduction 21 Positionality 21 Anecdotal Conversations 23 Observational Research (Wedding