Globalization vs. Moroccan wedding tradition. Fight!

While I was trying to better understand Moroccan weddings, I decided to interview people and see what expectations people have for their dream wedding. I sat down with one of my Moroccan friends, Asmaa Az, and I asked her to describe her dream wedding. Her response was a wedding that would be three to four days long and would include the bath day, the receiving of the gifts, the henna day, the big wedding celebration in a castle, and the morning after breakfast with the families; it would be a traditional Moroccan wedding. But when I asked her why she wanted to follow the traditional wedding path, her answer was honest and not what I expected to hear. She told me, “when you grow up seeing these elaborate types of weddings you come to expect the same thing for yourself” and even if she had wanted to have a different type of wedding, “it is not what others would expect and they would not enjoy themselves”. Not once did she mention protecting her fertility or following in the footsteps of her ancestors. This caused me to step back and reevaluate; what does the modern Moroccan wedding look like? Why have perceptions of the wedding changed? Why not completely modernize the Moroccan wedding practices?

Gradually over the past two centuries, the deeper meaning and purpose of the culturally rich Moroccan wedding tradition has faded into obscurity. Protecting one’s fertility does not constitute as one of the modern Moroccan bride’s major concerns when going through the wedding process. She is most concerned with planning the perfect beautiful wedding where the celebrations flow smoothly and everyone is joyous.

Globalization at work

Globalization has caused many of the changes the Moroccan has undergone. With the spread of technology around the world, borders between nations and their cultures are blurring and blending. Everywhere you look in Morocco, you can see traces of European influences, Islamic influence and Northern African influences all meshed together. With easy access to media, Western beliefs and practices have seeped into the culture of Morocco. Young influential children grow up watching Western TV shows and movies, in which sex and sexual appeal are key characteristics. Their minds are being molded to behave less conservatively and more mainstream, rather than to follow the deep seeded traditions of the Moroccan way. For instance, on the campus of Al Akhawayn, the university in Morocco I am studying at, everywhere you look you see young Moroccan girls wearing provocative clothing; the skirts are miniscule, the shirts see through, the heels mile high and their makeup and hair done to perfection. Also, all over campus, couples engage in public displays of affection with their hand holding, cuddling and kissing. The less conservative actions, though, does not mean that they have thrown away all that Muslim Moroccans beliefs and values. A woman’s virginity remains heavily protected, just in less obvious ways.

Rent-able Wedding Furniture

Not even the wedding process has been left untouched by globalization. For instance, an old Moroccan wedding tradition was for the parents to arrange the marriage. In the era of modernity, this practice has withered away, and Moroccan children are allowed to choose their own spouse. Before getting married, though, the couple must receive the blessing of the parents (Hajji. pg 47). Globalization has created fierce competition in markets all over the world. For centuries, the wedding takchitas were, painstakingly, made by hand by the female relatives of the bride. But, during a time in which weddings have become marketable, it is a lot easier and cheaper just to rent, or buy, the wedding takchitas from a shop. Also, as you walk through the markets, called the madinas, of old Moroccan cities, like Fez or Marrakech, you will find shops, and entire warehouses, that house wedding furniture, like the lmida, for people to rent out. Also in the past centuries, the food eaten at the wedding celebration was always prepared by the families of the bride and groom. In a globalized society, though, one has friends far and wide, and so the attendance at weddings has grown beyond what the family is capable of feeding. Thus, most often, the bride’s family will make use of a caterer (Hajji. pg 52).

While many aspects of the Moroccan wedding have changed in the face of globalization, most of the old traditions have remained. The henna day, the carrying of the bride, on the lmida, during the wedding celebration and the breakfast on the morning after the wedding are important traditions that have remained alive.

In a time where the many other aspects of their lives are modernizing I am curious as to why Moroccan women continue to carry on many of the wedding traditions of their ancestors. On one hand, as Jalila Hajji argues, the bride chooses to keep the traditions of her ancestors in order to, “protect and respect her family dignity [and so] she spends her money and time on preserving this dignity” (p 44). Hajji also explains that a good daughter must be happy during her ceremony and preparations to show how well her mother educated her, thus bringing her family honor. Many brides though do not have such noble reasons in today’s marriage market. Some women, like Asmaa, simply just expect to have the traditional wedding as a result of having been raised around that custom. Even as the world continues to globalize, Moroccan weddings have traditional roots that are too deep to dissolve; the traditions may be altered but they will live on in generations to come.