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Why not a red wedding dress? 10 Jul 2015

The white wedding dress has a number of myths about it. Its origin is popularly traced to the resplendent, hand-woven white lace dress Queen Victoria wore on the day she and her cousin, Prince Albert, wedded in 1840. But the use of white bridal gowns dates way back further, even in Britain. The raving myth today, however, is that the white bridal dress bears no symbolism of sexual purity or virginity when a bride is being wedded.
    
From the Victorian era to the 20th century economic boom, the history of the white wedding gown was lost to the opulence and glamour of royalty. Thereafter, the teeming population of merchandizing seamstresses and the sexually incontinent, unmarried youths would want us to believe the white bridal dress, at no time, symbolise sexual purity at marriage.

In one commentary by The Dreamstress, the link between white wedding dresses and virginity was dismissed as “mostly rubbish and dates to the mid-20th century.” While the white bridal dress assumed the symbol of glamour and wealth since it was worn by Queen Victoria, at some point in the wider world, it started to signify purity. Indeed, white garments became popularly used in Christian religious rites, including baptism and confirmation.

The symbolism of the white wedding gown has since changed from signifying status to symbolising purity. But we now live in a world that is contemptuous of purity and idealism. At best, we pay lip service to them. I am a member of Healing Wings Chapel of Faith, superintended by the iconoclastic preacher and intellectual, Femi Aribisala.  Members tended to agree that the wedding does not make the marriage. It doesn't even consummate it. What makes a marriage is when two individuals – a man and a woman – say “yes” to each other in affirmation of a life-long commitment to love, companionship and procreation. This solemn “yes” pledge is validated by Jesus Christ to be sufficient in all matters of truthfulness. Anything beyond this, he says, is from the evil one. (Matt 5.37).

What we noticed in some occasions was that a few sisters, nevertheless, came to their weddings in white gowns while already pregnant. They tended to simultaneously like the liberalism of Jesus and the contradictory societal validation of elaborate wedding. Dr. Aribisala had no choice but to point out that the faith commands a choice. You either accept the liberating liberal position of Jesus or society's conservatism, which now includes virginity at wedding and the use of bridal white dress to symbolise it.

We see this disdain for idealism in politics as well. It is increasingly difficult to tell the ideological differences between the U.S. Republican party and the Democrat. President Barack Obama fully embraced moral hazard by bailing out private banks during the financial crisis. The GOP-dominated senate has withstood the re-authorisation of US Exim Bank for about two years, although the Bank is in the frontline of exporting American capitalism. In fact, it was the electorate that instigated the end to the contradictory alliance between the Liberal Democrat and the Conservative Party in the way they voted during the last UK general election.
 
Nigerian politicians have absolutely no regard for ideological politics or political idealism. President Muhammadu Buhari – a former military Head of State – was elected into office as the candidate of the self-avowed progressive party: All Progressives Congress. The APC itself had launched into national limelight by welcoming defecting conservative politicians from the misnamed Peoples' Democratic Party.

Idealists are at the verge of extinction. Some of them are routinely censored in the press. They are largely ignored in endorsement deals by the large corporations; thereby idealists are rejected as role models in society by those who control finance. Even a pure footballing genius like Lionel Messi receives less endorsement income than the self-absorbed Cristiano Ronaldo. And a lot of ill-informed social media commentators take aim at idealistic views and pour abuses on idealists. The objective is to make everybody to pander to power, consumerism and immorality.

Idealists are not the contrarians. The people, who in one breath lay claim to certain conviction and a certain way of life and in another breath contradict them, are. For instance, why should married gay and lesbian couples want to adopt children? To claim a sexual orientation that cannot lead to procreation should be tantamount to not wanting to raise children. And why is it that the U.S. and its allied Western nations, who preach “freedom”, so intent on imposing their values on the rest of the world, including gay rights?

The Victorian symbolism of the white wedding dress had endured for too long. Finally, it was laid to rest by the industrial revolution and emergence of the middle class. There is no harm to that. However, the aggressive push to end the purity symbolism of the white bridal gown is misguided and dangerous. One abolitionist asked defiantly: “What is sexual purity?” This probably deserves an answer, in light of the tendency towards ignorance in such matters nowadays. In the context of this discussion, sexual purity entails abstention from lustful looks at the opposite sex and all forms of sexual encounters before marriage. Even if this were impossible, it still wouldn't mean sexual purity is nonsensical.

Those who don't subscribe to the purity symbolism of the bridal white gown have several choices which do not include attack on the morality of those who do. Some brides who have lost their virginity or who are getting married again are deliberately using red colour wedding dresses. This is quite honourable. The stigma that may be attached to it is recognised; but it will dissipate with time.