Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome, episode 69, a history of Rome wedding.

So the history of Rome is getting married in a week and a half, and to celebrate today

we're going to set aside the steady march of history and do a short episode focused on

Roman wedding customs. Remember also that after today we'll be going off the air for four

weeks, while we here at the history of Rome, do the thing where we get married, and then

do the thing where we move to Austin, Texas. When we come back though, we'll do the

Rockham Sockham drama of 69 AD, and then move into the Flavian dynasty on our way to the

five good emperors, the decline phase into the crisis of the third century, and the surprising

comeback led by Diocletian and confirmed by Constantine. Lots and lots still to come,

so please stay tuned.

Today though, we've got weddings on the brain. Yesterday we finalized the floral arrangements,

picked up my suit from the tailor, scrambled for a workable solution to the wedding cake

issue, and gulp went down to the giant brick building to pay for and sign an official

wedding certificate that will formally make us husband and wife once it's signed by the

state sanctioned deficient who will perform the wedding ceremony. As it turns out, weddings

are a confusing amalgam of emotion, tradition, and bureaucratic legalese. If that doesn't

sound like the Romans, well, I don't know what does. It goes without saying that we have

them to thank for a lot of what we all have to put up with when it's time to get married.

As an institution, marriage dates back into prehistory and was codified as a legal relationship

as early as homerobby's code in the 1700s BC. There are competing theories about where

the institution came from and why it persists, and I'm basically not going to touch any

of that with a 10 foot pole. But I'm just going to say that by the time the Romans came

...