Engagements here and there

Last weekend I received a giddy and ecstatic phone call from the younger of my two sisters, informing me that her boyfriend had just proposed. This is great news; her now-fiance is a wonderful guy and I'm very excited for them. So of course I have been sharing the news with friends here.

The responses have been interesting. In this part of Turkey, as in many areas of the world, the average marriage age is increasing. As women become more educated, it's common to wait until you've graduated and have a career before trying to find a husband. My students seem surprised that my sister and her fiance would get engaged while still in university. One of my coworkers opined that they should wait until they both have jobs because marriage is too difficult without money. This made me laugh, because my sister's fiance is planning to be a pastor, so it's not like they'll ever be millionaires.

Another friend asked if I was disappointed that I had to miss the engagement ceremony, and seemed surprised that the down-on-one-knee proposals you see in Hollywood films do, in fact, realistically depict the extent of American engagement protocol.

In Turkey, it seems, the process is more formal. When a guy and a girl decide to get married, the guy informs his family of his intentions, and then his family arranges a date to meet the girl's family. And by "family," I mean everyone. Mom and Dad come, siblings, grandparents, sometimes aunts and uncles. Typically none of these people, even the parents, have met the significant other, so the occasion is treated as a sort of investigation to make sure this person is worthy of joining the family. I would love to see one of these gatherings, with two families meeting each other for the first time, trying to size each other up while the guy and girl cross their fingers and hope everyone likes each other.

At some point during this visit, it's the man's parents' duty to broach the subject of marriage, announcing their son's intentions to the woman's parents. If the woman's father accepts, then that's that and everyone goes home to start making wedding plans. The man's family presents the woman with gifts of gold jewelry, and the couple exchanges rings at the engagement, often with the fiance's name and the date of engagement inscribed on the inside.

Tradition holds that the woman serves coffee for everyone, and that during this coffee time, she puts salt into her boyfriend's coffee. My friends explained to me that the guy is expected to drink it with a smile. This signifies that he is willing to accept his wife as is, without complaint. He's telling her, "Even if you give me poison, I will take it, because you are my wife." It's sweet, in a strange sort of way.

All the same, I'm kind of glad we don't have a formal ceremony, because I would indeed have been pretty upset to miss such an occasion. But the wedding isn't going to be for a while, so I don't have to start booking plane tickets yet.