Marriage

Let us briefly review the concept of marriage and speculate freely on its origin. In ancient times, it was legal to be polygamous. For some inexplicable reason, people decided to put an end to it. Some blame it on the communists. I seriously doubt it, coz they could very well demanded 2 spouses per person and still guaranteed equality.

In any case, man stopped puttering with polygamy. It was to be one spouse per person. They probably decided that such a huge sacrifice deserved one last bash. A party obviously requires one to invite one's pals. Note that in early times, communication time was largely determined by the disposition of one's pet pegion. So invitations had to be sent out at an early date to allow for the slackness of the less athletic aves. Thus was born the concept of engagement - the day the pigeons were sent out.

During the course of one of the parties, some enthusiastic guest probably brought along a stripper. One may question the validity of this claim, since the ancients were notorious for frugality in their choice of attire and a stripper was, therefore, redundant. I will however counter that argument with the fact that in some cultures, especially ones residing in the cooler parts of the world, people were usually amply clothed. So the act of removing one's clothes would have been a valid, even popular profession in such places. In any case, the women folk were probably aghast at this act and reprimanded the men. The menfolk, in turn, decided to have a more raucous pre-marriage extravaganza called the bachelor party. The choice of nomenclature was a stroke of genius, one must add, for it kept the women under the illusion that it involved only men. Little did they know that a few women from houses of ill-repute were regularly a part of these fests.

I must add that there are no universally accepted theories about the origins of bridesmaids and best men. Some say that these posts were the creations of some power hungry group that just wanted a piece of the limelight.