A Big Fat Greek Engagement

A new phase of life has recently dawned on me--I am reaching that point in my life where my high school classmates are starting to get married. It's a scary concept, really, because my perception of married couples is still the image of my parents and the baby boomer generation. Yet many of my Generation Y peers are diving into serious relationships and thinking seriously about marriage.

The concept of marriage got me thinking about love, romance, and relationships are perceived differently by men and women. Most women will have fantasized about  their perfect wedding years before they've even hit puberty; most men cannot even fathom the concept of marriage until they are involved in a very serious relationship.

This gender dichotomy is further demonstrated by one of the oldest traditions in the Greek system--the lavaliering ceremony (sometimes also referred to as pinning). In a typical lavaliering ceremony, a brother gives his fraternity's Greek letters to his girlfriend, thereby symbolizing his commitment to her. This ritual often occurs between couples who are in very serious relationships and about to be engaged, a pre-engagement rite of passage. Sororities have a similar tradition that couples the lavaliering ceremony called the candle passing ceremony; sisters of the sorority house gather together and pass a lit candle around in a circle until the engaged girl blows the flame out. 

For sorority women, an engagement announcement is one of the happiest events of the year. As soon as the chapter president announces a candlelight ceremony, the whole house erupts into an excited buzz trying to guess the lucky girl that is now one step closer to attaining her dream wedding. A quick glance at wedding message boards confirms the idea that women are generally excited to get lavaliered; as one woman puts it,

"My (now) FI lavaliered me the end of my senior year. We had been dating since my sophomore year and I watched countless sisters get candle passes (some from guys who they hadn't been dating for nearly as long as we were dating at the time...) and I was obviously happy for my sisters, but secretly SO jealous!"

Marriage and engagement is perhaps the epitome of traditional femininity. When a woman commits herself to a man, she is thereby committing to a monogamous relationship and taking a more dependent role that will allow her to enter domestic sphere.

The Black Engagement Coffin

Conversely when a fraternity house gets wind of a lavaliering ceremony, brothers of the house band together to mercilessly haze the poor fool who fell in love. Some fraternities deliver their brother to his girlfriends doorstep in a black coffin, symbolizing his social death, other fraternities kidnap their brother and tie him naked to a tree for all to see. In this particular video aptly titled the "consequences" of lavaliering, a brother is dragged and then pushed into a pool after lettering his girlfriend.

Whereas lavaliering is seen as an accomplishment for women, the ceremony is seen as a suicide for men. By committing to one girl, men are forgoing their masculinity and forever giving up their promiscuity and independence.

It's interesting to think that the same ceremony could produce such polarized responses from the different genders. Do you think you would respond in a similar way if your friends got engaged?