Shoes go on the feet not on the head

You know that tradition where the bride and groom drive away with tin cans dragging from the back of their car? It used be that shoes where tied to the married couple’s carriage. Shoes apparently were said to bring good luck. If you threw your shoe at the married couple, that was not an offense but good luck, especially if you hit them.

But shoes haven’t always been good luck for the woman. There was this tradition that when a woman got married, her father took off her shoe and handed it to the future husband who would put it on the woman’s head. That was to show she was supposed to obey him, or else.

This is how I think these traditions come about. Male persons get together, start drinking and talking.
The smartest of them all says:

“Listen, you lot, I have an idea. I think we should come up with more ways to humiliate our wives and daughters on their wedding day. We make them wear the veil over their faces so they can’t see where they’re walking or who they’re marrying… (Laughing all around)…Isn’t that great fun? Yeah… But that’s old now. We need to pump up the fun for us on wedding day. We need a new humiliating tradition. Anyone has any ideas?

There is this one male person among them who likes his wife and daughters and doesn’t want to humiliate them any more than necessary, so he says:

“Don’t you think we should be talking about next year’s crop instead?”

But his voice is drowned out by the majority who yells:

“More fun on wedding day!!!! More fun on wedding day!!!!….”

And then…SILENCE. The male persons love the idea of more fun but no one has any ideas for more fun. They fidget. They look around, cough, pick their noses… Someone is taking off his shoe to scratch an itch on his foot. Then he yells:

“I got it! Let’s put a shoe on…”

“…on their heads,” someone else finishes – this other someone else was just scratching an itch on his head.

And that is how traditions are born. They’re often inspired by the need to scratch a nagging itch.

See you,

Misty