A little late for an announcement, and a lesson in history.

I don't know if I've formally put this on my blog yet, but guess what!  I'm getting married!  Woohoo!

Yeah.  I know.  I should have announced that MONTHS ago.

Anyway, next Saturday, I'm getting hitched to an amazing person who matches my weirdness in all the right ways.  (Yes, Carl, I'm calling you weird.  But it's a good weird.  I love your weird.)

Now, there are whispers floating around that a shivaree might be in order.

Let me make something very clear.

This. Is. Not. Cool.

No, seriously.  I have a sense of humor, I love a great practical joke, but some practical jokes are not funny.

This is one of them.

Why not?  Well, let me tell you a bit about the shivaree, or Charivari, where it came from, and what it means.

The Charivari began as an old French custom.  And by old, I mean we have documentation of it existing in the middle ages.  So, roughly a good thousand years of history there.  After a while the custom migrated to England, Wales, Germany, and a few other places.  A little bit after that it moved to Canada, where it got named the Chivaree, and America, where they misspelled the Canadian word and turned the C to an S.

It was a mock serenade at the home of newlyweds, or not-so-wedded couples, used as a form of coercion.  This was created back in the days before there was much law and order, and was used to enforce moral codes.  It stuck around into the days of law and order, and became an expression of disapproval, and a form of coercion against those who couldn't be prosecuted by law.

Relatives of the couple would gather pots and pans, march over to their house, and sing as loudly and off key as they possible could, banging the dishes, annoying the crap out of the couple, and subjecting them to public humiliation, as the entire village got to listen in on the disapproving ode.

Which couples got subjected to this?

There were a few types:

1. Those who weren't married, and their families were trying to manipulate them into getting married.
2. Those who engaged in "unnatural" marriages.  Unnatural is typically defined - in this case - as a really, really old man marrying a young woman.
3. Widows and Widowers who remarried too soon after the death of their spouse.
4. Widows and Widowers who were really old when they got married period.
5. Aldulterors
6. Wife beaters
7. Unwed mothers

In short, anyone not young and a virgin.  This persisted into about the middle of the 20th century, but is an outdated custom that doesn't really exist anymore.

Let me just say, there's a reason it doesn't exist anymore.

People get hurt.

Did you know it takes 4 seconds of a good choke hold to knock someone completely unconscious?  8-10 seconds, and they're out for a good long while.  This leaves the bride and groom with plenty of peace and quiet, while the obnoxious relatives are left drooling on the hallway floor.

I kid you not, leave me alone on my wedding night.