Honeymoons in 2021

Debate over the Green & Amber list of foreign travel destinations has got me thinking about honeymoons.

For couples getting married this year, their honeymoon may be very different to what they had always dreamed of.

So what is the origins of the “honeymoon” anyway? Is it a year to go back to its roots?

Like most wedding traditions there are various theories to the origins of the “honeymoon”. Some say it started with the ancient Babylonians 4000 years ago. The modern Persian word “mah-e-asal” means “honey month” & relates to fermented honey, or mead, which was traditionally drunk the month after a wedding” paid for by the father of the bride.

The Vikings over 1000 years ago were certainly in favour of drinking fermented honey, or mead, for a month (or for a moon) after a wedding because it was believed to boost fertility & aid conception.

Less romantic, however, was the Viking practice of “hjunottsmunathr” where the groom snatched his bride from her family & took her to a secret location, safe from angry kin, to get her pregnant. Perhaps this is where we get the concept of a honeymoon destination traditionally being a secret.

The first recorded use of the word “hony mone” in English was in the 1500s & sadly it was as equally unromantic. The word was used to describe the first month of marriage which was “the sweetest” with the specific assumption that it would be downhill all the way from then on for the married couple. Hence we get the expression applied to all kinds of plutonic relationships “the honeymoon is over”.

By the 1800s, honeymoons in Britain were becoming more common. For most working class couples, it might have been a night away in a secret location, for others it was visiting family & friends who couldn’t attend the wedding.

Only in the 1900s did the honeymoon really become the recognisable post-wedding holiday we know it today.

So if a couple can’t go abroad for their honeymoon this year, instead to be traditional, they just need a secret romantic getaway.

Mobile phones should be switched off!

📸 @svaleriyaphoto