The Day the Universe Changed - James Burke [2]
Much of the ritual is apparently anachronistic: the bride wears white; the service, whether religious or civil, involves archaic language and concepts which include the role of the woman as a chattel, to be given away. The event is infused with symbols. Flowers represent fertility, the ring is both a sexual and a business token, implying union in both senses. The bridesmaids intimate the state of virginity which the bride is about to leave. Both participants sign the contract, implying equality before the law. The honeymoon was a time when the bride and groom were removed from the pressures of daily life in order to begin their new family.
None of these elements may any longer be of direct value or meaning to the bride and groom today, but the fact that they are retained shows that marriage is still a socially important ritual. This indicates that the community considers formal and binding relationships between the sexes a necessary part of the continuity and stability of the group. The ritual remains for that reason.
Rituals which are performed widely and generally enough become institutionalised. These institutions are staffed by members of the society who are given authority and responsibility for social acts which are considered vital to the continued security and operation of the community. The institutions perform the function of social housekeepers, taking on the routine services which are necessary for the day to day functioning of the group. In some cases, such as that of government, the institution will confer real power on its members to make and enforce decisions about the future behaviour of the whole society.
In the case of the modern West, the primacy of money and possessions is indicated by the power and the institutionalised forms of those organisations whose job it is to ensure the continuity of finance and commercial transactions. Banks safeguard the means of exchange by formalising the ways in which it can be moved around. Although electronic fund transfer now makes the physical presence of bills of exchange and letters of credit unnecessary, the new medium still adheres to the system developed originally to handle the paper activity. The system is still that of seventeenth-century banking, because our society considers it to be sufficiently effective as a means of financial regulation to be retained almost unchanged.
The law is probably the institution that changes least in any society. In its codes it enshrines and protects the basic identity of the community. In its power to punish, it delineates the permitted forms of activity, those considered valuable, such as the act of innovation which is protected by patent legislation, and those which are considered to be so detrimental to the safety of the group at large that the punishment for transgression may be death. The particularly anachronistic way in which legal proceedings are carried on today - in dress, modes of speech, jury numbers, courtroom seating, and so on - indicates the value society places on the institution. The visible evidence of a continuing legal tradition enhances the impression of a community living under a permanent and consistent rule of law.
One of the principal aims of the institutions is that they free the majority of the group to do other things considered necessary for the welfare of all, such as the production of wealth, the maintenance of physical well-being and, above all, the inculcation of the community’s view of life in the young. Humanity is unique in the length of time its offspring spend learning before they begin to take on adult responsibilities. Language gives us the unique ability to pass on information