You have spared no expense in the planning of your wedding.
The candle wedding favors are all lit and everyone is still drying the tears from their eyes.
You have thanked everyone for coming.
You have paid the band and shook hands with all two hundred plus guests, pretending to remember all of them.
Everyone has thanked you for the elegant wedding favors and commented on how beautiful the bride is.
The ushers are bringing cars around and it is finally winding down.
Now it is time for the night you have been waiting on for your entire life.
Romantic candles, soft music, and a chilled bottle of wine await you, your new wife, and her mother.
Everything comes to a screeching halt.
Did I just say that her mother would be spending the night with you and your bride on your wedding night? Well, you think to yourself, I guess we could make up the spare bedroom.
Wrong again, because your mother in law will be in the bedroom with you.
Now you know I must be either A.
drunk as a skunk, or B.
Crazy as a loon.
Well you are wrong on both accounts.
I am describing a wedding custom of several villages in Africa.
In all complete seriousness, there are tribes who have a custom that the bride's mother, your mother in law must spend the night with the newly married couple and it gets worse.
Her job is to make sure that your new wife knows what to do to make you happy...
in bed.
It does not have to be the bride's mother.
In certain situations, it can be the groom's mother or in lack of a bride or grooms mother, a female village elder.
They literally sit there and direct the bride what to do and watch to make sure she does it right.
To make things worse, if your wife does something too well, the watcher will report to the village elders that she was not a virgin and the wedding will be annulled.
Talk about some strict rules.
You have to hope that your new bride is not a natural at sex or you could lose her.
In another small village near Borneo, there is a wedding custom for which I just do not think I would have the stomach.
During the first 72 hours after the wedding, in order to avoid bad luck, the newly married couple is not allowed to urinate or have a bowel movement.
In order to ensure they do not cheat, the couple is watched day and night.
They can only have small sips of water and a few bites of food every now and then.
I do not know about anyone else, but I cannot go 72 hours without peeing even if my life depended on it.
Shoot, at my age, I am lucky if I can get through a two-hour movie without relieving myself.
In fact, I do not go to the movies because of this, choosing instead to wait for the DVD release of the film.
Making it through one night without going to the can would be hard enough and they want me to go for three nights? My bladder would burst.
These weird wedding traditions are pretty strange but they are steeped deeply in the traditions of these customs and are lovingly followed to the letter in most cases.
I just cannot imagine how embarrassed I would be to have my mother in law standing over my wedding bed directing traffic.
I think it would be even worse if it were my mother doing it.
The candle wedding favors are all lit and everyone is still drying the tears from their eyes.
You have thanked everyone for coming.
You have paid the band and shook hands with all two hundred plus guests, pretending to remember all of them.
Everyone has thanked you for the elegant wedding favors and commented on how beautiful the bride is.
The ushers are bringing cars around and it is finally winding down.
Now it is time for the night you have been waiting on for your entire life.
Romantic candles, soft music, and a chilled bottle of wine await you, your new wife, and her mother.
Everything comes to a screeching halt.
Did I just say that her mother would be spending the night with you and your bride on your wedding night? Well, you think to yourself, I guess we could make up the spare bedroom.
Wrong again, because your mother in law will be in the bedroom with you.
Now you know I must be either A.
drunk as a skunk, or B.
Crazy as a loon.
Well you are wrong on both accounts.
I am describing a wedding custom of several villages in Africa.
In all complete seriousness, there are tribes who have a custom that the bride's mother, your mother in law must spend the night with the newly married couple and it gets worse.
Her job is to make sure that your new wife knows what to do to make you happy...
in bed.
It does not have to be the bride's mother.
In certain situations, it can be the groom's mother or in lack of a bride or grooms mother, a female village elder.
They literally sit there and direct the bride what to do and watch to make sure she does it right.
To make things worse, if your wife does something too well, the watcher will report to the village elders that she was not a virgin and the wedding will be annulled.
Talk about some strict rules.
You have to hope that your new bride is not a natural at sex or you could lose her.
In another small village near Borneo, there is a wedding custom for which I just do not think I would have the stomach.
During the first 72 hours after the wedding, in order to avoid bad luck, the newly married couple is not allowed to urinate or have a bowel movement.
In order to ensure they do not cheat, the couple is watched day and night.
They can only have small sips of water and a few bites of food every now and then.
I do not know about anyone else, but I cannot go 72 hours without peeing even if my life depended on it.
Shoot, at my age, I am lucky if I can get through a two-hour movie without relieving myself.
In fact, I do not go to the movies because of this, choosing instead to wait for the DVD release of the film.
Making it through one night without going to the can would be hard enough and they want me to go for three nights? My bladder would burst.
These weird wedding traditions are pretty strange but they are steeped deeply in the traditions of these customs and are lovingly followed to the letter in most cases.
I just cannot imagine how embarrassed I would be to have my mother in law standing over my wedding bed directing traffic.
I think it would be even worse if it were my mother doing it.