nuptials

It’s June, the month commonly seen as most conducive to nuptials. (Also to nuptuals, but that’s just because so many of us are used to words like conceptual and actual that nuptial just seems like it’s too easy and must really be nuptual. It’s not.) Nuptials, as we know, is used as just a fancy way of saying weddings (or wedding – we seldom see nuptial as a singular noun, and not often as an adjective, either, though it has been an adjective longer than it’s been a noun). But, historically, it’s more one-sided than that.

As you probably know, weddings in our culture (as in many) have long been focused more on the bride than on the groom. Prospective brides will hear “It’s your day!” and “It’s the best day of your life!” and the wedding dress is typically a huge production. Prospective grooms will not hear all of the same things, and are expected to wear some variation on a standard suit – don’t try to pull attention. Because historically it just hasn’t been the same life-altering thing for the man. The woman was getting her whole new name, identity, and career! The man was “taking a wife.” There’s still some of this, though it has diminished a little with widespread acknowledgment that women are equal human beings and deserve to be treated as such. But back in Roman times, where this word comes from, well…

Well, it’s like this. If I pull my Pocket Oxford Latin Dictionary off the shelf and look up “marry vt” I get the following: “(of a priest) conubio iungo; (as the man) uxorem duco; (as the woman) viro nubo.” So while in English I can say “I wed Aina, Aina wed me, and Reverend Taul wed us” or “I married Aina, Aina married me, and Reverend Taul married us,” in Latin there are three different verbs. 

What the priest does is conubio iungo, which has the verb iungo (ancestor of English join) and the noun conubio (nominative conubium, often but less correctly seen as connubium), which is from con ‘with’ plus nubium, which is from nubo plus -ium. 

That nubo is the same verb that the woman uses, and it means “I wed” – but a man would not use that verb, and not just because viro nubo means ‘I wed a man’ (a thing that men were not supposed to do in Rome). The Latin noun conubium for ‘wedding’ is – like, say, adoption or victory – based on what one side of the action does. And the same goes for nuptial(s), which comes from Latin nuptialis ‘pertaining to marriage’, which is from nuptiæ ‘wedding’ (note that it’s a plural, like nuptials), which is from nupta ‘married’ or ‘married woman’, which is the past participle of nubo. It’s the occasion of her wedding. The other person getting married is there by implication, but mentioned? Nope.

Nubo also shows up in another word we know: nubile. You may know that as an adjective for an attractive young woman. Its Latin source, nubilis, literally means ‘marriageable’ – referring to a woman, not a man. You can see how it maps out the life course for a woman: “that young lady is very attractive, which I will express by saying she is fit for marrying.” Ripe like a peach, and ready for plucking, so to speak. And if she wanted other things? Pshaw.

And what does the man’s version mean, uxorem duco? Well, uxorem is the accusative case of uxor, which means ‘wife’ (you may know the adjective uxorious, meaning ‘very – perhaps too – devoted to one’s wife’; note that we lack a corresponding adjective in the other direction, because it has never been thought of as a fault for a woman to be extremely devoted to her husband). And duco? It has many meanings and many descendants – yes, including duke, but also deduct, conducive, production, ductile, and so many more. Its most basic meaning it ‘lead’ or ‘take’. From which you may deduce that uxorem duco translates pretty much exactly to I take a wife.