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Steaming Stags and Hammered Hens: The Role of Alcohol in Premarital Rituals

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Alcohol, Age, Generation and the Life Course

Part of the book series: Leisure Studies in a Global Era ((LSGE))

Abstract

In many cultures, alcohol consumption is interwoven into the cultural traditions and ceremonies surrounding key occasions in the life course. Often, drinking alcohol is integrated into the customs of courtship and marriage (Bennett, 2004; Heath, 2000). Weddings are a particularly significant occasion in the life course of most people living in Western societies (Otnes & Pleck, 2003). Further, prenuptial rituals—such as stag, bachelor or bucks parties for men and hen, hens or bachelorette parties for women—have been described as ‘a folkloric social expectation’, involving a form of excess which is obligatory and anticipated (Briggs & Ellis, 2017, 757) and ‘an almost essential pre-wedding ritual’ (Eldridge & Roberts, 2008, 325). In Britain, ‘excessive stag and hen parties’ now sit alongside ornate and expensive ‘white weddings’ and ‘an exotic honeymoon’ as desirable and, for some, obligatory elements of the process of getting married (Carter & Duncan, 2018, 175). Significantly, while there has been some uptake of mixed gender occasions, referred to with novel terms such as ‘hag parties’ or ‘Jack and Jills’, the majority of such premarital rituals are distinctly and specifically gender-segregated and ‘homosocial’ occasions (Thurnell-Read, 2012; Young, 2019).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

    Thomas Thurnell-Read

  2. University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK

    Sheila M. Young

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  1. Thomas Thurnell-Read
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Correspondence to Thomas Thurnell-Read .

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  1. Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

    Thomas Thurnell-Read

  2. University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Laura Fenton

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Thurnell-Read, T., Young, S.M. (2022). Steaming Stags and Hammered Hens: The Role of Alcohol in Premarital Rituals. In: Thurnell-Read, T., Fenton, L. (eds) Alcohol, Age, Generation and the Life Course. Leisure Studies in a Global Era. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04017-7_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04017-7_8

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