Getting engaged

No, not me. After what I’ve seen, the engagement process here is a sort of familial hazing. It seems to be designed to see if you can hack it. The whole thing actually seems like a pretty good idea, it reinforces something that I think many American lovebirds neglect to reflect upon; marriage is a blending of families. Sometimes this blending is not so much of a delicious smoothie but more of a literal putting of family members in a blender, but we'll get back to that.


So, typically when a couple gets engaged in the US there is very little family involvement. Sometimes, if you’re really old-fashioned, the father’s permissions is sought, but everybody knows that if he protests, there’s not much that can be done. Turkish engagements are an entirely different animal.


Aytaç and Sibel decided to get engaged, but it was less a decision to purchase a diamond engagement ring and more a decision to tell their families that they would like to get engaged. Sibel lives in Giresun, Aytaç lives in Bursa. They met at university and now live, like most unmarried Turks their age, at home with their families. The problem is, their families live about 18 hours away from eachother, complicating their courtship. They decided, like many in their position, to become engaged. So, here we are in Trabzon, where Aytaç's father is originally from--about two hours from Giresun. 


Sibel, her mother, her aunt, her sister and her sister’s fiancé all came to Trabzon to join Aytaç, myself, Selen, Şengül (Aytaç ‘s aunt), his mother, and Selen’s mother, Sennur in the traditional shopping for the engagement rings. Sibel and co. were an hour late, and poor Aytaç was all bent out of shape. It had come to my attention through several conversations that Sibel’s family was particularly difficult. Her father was an ass (again, as far as I was informed), her sister was difficult and self-centered and her mother was something of a wet blanket. It seemed as if this evening was headed for disaster. Aytaç’s family made no secret of being no fan of Sibel’s family. They also seemed to have no qualms about wearing these sentiments proudly on their sleeves.

Finally they arrived and we made our way into the çarsi (bazaar-ish market place), we went from jewelry store to jewelry store looking at and comparing engagement rings. These rings are not what you typically receive in an American engagement. Rather, they are more ornate wedding bands. These bands are exchanged at the engagement ceremony and worn on both the man and woman’s right ring finger until the day of the wedding when they are moved to the left hand. We went to several stores before the couple decided on their rings. They made the purchase and then we continued on to the second half of our adventure.

Sibel needed a dress that she would be wearing during the engagement ceremony. I figured some sort of nice cocktail dress would suffice, but no. Think prom dress. We went into half a dozen stores, but it seemed that she had tried on a dress in Giresun and had not found one in Trabzon that could match it. She was finally convinced to try on several dresses and almost made two purchases before backing out last second. It was like wedding dress shopping on crack. Everybody had an opinion, everybody liked a different dress, and poor Sibel was constantly being overpowered by her mother’s, aunt’s and sister’s opinions. After several cups of tea, a simit or two, and about two hours later, they called the shop in Giresun and reserved the dress there.

Two days later, we headed out to Giresun where we went straight to the hair salon. Now, going to the hair salon is still a very posh thing to do. Think 1950s—when every woman with any kind of income would go to the hair salon in the morning to get her hair done before doing her daily activities. I mean, it’s not that common, but women go regularly before any sort of important social engagement. This is no exception. After spending time at the hair dresser’s—about 2 ½ hours of time—we finally headed over to Sibel’s house. None of us had eaten since about 10:30 in the morning and it was now about 6:30pm. Everyone was stressed and excited and very much in need of food, but alas…

We arrived as Sibel’s house where there were already easily 35 people crammed into their tiny apartment living room. The heat was on and everyone is looking slightly uncomfortable. All the men were dressed in old suits, sitting on the gigantic sectional, reclining with their thighs splayed, leaving very little room for all us new arrivals. Nearly all of the women were dressed with headscarves in floor-length jackets, bustling around after nutty children. We were quickly directed to the children’s bedroom and offered seats on the bunk bed and a few chairs crammed into the open floor space. Neither Selen nor I were entirely sure if this was going to be a gender-segregated ceremony. She had never attended one of these before, plus we were in Trabzon, on the Black Sea, where they have their own distinct traditions. Plus this family was significantly more conservative than Selen’s. Eventually the women convinced the men to move into chairs, freeing up space for us so we were offered a seat in the stifling living room. After about an hour of a penetrating, awkward silence, Sibel and Aytaç arrived, Aytaç’s father decided it was time to make the proposal.


Now, this is what Selen translated for me, he said something to the extent of: “We have travelled a long way to come out to Trabzon (for more about this—see the next post), we believe that Sibel will make a good addition to our family, we are asking for your permission.” To this, Sibel’s father stood up and responded something of the following, “We as a family have thought a great deal about this. We have discussed it as a family and we have come to the conclusion that they will make eachother happy. So, yes, we give our consent.”

Now my understanding was that her family was very reluctant at the beginning, her father made a big fuss about her Aytaç taking her across the country, and who would look after him in his old age? Who would pray for his soul at his grave? Hmm? I don’t know if this was an outward manifestation of his reluctance to allow his 24 year old daughter to become engaged, but it seems he relented to the whole thing. When I first met the mother, I mean, wow. She looked like one of those mother-in-laws that only film writers seem to be able to create.

To all this, Aytaç’s family was of course hurt. Though, Aytaç himself is a very young groom. Also, 24. It seems his father too was looking perhaps to prevent such a union. This made for a very uncomfortable push and pull between the families with Aytaç bearing the brunt of it all. His English was labored, but he explained to me the whole time leading up to this day that he was terrified that he wouldn’t be able to handle all this animosity between the families. This takes me back to the comment about the engagement being some sort of a hazing process. The families must interact for this event because tradition has held firm, they are still the ones who must participate for the engagement to become a reality. While I’m not sure I could handle something like this, it did bring up some very important questions that many couples don’t really confront until they are already deep into a marriage.


In my opinion the best part of the entire scene was the fact that Sibel and Aytaç were forced, by the sheer number of people, out into the hall the whole time that this was happening. They had absolutely no say in anything that was going on. They weren’t phyiscally present when the decision was made. Okay, yes, they dated for several years and they had chosen eachother, but I just couldn’t keep myself from comparing the whole thing to an American engagement, something that is so personal and really something that only takes place between the couple.

Anyhow, after this they brought out the rings which they exchanged. The rings were tied together by a red ribbon adorned with nazars, The ribbon was cut, then a cake was brought in, they fed eachother cake. Finally after this, everyone relaxed, we GOT TO EAT, and take thousands of pictures. I got asked a million and a half times if I was married. When they finally understood that nope, no husband, not even a boyfriend, I had all sorts of offers from grandmas about their grandsons who lived all over the place.


Now, they wait, until 2012. I’ve got an invitation, all I need is a date....