What’s love got to do with it?

In research for my novel What’s Left, I wound up learning about the people we now call Roma. I won’t say how it applied, but it was an eyeful.

For instance.

1. All Roma are expected to marry – and to another Roma, not an outsider.
2. In many tribes, the parents arrange the marriage.
3. Rejection of a formal proposal is considered a disgrace.
4. Acceptance leads to the negotiation of a bride price to compensate her parents for their loss.
5. A festive ceremony may follow a few days later, signifying the engagement.
6. No formal ritual is required as a wedding itself, though some tribes turn the occasion into a multiday celebration.
7. Wedding gifts almost always consist of money.
8. After the wedding, the bride is never seen in public without wearing her headscarf.
9. They settled into the groom’s parents’ home, and cannot move to a place of their own until after the birth of their first child.
10. The couple cannot refer to each other as husband and wife until their first child is born. Up to that point, it’s only their first names when speaking to each other or about the other in public.

Gee, we haven’t even touched on the death customs and rituals.

Drawn from Gypsy at larp.com.