Revelry and Resistance

Abstract

This chapter analyses women’s use of mockery and ridicule in prenuptial performance among Trinidadian and Bihari Hindus; Canadian-Moroccan and Bulgarian-Israeli Sephardic Jews; Romanian Orthodox Christians; and Muslim Tuareg smith praise singers. Following James Scott, this chapter argues that prenuptial mockery and ridicule function as weapons of the weak or the disempowered, asserting resistance to the change and loss that accompany marriage while helping to alleviate anxiety through momentary empowerment, familiarizing new social contexts for the bride and female relatives through humor and levity.