Better than Nothing

Abstract

The use of the broomstick wedding among European-American communities is an understudied component of this ritual history, and this chapter provides the first extended treatment of the marital phenomenon among people of European descent in the United States. Marginalized communities in isolated areas, such as white people in Appalachia, Cajuns in the Louisiana bayous, and miners in the rural American west, were inclined to adopt the ritual due to geographical circumstances that made access to ministers difficult. Like most other populations, each group shows a unique approach to performing the ritual, suggesting how each of them employed elements of cultural autonomy. Additionally, the chapter argues that many white Americans, especially those linked to cultures based on oral tradition, retained an understanding of “jumping the broom” in their colloquial speech. Just as many recognize “tying the knot” as an expression for marriage, “jumping the broom” was also similarly popular in regional vernaculars of European Americans throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.