Dwarvish Weddings
With so little being known about Dwarvin culture that leaves the door open for a lot of extrapolation. The Dwarrow Scholar has done a great job of laying the foundations in this article: https://dwarrowscholar.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/whos-the-bride-dwarven-marriage/ but I don't think that they got it quite right.
The Dwarves, to me, seem like the most open society, at least amongst themselves. We see them bathing together in Rivendell and I think that communal baths would be common for them. I can't imagine that every apartment in a mountain would have it's own. I think that, as a culture, Dwarves are not bothered by modesty. They are the very antithesis of Elves, whether by accident or design.
I've seen a few comments about how Dwarves don't have relations before marriage, but that doesn't sound quite right. I can't imagine a society that has so few females discouraging the act of making babies. Jed Brophy is quoted in an interview as saying that Dori, Nori, and Ori all have different fathers. We do know that Dwarves only love once and will have no other but the one their heart desires; even if that means spending the rest of their life alone. Meaning that, in order for the three to have different fathers, their mother would have had to had extramarital relations.
On a side note, with the male to female ratio being 3:1, I do think that men relating with men would be, if not common, at least not a big deal. Even if Dwarves have a lower sex drive than humans, I really don't think it's realistic for the majority of the men to never have sex in their lives.
Maybe in their far past, the Dwarrow Scholar courtship and wedding rituals could have rung true. But for the Dwarves of Erebor post-Smaug, I think things would have changed drastically. After losing everything and having to start over, they would learn to seize the day, and not wait for what they want. The groom would not need to spend a year building a new home, as they have learned just how easy it is to lose one.
It's going to be tricky, and I've been putting off writing because of it. I try to research as I go, but I hate finding new info and then having to go back and change something in my story. Especially if it is a fundamental piece of a characters culture.
*sigh* Writing is hard.
The Dwarves, to me, seem like the most open society, at least amongst themselves. We see them bathing together in Rivendell and I think that communal baths would be common for them. I can't imagine that every apartment in a mountain would have it's own. I think that, as a culture, Dwarves are not bothered by modesty. They are the very antithesis of Elves, whether by accident or design.
I've seen a few comments about how Dwarves don't have relations before marriage, but that doesn't sound quite right. I can't imagine a society that has so few females discouraging the act of making babies. Jed Brophy is quoted in an interview as saying that Dori, Nori, and Ori all have different fathers. We do know that Dwarves only love once and will have no other but the one their heart desires; even if that means spending the rest of their life alone. Meaning that, in order for the three to have different fathers, their mother would have had to had extramarital relations.
On a side note, with the male to female ratio being 3:1, I do think that men relating with men would be, if not common, at least not a big deal. Even if Dwarves have a lower sex drive than humans, I really don't think it's realistic for the majority of the men to never have sex in their lives.
Maybe in their far past, the Dwarrow Scholar courtship and wedding rituals could have rung true. But for the Dwarves of Erebor post-Smaug, I think things would have changed drastically. After losing everything and having to start over, they would learn to seize the day, and not wait for what they want. The groom would not need to spend a year building a new home, as they have learned just how easy it is to lose one.
It's going to be tricky, and I've been putting off writing because of it. I try to research as I go, but I hate finding new info and then having to go back and change something in my story. Especially if it is a fundamental piece of a characters culture.
*sigh* Writing is hard.