someone explain this 'meshmetha' crap to me...

Hookah said:
Yeah it's more of a formality nowadays. Its insurance against them saying, "wireh b'kaweh lah b'tara" (he came through the window and not the door).  Basically, you're giving her old man a head's up that at some point in the future you're going to be boning his daughter.
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:ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: that's so bold..... yet so funny!


I would reccommend sneaking around first....it's so exciting!  :lol:
 
Bunny said:
ultoma love... RUN NOW RUN BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE RUN!
mashmeta is just an excuse for the girl's family to nag on the head of hte guy (and his family) and get as much as possible out of them!

the part you didn't hear yet, the mashmeta is not only to get to know the family but:
-if it's the first holiday the groom must go with his family to the girls house bringing a gift.
no going out alone or in the dark.
more gifts for the bride to be
if the bride does have little brothers and sister you should also bring them gifts or you are a greedy bastard and don't love her family as much as you love her.



second version of this whole part: the girl isn't an angel and her family knows about it.
you and the girl go out "on a secret date" you both will get caught but you too young to get married so you do a mashmeta(a trap) they nag on your head till you hate your life and you can't dump her because you are offecially with her and have ruined her reputaion because everybody knows she had " a guy "
so you end up getting married at the of 20.



:bigarmhug:
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i think that's my biggest beef with it.  There is an expectation that you are going to marry them. 

Renee said:
You need to concider when this tradition was created before you judge it. At the time, a girl had no say in who she got married to so ofcourse the family had to be notified and given the opportunity to say yes or no.

These days its just maintained for tradition's sake. Usually the families of the 2 people who have been dating are aware of it, even if the families haven't met or the guy hasn't been over the girls place and vise versa. The mashmehta becomes a formaility of sorts, in other words people only do it for tradition's sake. If the guy and girl want to get married, they do a mashmehta before the engagement and the families don't say no....
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man...some things should just die.  Tradition is not worth it in this case...it might have worked for it's time, but this is too modern an age for that crap. 

JooJee said:
ultoMa , do u have someone in mind?  :giggle:
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i'll let you know if i'm ever in kangaroo land ;0


ok, so to recap...you are not allowed to sneak around but you're supposed to anyways and avoid being caught.  Then, when you think you want to get serious or slip up and get caught, you do this crap so that everyone is in on your personal life.  When this happens, there is an expectation that you will eventually marry that person and if you don't, their rep or yours is slightly or greatly hurt.  Oh, and there are gifts and other material things being thrown around as the icing on the cake.  Honestly, if i ever tried to explain this to a non-assyrian, i think they might laugh in my face because i know i would if i was them.
 
ultoMa said:
ok, so to recap...you are not allowed to sneak around but you're supposed to anyways and avoid being caught.  Then, when you think you want to get serious or slip up and get caught, you do this crap so that everyone is in on your personal life.  When this happens, there is an expectation that you will eventually marry that person and if you don't, their rep or yours is slightly or greatly hurt.  Oh, and there are gifts and other material things being thrown around as the icing on the cake.  Honestly, if i ever tried to explain this to a non-assyrian, i think they might laugh in my face because i know i would if i was them.
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I think you got it, except for the gifts part; I honestly haven't heard of gifts being bestowed during this process.  My understanding of it is that it is simply a "heads up" to the girl's family.  Even if it doesn't get to the engagement stage, I've never heard of anyone being done in by it.  Then again, I hardly know of any one that still practices this for anything other than formality/tradition.
 
You guys make it seem like Assyrians are crazy strict with mashmetas. I've never seen Assyrians go crazy over the mashmeta process. I always see them doing it as a traditional thing before the boy actually starts dating the girl, to try and show respect to her family (I guess?), not after dating the girl in secrecy. It doesn't mean that he's tied down to her at all...it's just to let them know that he's interested in their daughter and he's not dating her to fool around, but actually attempting to have a serious relationship with her.

Also, Assyrians aren't the only ones who do this. Armenians do it as well.
 
what ever happened to offerings like farm animals and sacrificial lambs? life was so much easier in the before times.
 
Mechwarrior may have already stated this in his novel on page one, but its like being promised, is it not?  This occurs also within the Muslim communities.
 
Pumpkin said:
Mechwarrior may have already stated this in his novel on page one, but its like being promised, is it not?  This occurs also within the Muslim communities.
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Not really. Maybe it's different with the Assyrians I live around...?
 
baklawa said:
I think you got it, except for the gifts part; I honestly haven't heard of gifts being bestowed during this process.  My understanding of it is that it is simply a "heads up" to the girl's family.  Even if it doesn't get to the engagement stage, I've never heard of anyone being done in by it.  Then again, I hardly know of any one that still practices this for anything other than formality/tradition.
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it's an old tradition, it was mostly done in villages like telkape, karemlash, alqosh. it's more about pleasing the family and not much about the girl. depending on the status of the family the gift gets better

from what i know this still happens... i know a girl in europe.
who wasn't allowd to see her bf(future hubby) unless he comes with his family and must bring a gift.
that's the only way he shows he respect her and her family and shows his pure intention... (blah blah crap..blah blah)
 
thank god my parents are american born and i didn't have to deal with any of that b.s.
i met my hubby, we dated, he worried about all that stuff and i set him free and told him just to relax and let's enjoy the summer and fall and if we felt we had feelings for eachother we could decide on something after that........he said, "we can do that?!!!" LOL  I'm like, yes........he took a deep breath and the rest is history.......we married that feb.
 
BrOwN eYeS said:
why would u bull**** them, you can telll them the truth, my husband and i dated for 3 years and then we got married, my whole family knew about it and so did his.

then when it was time he asked me to marry him, but of course his family came to my house for mashmetha and asked my parents :)
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Exactly what I was about to say. If your parents trust you, and you're not up to any *cough, cough* 
"naughtyness", then why would you keep them in the dark? They would be happy that you were with an Atoureta/Atouraya, wouldn't they? As long as you keep it clean. Can we keep it clean? Let's keep it clean people!  :2hearts:
 
Norah said:
Exactly what I was about to say. If your parents trust you, and you're not up to any *cough, cough*  
"naughtyness", then why would you keep them in the dark? They would be happy that you were with an Atoureta/Atouraya, wouldn't they? As long as you keep it clean. Can we keep it clean? Let's keep it clean people!   :2hearts:
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What's on the 'clean list'  that I can do or get away with?  *fingers crossed*
 
jonadona said:
What's on the 'clean list'  that I can do or get away with?  *fingers crossed*
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Nothing naughty!  :nono:

So nothing our parents wouldn't do when they dated...let's be gentlemen and ladies!!!  :blush2:
 
Norah said:
Nothing naughty!  :nono:

So nothing our parents wouldn't do when they dated...let's be gentlemen and ladies!!!   :blush2:
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:lol: "yalla yalla brata, azakh el 6ooranehhh"

what do u think Sargon Gabriel meant by that?
 
Norah said:
Nothing naughty!  :nono:

So nothing our parents wouldn't do when they dated...let's be gentlemen and ladies!!!  :blush2:
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people have been doing things since the beginning of time...people just are more vocal about it now.
 
Norah said:
Nothing naughty!  :nono:

So nothing our parents wouldn't do when they dated...let's be gentlemen and ladies!!!  :blush2:
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Ok....nothing MY parents wouldn't have done when they dated  :beee:
 
Its tradition, what would be without traditions, a bunch of qarachayeh!!!

I'm definitely doing it when I ask for my future wife's hands, its all meant to be ceremonial, and I have to hear my dad saying "we've came to pick a flower from your garden". Haha

 
Salem said:
Its tradition, what would be without traditions, a bunch of qarachayeh!!!

I'm definitely doing it when I ask for my future wife's hands, its all meant to be ceremonial, and I have to hear my dad saying "we've came to pick a flower from your garden". Haha
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the tradition argument is getting tiresome...we've had plenty of 'traditions' that we have no problem letting go of.

there used to be a tradition that married couples had boyfriends and girlfriends and were looked down upon if they didn't.  Why can't we bring that one back? 

Just because it's 'tradition' does not excuse it's stupidity and uselessness in modern day.  You can't use the tradition argument if you're picking and choosing which ones to follow.  If you make that argument, you have to follow EVERY tradition.
 
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