“By the elders’ leave, I do”

Abstract

Abstract The basis of this study is the view that social ritual practices embody and reinforce the moral order of communities. It takes a step towards providing more empirical research on the ritual practices in lesser studied languages by examining ethnographic data collected during marriage ceremonies in Tehran. Extracts taken from marriage ceremonies and a film extract are examined in terms of recurrence, liminality, embodiment of the moral order and emotivity, elements identified in Kádár’s definition of ritual ( 2017 ). The paper makes a theoretical contribution by showing that ostensivity can also be considered an important facet of ritual. In ritual practices connected with marriage, ostensivity is experienced by participants and observers as a means of maintaining the moral order. The paper proposes future areas of research for the theoretical refinement of the concept of ostensivity and further examination of the relationship that ostensivity has with ta’arof (Iranian ritual politeness) and face.

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