11. Honeymoon
Honeymoons actually have more than one origin; one is significantly nicer than the other. In ancient cultures, many men kidnapped women to be their brides. Whether because of their beauty or their dowry, men with power would steal women away, force them to marry them, sire an heir on them, and then force their fathers to acknowledge the marriage and hand over the dowry. The men would often hide their wives away for about a month or two to impregnate them; by the time the “honeymoon” ended, the women were often pregnant.
The other, nicer origin is that in Viking culture, newlyweds would spend their first month of marriage having a lot of sex and drinking a lot of mead, which is made from honey and thought to make a woman more fertile. This “honeyed month,” later translated to “honeymoon,” was a time in which the newlyweds would try to get pregnant. Couples today still repeat the tradition of drinking a lot and having a lot of sex, though not everyone is lucky enough to make it last a month.
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