White?!? Wedding...or Funeral?

Colors. They are everywhere, lending meaning, complexity, symbolism, culture, and life to world we live in. We all inhabit a world filled with a plethora of colors, many different shades carrying many more different nuances of meanings. But while the colors themselves are universally classified, the meanings seem to be far from so. Colors are signs—there is no inherent meaning to them but they rather take on meaning based on the perception of the individual which is determined by, the object of our discussion, the culture of the individual and surrounding the individual.

I recently was the maid of honor at my friend’s wedding. The bride was dressed in white, as is the western tradition. I was not at all surprised by this, but my grandmother who had come from India, was puzzled. She asked me in our native tongue, “స్నేహ, వై ఇస్ శే వేఅరింగ్ వైట్? ఇట్'స అ వెడ్డింగ్, రైట్? తట్'స ఇనౌస్పికిఔస్!” (Sneha, why is she wearing white? This is a wedding, right? That’s inauspicious!) In India, white is worn usually during funerals, symbolizing unhappiness, death and mourning, while in America white symbolizes purity, innocence, angels, and peace. Seeing the bride wearing that color, my grandmother immediately doubted the reason for the occasion—she took a position based on her instinct and reaction to the color. She totally disregarded the festive atmosphere and the program clearly stating that it was a WEDDING and questioned what was directly obvious instead resorting to her subconscious beliefs to take a position on the subject at hand. This echoes Turner’s sentiments about the meaning revealing itself to be culturally grinded and meanings being cultural products of different societies and classes.