Junior-Freshmen Weddings (groupD)

Honeymoon Hike

Junior-freshman Wedding Traditions

The Progressive era was a time of changing and conflicting attitudes towards what a women’s role in society should be. This had a large impact on women’s colleges like Florida State College for Women and others like it. It was this societal conflict that helped to bring about FSCW’s tradition of the Freshman-Junior Weddings that occurred in the fall semester (Junke). The weddings were noted for the impressively passing performances of FSCW’s students as the opposite gender, where the Juniors took the male roles. The freshman women took the role of the bride and wore a bridal dress and veil, while the woman disguised as the groom wore a suit.

Women Faculty members, who were known to be in the first wave of women college graduates, inspired those who were currently enrolled on these campuses (Junke). These faculty members often helped write the scripture that was read during the Freshman-Junior mock weddings. If not the faculty, then the president would “officiate the unofficial ceremony” (Sellers). Other than students and faculty, the weddings also incorporated organ and choir performances of wedding music, wedding vows, decorations, an alter, the taking of wedding photographs, and celebratory parties. After the wedding took place, the wedding party would go on a hike in place of an actual honeymoon, as is depicted in the picture to the left.

Odds and Evens involvement 

 Not only were the freshman and junior classes involved in the weddings, but at the start of the tradition, the odds and evens classes division also mattered. Fake names were often chosen based on year because of this. For example, Mrs. Mary Anne Even or Mr. Henry Odd. This slowly faded as the wedding became more elaborate and face names were taken to the more realistic extreme (Sellers). 

Other Colleges

Florida State College for women was not the only college to have Junior-freshmen weddings. Junior-Freshman Wedding, although a somewhat shamed practice in some parts of the country, were actually quite popular at one time. To the right is an excerpt from a yearbook from Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts, which describes the freshman and junior class presidents engaging in a junior-freshman wedding ceremony with everything from wedding cake to “distinguished guests”. Although FSCW’s weddings were often more frequent than just one couple every fall, as there are multiple weddings recorded to have happened within the same year in Ms.Cooper’s Scrapbook.

Significance and Purpose 

During a time where women were who fought to receive a college education were treated with hostile attitudes, the tradition of a mock wedding gave fellow students stronger emotional bonds and relationships with the women around them. It allowed new incoming freshman to feel a stronger sense of belonging to their college campus (Sellers). Intimate and permanent friendships were key factors of what the faculty members wanted to encourage among the younger students, as was pronounced by the officiator of the ceremony, as they would sometimes exclaim “permanent friends” rather than “husband and wife” (Junke). Overall, the ceremony fueled the passion for fighting for the acceptability of women’s educational pursuits and inclusion of new comers to the campus. 

Gender Role Changes on an All Female College Campus 

The late 1800’s and early 1900’s were quite a strange period of time. Still influenced by the Victorian ideals yet open to change, society was in constant dispute with itself, particularly over the place of women in the hierarchy as society evolved. Female higher education at its beginnings, which basically followed the curriculum of the seminary, was not the same as the education that men would receive. They followed strict regiment of study, prayer, and supervision by faculty up until the late 1870’s, when the notion of the “college life” began in the United States (Horowitz). It was this change that drove women to create a safe place for themselves on their college campuses, creating a loving world for women in which men, other than the faculty members, could not infiltrate. 

In the world of Freshman-Junior Weddings, we see this love flourish. Social and sexual deviants used this practice as a way to carry the victorian notion of romantic friendships into the progressive era, in which women would court each other and express their love for one another, both platonically and not, in order to show their capacity for love (Junke). Even though it may be the case that these relationships were not always platonic, romantic friendships were used mostly as a way to create a network of nurturing and care for one another, especially as new students entered into their elaborate world of traditions and celebrations from (Sellers). These weddings created bonds of sisterhood between students for whom this was their first experience of independence of those who had been experiencing it for a while. 

On the college campus, women were allowed to show their affectionate nature without the ties to being “familial”, or for that matter, any ties to their gender at all. Even with the social stigma that outsiders held against it, the students were allowed to cross dress under the supervision of the faculty members so long as students stayed within the confines of the university. This was done on a semi regular basis, to an extent, and allowed them to fulfill roles as dates and grooms for events, dances, and of course the mock-weddings at which there were no males present to act as dance partners. It was even done just for fun occasionally (Junke). Either way, the ability for women to hold these uplifting and uniting ceremonies during a time of social conflict allowed them to create permanent bonds with one another, taught them to work together, and to help each other succeed outside of the household ideals for women at the time.