With the third series of ‘My Big Gypsy Weddings’ starting last week in the UK could single women learn anything from their approach to love.
My big gypsy weddings for those of you who don’t know is a television documentary series which has become a phenomenon in the UK. It follows the lives of young women from various gypsy / traveller communities as they prepare for their weddings. However these are no ordinary weddings.
A gypsy / traveller wedding is a bold, brash elaborate affair which is always dominated by the bride’s huge and I mean huge dress.
But alongside the show’s seeming celebration of marriage the lives of these young women are brought into the spotlight, with the average age of a gypsy bride being just 17!
Critics of the show often argue that these young women tie themselves to a life of servitude (very few of them work) from too young an age and could expect only ever to be housewives and mothers.
So what then is this shows appeal? What made 9 million UK viewers watch the last series? What could modern women possibly have in common with gypsy women? Could an explanation be that modern career women were watching with a tinge of envy? I mean here were largely uneducated gypsy / traveller women who were guaranteed a wedding (and a husband) who didn’t have to work a day in their lives because their husbands and fathers provided for them. Who were being watched by educated women who did have to work and work hard with no guarantee of a relationship let alone a wedding.
During the series we’ve learnt that the gypsy / traveller woman puts her family and her quest for a husband first. She expects domestic drudgery so accepts her fate willingly like millions of women before her. And because of this she’s won new-found praise for her sacrifice and commitment.
So maybe the show’s overall appeal is that it brings home a message that women, educated or not, wealthy or not, are underneath it all more alike than different.
