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Matrimony: Ritual, Culture, and the Heart's Work
A reclamation of cultural tradition in the ritual of matrimony for our ceremonially illiterate time
In a time when communal rituals and cultural ceremonies fail, longtime scholar, storyteller, and ceremonialist Stephen Jenkinson asks what it means to lose cultural inheritance. In examining matrimony and its ritual twin, patrimony, To Mother Culture contemplates culture-making, building and preserving cultural memory, and the ache of living in a world bereft of meaning and connection. There is a real and palpable consequence to turning away from public ceremony—and not just for the celebrants.
“Matrimony and patrimony are village rites, a communal affirmation of the village’s ways of going on, sometimes not quite knowing how to,” shares Jenkinson. “The village needs and deserves a rite of public recognition of the seismic change in its life that matrimony means to make.” Privatizing love, turning matrimony into a social institution barren of almost all substance, and flattening rituals into convenient events that fit into the routine of modern living erodes our connections and commitment to community and compromises our use as citizens of a troubled time. The way forward, then, is to learn and reclaim our cultural ceremonies and their meaning.
Through witty stories, insightful history, and meditative questions, To Mother Culture invites us to contemplate the significance of matrimony, ceremony, and cultural articulation—and how to redeem them for future generations.
In a time when communal rituals and cultural ceremonies fail, longtime scholar, storyteller, and ceremonialist Stephen Jenkinson asks what it means to lose cultural inheritance. In examining matrimony and its ritual twin, patrimony, To Mother Culture contemplates culture-making, building and preserving cultural memory, and the ache of living in a world bereft of meaning and connection. There is a real and palpable consequence to turning away from public ceremony—and not just for the celebrants.
“Matrimony and patrimony are village rites, a communal affirmation of the village’s ways of going on, sometimes not quite knowing how to,” shares Jenkinson. “The village needs and deserves a rite of public recognition of the seismic change in its life that matrimony means to make.” Privatizing love, turning matrimony into a social institution barren of almost all substance, and flattening rituals into convenient events that fit into the routine of modern living erodes our connections and commitment to community and compromises our use as citizens of a troubled time. The way forward, then, is to learn and reclaim our cultural ceremonies and their meaning.
Through witty stories, insightful history, and meditative questions, To Mother Culture invites us to contemplate the significance of matrimony, ceremony, and cultural articulation—and how to redeem them for future generations.
272 pages, Paperback
Published August 12, 2025
About the author
Stephen Jenkinson
12 books165 followersStephen is a teacher, author, storyteller, spiritual activist, farmer and founder of the Orphan Wisdom School, a teaching house and learning house for the skills of deep living and making human culture. It is rooted in knowing history, being claimed by ancestry, working for a time yet to come.
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September 8, 2025
This could have been a great 30 page essay. As it stands, it's in desperate need of an editor. The author irritated and frustrated me at times, but I think he would be happy to hear that. Lots of really interesting nuggets. I love Mrs. Devil
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