Congratulations rang out through the room as someone threw the confetti. The bride, surrounded by her close ones, laughed to herself, making a toast to her last night of freedom and the end of her single life. Bachelorette parties are a common modern phenomenon that has become culturally significant. They are not just a fun pre-wedding party, rather a symbolic representation of the transformation from singlehood to the life of partnership. This is where the individual starts to step into a new identity, from independence to that of interdependence.
Understanding Life Transitions: Theoretical Perspectives
1. Life Transition Theory
“Transitions involve the progression from one reality to a newly constructed reality” (Selder, 1989). Various psychologists like Schlossberg and Bridges have given their own ideas of life transition theories that attempt to explain and emphasise how individuals cope with changes that transform their lifestyles, relations and roles. They explain how major life events, such as marriage, affect an individual’s identity continuity as well as its reconstruction.
2. Intimacy vs. Isolation
This is the sixth stage of development according to Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development. This stage lasts from 19 to 40 years and is marked by conflicts around forming and maintaining relationships. “Intimacy is an interpersonal state of extreme emotional closeness such that each party’s personal space can be entered by any of the other parties without causing discomfort to that person.” (APA, 2018) Intimacy can be both romantic or platonic. Inability to create such intimate relationships often results in isolation.
Read More: Nurturing Intimacy: Strategies to Deepen Your Connection with Your Partner
Singlehood in the Modern Day
The global world in the past decade has seen a rise in a single culture (Census, 2021a, Kislev, 2019; Klinenberg, 2012). While in the last few centuries, there was a lot of stigma attached to singlehood, with the term “spinster” used to denote unmarried people and segregate them. Modern-day singlehood is far from those notions. Instead, it is a part of many people’s identity (Kislev, 2023), independence, as well as social belonging.
A bachelorette party is essentially what brings a direct contrast to such a life, where a person sheds the individual lifestyle and draws the life of partnership, of commitments and shared living. This is the bittersweet marker filled with nostalgia of what is past and, at the same time, hope, excitement, as well as fear of what’s to come.
Why this Transitional Phase Matters
1. Rite of Passage
The term was first used in anthropology to explain such rituals that show the transition of a person from one status to another. Van Gennep identified three phases in these rites: “Separation, when the individual or the group is distanced from their former identities; Liminality, the phase in between two conditions (the one from which the individual/group departs and the one which they will enter); and reaggregation (or incorporation), the final stage in which the individual/group is readmitted to society as bearer of a new status.
Because rites of passage belong to sacred time rather than the everyday profane, their performance becomes formalised. The initiate(s) are placed in a symbolically subordinate position vis-à-vis those who have been initiated (elders, married, mothers) and have to go through elaborate‘‘trials’’ (isolation, humiliation, fasting) before they are accepted back into the community.” (Gennep, 1909).
2. Closure
It is a term used in Gestalt psychology, described as: “The act, achievement, or sense of completing or resolving something.” (APA, 2023). Research reveals that the elements of rites of passage that bachelorette parties hold help in facilitating an internal sense of closure for the individuals to be wedded (Branchik & Minowa, 2010). They act as a sense of the last farewell to the life being left behind.
Read More: Gestalt Psychology’s Influence on How We See the World
3. Social Support
Studies show how these parties, more than being a pre-wedding event, are a moment of social gathering where people come together to create as well as celebrate memories and friendships. It becomes a reminder that the person getting married has a network of people supporting them from the side, solidifying their bonds by creating shared experiences (Tye & Powers, 1999).
4. Resistance and Coping Mechanisms
From living alone to cohabitation can be a daunting task. These parties work as a means to cope with the sudden change in an individual’s lifestyle. Additionally, as a 1998 study published in Women’s Studies International Forum, these parties function as a “playful resistance” against established norms and traditional gender roles through humour, jokes, teasing and subverting societal expectations (Tye & Powers, 1999).
5. Identity Marker
Just like baby showers, graduation ceremonies, and bachelorette parties are also important forms of identity markers that show the transition of a single life to that of a married one and all the roles and responsibilities that come along with it.
Conclusion
Bachelorette parties have become a common phenomenon in modern society. What started as simple tea parties have become bolder over the years, celebrating the end of the life of singlehood and an ode to married life. Various theories of life transition, Erikson’s intimacy vs. isolation stage of development, attempt to explain partnership as a form of major life transition. As such, these bachelorette parties become the liminal space as described by Gennep’s theory.
These bachelorette parties are an important rite of passage that helps individuals in finding closure, forming stronger support systems, and act as important identity markers that help people cope with the sudden transition. People often jokingly refer to bachelorette parties as the last night of freedom. But freedom from what exactly? The marriage itself, or perhaps the fact that it changes one’s life completely? As it turns out, bachelorette parties speak more about this transition taking place than the wedding itself.
Somewhere between tears, laughter and conversations that go into the wee hours of the night, the bride-to-be doesn’t just say goodbye to her single life, but rather carries herself forward, prepared mentally, physically and emotionally.
FAQs
1. How do bachelorette parties act as a rite of passage?
In the words of Van Gennep, a rite of passage involves separation, liminality and reaggregation. Bachelorette parties act as a rite of passage by providing the middle ground of the transition from a single life to a married life.
2. What is modern-day singlehood like?
Modern-day singlehood is marked by a sense of individualism, self-identity, as well as a sense of social belonging. People practice a free lifestyle and actively choose not to be involved or interested in partnerships.
3. Why do bachelorette parties matter?
Bachelorette parties are an important rite of passage that helps individuals in finding closure, forming stronger support systems, and act as important identity markers that help people cope with the sudden transition
References +
Intimacy https://dictionary.apa.org/intimacy
Intimacy vs. isolation https://www.verywellmind.com/intimacy-versus-isolation-2795739
Tye, D. (1998). Gender, resistance and play: Bachelorette parties in consumer society [Article]. Sex Roles, 39(5-6), 329-347. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018793408272
‘Rite of passage’. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254256885_’ Rite_of_passage’
Kislev, E. (2023). Singlehood as an identity. European Review of Social Psychology, 35(2), 258–292. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2023.2241937
