A shivaree, also spelled charivari, is a raucous, good-natured hazing for newlyweds. A discussion here about that word prompted lots of listeners to write in with their own stories about shivarees. Martha shares some of them. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Newlywed Shivaree”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
A while ago we had a call about the word shivery. Remember that one, Grant?
Yeah, I do. As a matter of fact, that involves a ceremony for newlyweds, right?
That’s a lot of loud noise and disturbance.
Yeah, I’d say it’s less a ceremony and more a good-natured hazing ritual.
Okay, there we go.
It happened shortly after couples got married, particularly in the rural areas, where ideally on their wedding night, townsfolk would suddenly show up at their home and make a huge racket outside demanding to be let in.
And then all manner of rowdy partying would ensue. Well, we received a ton of emails about shiveries. Barbara writes from Dallas. She was married in 1953 in rural Nebraska and was given a shivery about a week later. She says, the people gathered and waited until they thought we had gone to bed and then suddenly came banging on all the doors. They brought food and plenty of beer and partied until the wee hours when all went home.
When we went to go to bed, we found the bed full of cornflakes. We went to turn the mattress to get rid of them and found someone had crawled under the bed and removed all the slats. So if we had just gotten into the bed, it would have collapsed under us. She says, they also did a variety of other pranks, which I won’t go into.
Oh, darn, why not?
They must be naughty.
Yeah, write us back and tell us about those.
Virginia wrote us from Burlington, Vermont, that her former husband’s family has given chivalries for generations, but more recently, these have evolved into elaborate practical jokes.
She writes, when my younger son was married, his brother and cousins pulled two major tricks. One was to plant a video cam in the couple’s bedroom in an attempt to capture them in the act. This was foiled, though, by the son who was getting married.
He happens to be a filmmaker and media expert and expected something like this. So he had planted a motion-activated video cam in the bedroom before anyone arrived. The perpetrators were caught in the act.
The second attempt had a bit more success. My older son and the cousins planted all over town signs announcing a huge moving sale beginning at 6 a.m. the morning after the wedding, giving the couples a dress.
There were quite a few people who were disappointed when they rang the bell at 6 a.m. and found a sleepy and very grumpy couple who had partied late at their wedding.
Weddings are always fun, aren’t they?
Well, shivery sounds like a blast.
I can’t wait to go to one.
Well, if you want to hear more tales about shivery daring do, you can go to waywordradio.org and look for our online-only podcast about shiveries.
You can also download that and podcasts of this regular hour-long version of A Way with Words on iTunes.
