The Bachelor & Bachelorette party

According to Hollywood, a bachelor and bachelorette party should be events of legend. It is the last night of freedom, after all, why should it be anything less than a debauched celebration that's gossiped about for years? However, the celebration of the end of premarital freedom is an ancient practice that has its roots in a tradition that was a little less about drinking and more about honoring.

If we go with historical records, the first semblance of a bachelor party showed up in ancient Sparta around 5BCE. During this, the groom's friends would throw him a feast and the party would make toasts in the groom's honor. Being Sparta, one can only guess what kind of toasts were made. This tradition continued on through the ages. While there aren't many records of crazy parties going on through these early years, the media was quick to report on it once the cult of personality began establishing itself in 1896. In this year, Herbert Barnum Seeley's stag party was raided by police. Then, in 1949, Jimmy Stewart's affair resulted in a midget dressed as a baby trying to pee on him. Since then, Hollywood has been nothing if not promotional of ill-fated parties.

The bachelorette party, on the other hand, didn't get going until much later. Before the 19th century, women were only allowed bridal showers where they received gifts and dowries. It wasn't until the 1960s and its sexual revolution that women began holding their own bachelorette parties. Even then, it remained an oddity well into the 1980s. The first book on the subject didn't even hit shelves until 1998. Unlike the bachelor party origins, the bachelorette parties dived straight into the more sexualized aspects, with women joining together to talk about their own sexuality in addition to sometimes partaking in male strippers.

As far as what goes on at each, both are pretty similar. Rude jokes are shared, a lot of alcohol is consumed and strippers may or may not be present. In America, common parties are often destination events to places like Las Vegas. In the UK, the parties are more than just single day events, stretching out over the entirety of a full weekend. Even so, it's also very common everywhere to party with the groom or the bride in a fashion that fits what they enjoy doing. Including camping, fishing and video game nights, these parties are only a raucous as the bride or groom wants them to be.

No matter where you live, throwing some kind of celebration for the bride and groom is tradition that goes back centuries. To cultures around the world, nothing is more worth celebrating that a man or woman's final days before they are officially tied to one person.