ABSTRACT
Rituals put people in touch with transcendent beings and forces, guide them through life-and-identity transitions, confirm them as belonging to a family, community, or nation, and smooth their way through their daily routine. Rituals in themselves are performances. Also performances that are not rituals as such are ritualized. Sacred rituals are not limited to the normative practices of the “world religions” – Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Judaism. In many cultures, a wedding is both secular and sacred: the performance of a state-sanctioned contract, a religious ceremony, and a celebratory gathering of family and friends. Rituals are behavior patterns which serve the function of communication and which undergo changes in the service of this function that enhance their communicative value. In terms of ritual, humans have developed ritual into elaborate and sophisticated systems divisible into three main categories: social ritual, religious ritual, and aesthetic.
