Wedding traditions with the broom
A broom sweeps a household clean and marks a threshold between two lives.
A broom sweeps a household clean and marks a threshold between two lives. Jumping over one is a wedding custom with a particular meaning for African American couples, and brooms have a place in some older European customs.
Jumping the broom
In the United States, enslaved couples were often not allowed legal marriage, and many marked their union by jumping over a broom. The details of its origin are debated, with some scholars noting its roots in West Africa and others in Britain. It was revived in the twentieth century and especially after the television series Roots in 1977. It is now a common part of African American weddings, held at the end of the ceremony, and the broom is kept in the home.
Brooms in Europe
In Wales and in some British Romani communities, jumping the broom was a form of informal marriage in older times, though the extent of the practice is unclear. In Germany the Polterabend ends with the couple sweeping up the shards together to show that they can solve problems. Pagan and Wiccan weddings also use the broom, as a symbol of sweeping out the old.
Written by the EveryShaadi desk with AI assistance. Background on The broom (symbol). Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
🇺🇸 New York, United StatesSlave marriages in the United States
The unions formed by enslaved African Americans before and after the abolition of slavery in the US.Rite · The ceremony
🇺🇸 United States and 3 moreJumping the broom
A wedding ritual where a couple leaps over a broom to mark their unionRite · The ceremony
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Slave marriages in the United States: An 1899 illustration of a broomstick wedding. Schomburg Center for Res, Public domain, source
- Jumping the broom: credited only as "Hipstamatic shots, CC BY-SA 2.0, source