Editing Handfasting (section)

{{Short description|Medieval European betrothal practice}}
{{distinguish|Haandfæstning}}
{{Use British English|date=October 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{more footnotes needed|date=February 2015}}
[[File:Betrothed LCCN2003666755.jpg|thumb|''Betrothed'' by Richard Dudensing (1833–1899)]]
'''Handfasting''' is a traditional practice that, depending on the term's usage, may define an [[self-uniting marriage|unofficiated wedding]] (in which a couple marries without an [[marriage officiant|officiant]], usually with the intent of later undergoing a second wedding with an officiant), a [[betrothal]] (an engagement in which a couple has formally promised to wed, and which can be broken only through divorce), or a [[temporary marriage|temporary wedding]] (in which a couple makes an intentionally temporary marriage commitment). The phrase refers to the making fast of a pledge by the [[handshake|shaking or joining of hands]].

The terminology and practice are especially associated with Germanic peoples, including the [[English people|English]] and [[Norsemen|Norse]], as well as the Scots. As a form of betrothal or unofficiated wedding, handfasting was common up through [[Tudor period|Tudor England]]; as a form of temporary marriage, it was practiced in 17th-century Scotland and has been revived in [[Neopaganism]], though misattributed as Celtic rather than Danish and Old English.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Thrupp |first1=John |title=The Anglo-Saxon Home - A History Of The Domestic Institutions And Customs Of England - From The Fifth To The Eleventh Century |date=1862 |page=44 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7T8LAAAAYAAJ&q=handfasting&pg=PA1 |access-date=22 March 2024}}</ref>

Sometimes the term is also used synonymously with "[[wedding]]" or "[[marriage]]" among Neopagans to avoid perceived non-Pagan religious connotations associated with those terms. It is also used, apparently ahistorically, to refer to an alleged pre-Christian practice of symbolically fastening or wrapping the hands of a couple together during the wedding ceremony.