Saturday's Word

Last week, I found a word from The Gilded Tongue (by Rod L. Evans, Ph.D.) in the local newspaper.  I'm please to see this little book circulating.  It provides endless hours of entertainment. 

Their word was "hypergamy", and it was used to describe the wedding announcement of Jenna Bush and Henry Hager. 

Evans's definition:  "n. from Greek hyper- (beyond, over, above) and gamos (marriage);  marrying someone at or above one's social station.

From "gamy", we also get "polygamy", "monogamy", "bigamy".

Also from Evans, we get "opsigamy".  "Opsi-" from the Greek "opsios" means "late", so "opsigamy" is a late marriage...that is, marriage late in life, not an evening wedding.

Anyway, this all made me think a bit.  Jenna is famous for again making it obvious how difficult it is growing up in the public eye as the offspring of a sitting president.  Hager is a former White House staffer (worked directly for Karl Rove, no less, so his Republican credentials are impeccable), and son of a prominent political and tobacco family in Virginia (his father is former Lieutenant Governor of Virginia and is now Bush appointee to the Department of Education). 

So my question is this:  Who is performing hypergamy?  That is, who is marrying up?  And will we still see it that way in about 20 years?

And another question is whether it's a shotgun wedding...the longer the planning, the bigger Jenna will be at the wedding.

Finally, maybe they are both in danger of performing hypogamy. 

Here's what Wonkette says about the nuptials.  Ooof.

And  World O' Crap's version of the story.

[Image from Breningstall.com]

Comments

[Houston]

Jenna's marrying someone from a family much less prominent than her own, but I don't think she's marrying down. I don't give them much more than five years at the most, regardless of who's marrying down or up.