Tie the Knot

Draws on a genuinely old and widespread tradition of using a physical knot as a symbol of marriage. In the Celtic handfasting ceremony, the bride and groom's hands were bound together with cord or ribbon to represent their union, a practice that gave English the phrase "tying the knot" quite literally. Ancient Egyptian symbolism treated knots similarly, representing an unbroken, eternal bond. The English phrase itself is recorded by 1717, in the poet Matthew Prior's poem "Alma; or, The Progress of the Mind": "So to the priest their case they tell: He ties the knot."