How can gypsies afford their weddings

Most girls have the opportunity to go to school, many of them have jobs. Although the show often claims to be giving audiences exclusive access to a secretive community, The New Republic points out that when "the narrator teases 'the secrecy behind a Traveller communion is revealed for the first time,' there isn't much that's secretive. It's more or less a young girl in a too-big, too-ornate dress, followed by a large family party. Or 'another important Gypsy [marriage] custom is the cake-cutting' — one which, last I checked, goes for most modern weddings as well.

On more than one occasion, the show has given airtime to a so-called 'grabbing' ritual, which gives young men permission to grab a woman who catches their eye and use force to receive a kiss. As it turns out, most in the community have never heard of this ritual. As Roma Pip wrote sarcastically in his open letter to Channel 4 "I would have been married by now, if only I had known that the key to a woman's heart was to sexually assault her using a Gypsy courting ritual called 'grabbing'.

I asked my brother if he had grabbed his wife, but it turned out he had just asked her out on a date instead," he quipped. In an interview with The Guardian , Mary, a year-old Irish Traveller, revealed: "Grabbing has never happened to me or any of my friends and the first time I ever saw it was on the telly. I wouldn't put up with it, and I don't know why they made out we all do it.

It's just one nasty boy they showed. I have honestly never heard of it. It's all make-believe. The families on the show appear to be very wealthy and boast plenty of disposable income to spend on lavish parties and over-the-top weddings.

However, as The New Republic reports, reality is quite different. Bindel reported that many "trailers are not connected to water pipes, and the toilets, bathrooms and cooking facilities are in a small, unheated shed across the yard. Well, as The Economist found, "West Europeans tend to believe that Roma migrants are responsible for an epidemic of pickpocketing, shoplifting, mugging — and worse. We are not a joke, we are human beings and your work of fiction is only strengthening stereotypes and ignorance.

Here's their resource page for students. They are somewhat unpopular in Britain, mainly due to their real or imagined disruptive habits rather than ethnicity. Their money comes from various sources, such as scrap metal, tarmacing drives and I think some are involved in horse breeding. Just fyi, " Romani " is preferable to the often pejorative term "gypsy" when referencing the ethnic group craichead mentioned. I can only assume that in these specific cases, the show pays for a substantial amount of the wedding, which is one of the reasons people agree to be on the show.

Speaking about a different ethnic group that has similar ostentageous weddings and as a scholar of conspicuous consumption Close family members also contribute. A wedding is one opportunity, although ironicly, it is really about fitting in. This is complete speculation, but I sort of wonder if weddings didn't become particularly important community events because the community was traditionally itinerant.

If you're going to get everyone together in one place, you ought to provide a party big enough to make it worthwhile. Maybe weddings have to do less work as community-building events in settled communities where everyone is going to bump into each other at church the next Sunday anyway.

So yes, it is an ethnicity - at least as far as the state is concerned. Gypsy or Irish Traveller isn't listed as one, so you'd have to tick the "Other" box. However, the more detailed categories used by the UK census did for the first time in list Gypsy or Irish Traveller as a category.

And a personal story: I live in Epsom, where the Derby horse race is held every year. It is a big gathering point for Gypsy and Traveller families. I've only lived here for 3 years but locals who have lived here for longer get very hostile towards their arrival, claiming that crime goes up around Derby Day purely because of the Travellers. I was having my hair cut a few weeks before this year's Derby and the hairdresser - a young woman around 20 years old - launched into lots of the usual stereotypes about them when we started talking about Derby Day.

I'm not sure any evidence exists either way of who commits crime around the time of the Derby. My own experience of Derby Day is that the visible crime - fights etc - is the result of drunk white middle-class lads. But I think it's safe to say the hostility locally runs quite deep. Best answer: I've been watching the episodes on YouTube, of the British documentary version.

I assume it's just repackaged for TLC. How many episodes in are you? They cover the question about wedding expenses as best as they can in episode 3 or 4, I forget which exactly.

I think a number of factors are at play-- for one, it's a major life event in the communities and families save for years for the wedding day of a daughter. Three, without the expense of a mortgage, there's a lot of money freed up over the years to save. There's obviously more to it, and I searched online a bit yesterday with the same question, but the answers are largely bigoted and accusatory.

So we'll likely never get the whole story, and that's okay. If the TLC version is different from the British version, then maybe I'm wrong, but I have found the series thus far I've just started episode 5 to be fascinating, fairly well balanced, and an incredible look at a very fierce people. She now feels safe because she has male family members living on the same site.

It is rare for women to call the police for help. The situation probably isn't helped by the fact that there is only one, room refuge dedicated to Traveller women in the UK, also in London. But domestic violence is just one of the issues tackled by O'Roarke during her visits. The welfare needs, particularly those of the women and girls, of this community are vast. The women are three times more likely to miscarry or have a still-born child compared to the rest of the population, mainly, it is thought, as a result of reluctance to undergo routine gynaecological care, and infections linked to poor sanitation and lack of clean water.

The rate of suicides among Traveller women is significantly higher than in the general population, and life expectancy is low for women and men, with one third of Travellers dying before the age of And as many Traveller girls are taken out of education prior to secondary school to prevent them mixing with boys from other cultures, illiteracy rates are high. O'Roarke is a familiar face on the sites around London, offering women and their children help with health care, education and finance.

The men leave the women alone to deal with these issues, so if the women do want to talk about violence and abuse, they can do so without fear of the men overhearing.

I visit some trailers with O'Roarke at a site in London and am struck by how the women seem to manage, usually with large families, to keep everything so clean and tidy. There are colourful displays of Royal Crown Derby crockery, handed down from mother to daughter on her wedding day. There is certainly no sign of wealth or excessive spending. Many tell me they struggle to feed their children, and have no savings or bank account.

Things seem set to get worse for Traveller women. O'Roarke is expecting to be the only Traveller liaison worker in the capital before long — her funding comes from the Irish government.

Who is supposed to help them if they get rid of the bit of support they have now? If they get a letter saying they are in danger of eviction but they can't read it, what are they supposed to do? Conditions on the site are as grim as the homes are spotless. The trailers are not connected to water pipes, and the toilets, bathrooms and cooking facilities are in a small, unheated shed across the yard.

But living on a site is about being part of the community.