Rites of Passage

Rites of passage are rituals that mark what are conventionally agreed to be critical or landmark stages in the life of an individual, such as birth, puberty, marriage, and death. The Belgian anthropologist and ethnographer Arnold van Gennep (1873–1957) used the term rites of passage to categorize the rites of what he described as “life crises,” the accompanying stages that mark the transition of individuals from one stage of life to another. In his seminal text Les Rites de Passage, which was first published in 1909 (with the first English translation, The Rites of Passage, appearing in 1960), van Gennep considered rites from within the standpoint of their religious and social context.

A rite of passage usually accompanies a change in biological or social status. The shift from childhood to puberty is an example that cuts across both domains. The biological changes that occur during puberty are also accompanied by social changes, where a girl becomes a woman or a boy becomes a man. Rites of passage are often marked by ceremonial acts, such as naming, circumcision, and puberty rituals.

In the above cases, the rites of passage are specific to an individual's life and do not correspond to calendar time. However, the term rites of passage is also used with reference to the changes of the seasons or marking the New Year. In these examples, the same pattern can be applied—so the “death” of the old year is replaced by welcoming the New Year.

van Gennep argued for the anthropological importance of rites of passage as a regulatory mechanism to ensure the functioning nature of society. With a rite of passage, it is not simply the individual who is affected but also the family and the wider community. And it is often high-standing members of the religious community or tribe who are involved in the implementation of the rite of passage. van Gennep conceived of life in society as [Page 1091]a house with many rooms, where the individual moves from room to room. The spatial separation of rooms reflects van Gennep's understanding of the stages in life as operating as definitive passages that do not happen gradually but abruptly and through a series of ritualized actions that demarcate the passage from one to the other. He also describes the ritual process in geographical terms, with recourse to the metaphors of entrances or exits, crossings and journeys, and crossroads and thresholds. Many rites of passage are one-way and so cannot be reversed—you cannot return to boyhood following manhood. An exception is the annulment of a marriage.

Some religions recognize the significance of rites of passage within their philosophies. Hinduism, for example, recognizes four stages or ashramas: the youth or student, the householder, the hermit, and the renouncer or ascetic. Van Gennep identifies three major stages or phases that occur in all rites of passage irrespective of culture or religion. These are separation, transition, and incorporation. He also stated that some rites might focus on or develop one of the stages more than other stages in the ritual act. So while the stage of separation may be more central in funeral ceremonies, incorporation is often more significant in marriages. However, all rites involve some degree of experiencing each of the stages before they are fully accepted into the society or culture. In the case of death, the three stages aid the community in coming to terms with the deceased. These are complex stages that are clearly demarcated by separation, transition, and incorporation. Some theorists describe the last phase as reincorporation because the individual is returning to the community, albeit in a different status after a period of separation.

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