I have a question on wedding traditions, I was hoping that you might enlighten me.. In Spain the wedding ring is put on the right hand while in the U.S it is on the left hand.. I already know that here in the U.S they put it on the left hand because it's closest to the heart but what of about in Spain, Why do they put it on the right hand or maybe it depends on the person?
If anyone else would like to comment, Please feel free to do so....

The reason for the right hand comes out of the Semitic (Jewish and Muslim) traditions. Both faiths use the right hand.

Don't forget that the Muslims ruled Spain (Al-Andalus) for 800 years.

Sheryl

Sheryl, this is very interesting because if the spanish follow this custom that means that they are following muslim traditions thus Spain is made up of diferant cultures! I'm sorry if I'm comfusing you but this observation stems from a dialogue that Quintos and I are having about immigration. Feel free to comment or not if you like, it's in the Racism in Spain chat. Anyway thank you for the response.

Yes Spain is a mixture of different cultures, but however, 800 years is false.

Since they came till they went there was 700 years, but in the northern areas their control spread from 0 to 50 years, so our culture (I am northern) has a O% percentage of arabic, which is not the case in Andalucia, hence flamenco.

To confuse matters further - most of Europe - from Spain and Portugal east to Russia - wear the weding rings on the right hand ... not the left ....

And just to confuse the issue a little more, in Catalunya it's common to wear the wedding ring on the left hand. (But then again, it's just one of a long list of ways that Catalunya is different from the rest of Spain. )

Is Catalunya to the north or south of spain?

Cataluyna (or Catalonia, as it's sometimes spelled in English) is the region on the northern Mediterranean coast of Spain, between Valencia and the French border. Barcelona is the capital of Catalunya.

Probably the biggest difference between Catalunya and the rest of Spain is that the primary language is catalan, which resembles spanish in some ways but is actually a separate language. Nearly everyone in Catalunya speaks spanish as well, but there's strong support for the catalan language as a part of the regional identity. There are other cultural differences too, and many catalans identify themselves as catalans first and spaniards second.

There's some really good information on Catalunya to be had on Wikipedia too, if you're curious.

TO Ggladdman, Thanks! I really appreciate it ....it was actually very interesting because I wanted to see how much of a difference spanish is from catalan and it's very significant, like for example in spanish someone would say ...Hablas ingles? In catalan it's Que parla l'angles? I would never have understood that! It seems to me that the language is just like portugese or italion ,there are some simularities but you can tell that it's totally a differant language.. anyway thanks for enlighting me

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A KISS IS JUST A KISS TIL' YOU FIND THE ONE YOU LOVE...
A HUG IS JUST A HUG TIL' IT'S THE ONE YOUR THINKING OF...
A DREAM IS JUST A DREAM TIL' YOU MAKE IT COME TRUE..
AND LOVE IS JUST A WORD TIL' IT'S PROVEN TO YOU!

Its quite a problem for us, living near Alicante as we have a young child (10) and felt being taught in Spanish from day one was difficult enough for her without being taught in Catalan, as many of the inland schools do here. She spent two years in a local State Spanish school and had Catalan as an additional lesson.

Now, because of the huge influx of British families living here and the problems the local schools are facing because of it, we have put her into a private International school where she is taught half in Spanish and half in English.

This has proved the best solution for us (although expensive) because she is now catching up on her English grammer (which is also a problem for the British children in the State schools) but has had an excellent grounding in Spanish, so we expect her to be totally bi-lingual when she leaves and with a Spanish accent. In fact she will have the option of learning French too next Year, so hopefully three languages under her belt.

Sorry to digress from the original topic.

Jan