Thanks. That marriage rite appears in the show "The Americans," about Russian spies in the 1980s.

I don't quite see how the Eastern marriage rite is more upbeat than the Western one, though. The idea that marriage is a necessary evil goes back to the New Testament, and to the fact that the early Christians were like the Essenes in being rigorously countercultural. They viewed sexuality as an affront to God's holiness so it had no place in spirituality. Polytheistic religions were more naturalistic and inclusive.