A common symbol in modern weddings it the image of knot. The phrase "tie the knot" as a euphemism for marriage that is also commonly recognized. Where does this originate from?
Learn English – Origins of “tie the knot”
etymology
Related Solutions
This is one of several phrases using dickens as a euphemism for devil such as what the dickens, where the dickens, the dickens you are, etc. Since its use can be traced back to Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, it has nothing to do with Charles Dickens. Though, according to Michael Quinion at WWW:
it does seem to have been borrowed from the English surname, most likely sometime in the sixteenth century or before. (The surname itself probably derives from Dickin or Dickon, familiar diminutive forms of Dick.)
However, when looking for this clip from the play:
I found this footnote with an alternate theory:
Both wash up and clean up are phrasal verbs, which are very common in English. These verbs then to share a common etymology: old english verbs with separable preposition prefixes. Suite101 has a nice write-up:
Phrasal verbs in Modern English developed from verbs with separable preposition prefixes in Old English. Verbs with separable preposition prefixes still exist in Modern German and Modern Dutch. For example, the Modern German verb aufwachen "to wake up" consists of the verb wachen and the preposition prefix auf. When the verb is conjugated, the preposition prefix moves to the end of the predicate phrase as in ich wache auf "I wake up." Old English verbs with separable preposition prefixes evolved into phrasal verbs in which the preposition follows the verb in Middle English.
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Best Answer
The metaphor of a knot is one of binding, as two people are bound together in marriage.
Shakespeare uses the metaphor, but not the exact phrase:
But it's earlier still, in The Legend of Saint Katherine c 1225:
Or as a rough stab at a translation into modern English:
It may relate to knot-tying as an actual part of wedding ceremonies (and sometimes betrothal ceremonies), as is found in rituals from throughout the world from ancient times until the present day.
Or it may just be a metaphor applied in the phrase alone.
Being so old, it's probably impossible to tell which.
Either way, with knot being in English for so long as a symbol of marriage, and tying being how one forms them, "tie the knot" was pretty inevitable from that starting point.
*Some notes on translation, since they might be of interest in their own way:
I'm tempted to have it "...us twain" rather than "...us two" but while twain is Modern English, it's not common in Contemporary Modern English. It would be a closer translation.
A little is lost in translating wit to we and unc to us as Modern English doesn't have pronouns that specifically refer to two people. "We two" and "us two" would be more accurate but more clumsy.
Knitted would be a rare choice for a knot today—not unheard of, but rarer than once was the case (e.g. see the Shakespeare quote as an example in Early Modern English). Tied or fastened would perhaps be a better translation for that reason, but it would introduce a repetition that scanned a bit silly to my eye.
I'm not happy about the translation of "in an" as "together". "In one" or "as one" would be a closer translation, and more poetic in allusion, but strange with the rest of the sentence in Modern English.
Similarly, swa is the root of the Modern English so but also used as we would use that, then (consider how Irish English still uses so where other dialects would only use then) and as. This mean that the form "as ... as ..." (e.g. "as white as snow") was more flexible in Old and Middle English than today. Translating sadly loses the poetry of the repetition.