Traditionally, men are the head of the household. Men support their wives in various ways. They provide the financial needs; they provide the security the woman desires, and so on and so forth. But, men around the world have carried their wives, figuratively, the distance of 277 yards in a foot race.
It sounds crazy, but it originated as a combination of two old wives tales, no pun intended. One tale tells of men stealing wives from neighboring villages. In a second tale, an outlaw named Rosvo-Ronkainen made potential soldiers prove themselves in a race where they carried heavy sacks.The “sport” started in Sonkajärvi, Finland where men carried their wives through obstacles of sand, water, fences and more to reach the finish line in the fastest time. The winner wins, what else?, their wife’s weight in beer. Of course, somebody sat around and made rules for this game so a woman has to weigh at least 108 lbs. to compete. I may have found the reason for obesity.
Here’s a breakdown of how it works:
Now, men don’t necessarily have to carry their own wives. The sport’s officials stated that a man can also carry someone else’s wife or someone they find “further afield”, but the wife must be at least 17 years old. Let’s hope it’s still pretty hard to find a 17-year-old wife.
If the woman doesn’t weight more than 108 lbs., she must carry a weighted sack to make up the difference.
I’m not seeing how a woman who weighs less than 108 lbs. is expected to carry a weight while being bounced around on her husband’s shoulders; this would be difficult for most anyway at that size.
There are several different ways a man can carry the woman. She can ride piggyback style, sit on his shoulders, lay around the man’s shoulders or be carried the most popular way, Estonian style.
The Estonian carry is where the woman hangs onto the man upside down with her legs around his neck and her arms around his waist while facing forward. This means the woman gets a real close encounter with the man’s butt. Doesn’t sound very pleasant, especially for 277 yards.
The major setback in the race, besides carrying another person over multiple obstacles, is that women often get dropped, causing a 15 second automatic delay on the couple’s final time. As a woman, I would have to ask myself why I would consider having to spend any period of time with my face in my husband’s behind, who might not even be my husband, with the likely chance of being dropped on my head. Women do wear helmets, because otherwise, this would become the leading cause for deaths in the world.
The big race is in Finland, but similar contests occur around the world including in America. The North American Wife Carrying Championships award winners with paid travel to Finland to compete in the main event.
Even Dennis Rodman has participated in the event, but was unable to complete the race as he wasn’t conditioned to finish the grueling task.
Any way you look at this game, it’s quite an interesting concept. So go ahead and make a few extra meals for your while and then, making sure you’re strong enough to carry her, grab the next airplane to Finland to win her weight in beer! Classy.
