Rite of passage

What it is

People belong to many groups at once: families, age groups, faith communities, professions. When someone leaves one of these and enters another, the change is often too large to be left unmarked. A rite of passage is the ceremony that does the marking. It recognises a real shift in social standing, not simply a birthday. Van Gennep compared society to a house with rooms and corridors, and said a passage is what happens when a person changes rooms. Scholars count these ceremonies as life cycle rituals, and they turn up in small communities and large industrial ones alike.

The three stages

Van Gennep described three phases, and later writers kept his names. First comes separation, when a person is taken out of ordinary life and detached from an earlier self. Hair may be cut, clothes changed, a place left behind. Second comes the threshold period he called liminality, the in-between time when someone has gone from one state but has not yet arrived at the next. Those in it are described as ambiguous. Third comes incorporation: the person returns, now carrying a new identity. Rings, cords, belts and crowns often appear here as outward signs of the new bond.

Naming the idea

Arnold van Gennep was a French ethnographer. He set out his thinking in a book called Les rites de passage, which English speakers know as The Rites of Passage. English took the phrase over as rite of passage, and anthropology has used it ever since. Van Gennep said he was not the first to notice such ceremonies, and he admitted that his survey could only sketch a much larger picture. He looked at the moments people meet one after another as they grow: pregnancy, birth, initiation, betrothal, marriage, burial. He also wrote about crossing into a region where another religion is followed.

Rites in religion

Many faiths mark passage with ceremonies of their own. In Judaism these include the bar and bat mitzvah and the bris. Christians keep baptism, confirmation and first communion, and some Orthodox churches celebrate a diving for the cross. Muslims have khitan and the Hajj. Hindus keep a series of sacraments called sanskara, among them a first feeding and the cutting of a child's hair. Sikhs have Amrit Sanchar, and in Theravada Buddhism boys may enter the monastery as novices through shinbyu. Some Native American peoples send young people on vision quests, and Wiccans hold a wiccaning.

Today and change

Not every modern ceremony carries the same weight. Writers point out that graduations, coming-of-age parties and adventure courses borrow the shape of older rites but often leave out the last stage, when the community takes the person back in. Pamela Cushing studied young people at a Canadian Outward Bound school and found the effect weaker without that step. Experiments with difficult initiations found that people who went through more to join a group tended to value it more, though another study reached the opposite conclusion. Community groups still run rites of passage for young people today.

How Rite of passage is kept

A rite of passage brings together the person making the change and the community that will receive them. Usually an elder, priest, teacher or officer leads it. The shape follows three steps. The person is first set apart from everyday life, sometimes by cutting hair, changing clothes or leaving home. Then comes a period apart, often a retreat or a trial, in which they are neither what they were nor what they will be. Finally they are brought back and recognised in public, taking up a new name, role or standing among the others.

When and where

These ceremonies are tied to moments in a life rather than to a date. Van Gennep listed pregnancy, birth, initiation, betrothal, marriage and funerals. Some come at a set age or stage, such as a graduation or a retirement. Others mark a change of work or faith. In military life, boot camp and an oath-taking ceremony turn a civilian into a member of the armed forces.

The idea belongs to no single country, because the ceremonies it describes are found across the world. Anthropologists wrote about them in small African communities, in Native and African-American communities in the United States, and in industrial societies. Examples appear in Japan, Norway, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Greece. Training programmes in Canada and the United States have also been studied for the rite-of-passage effect they produce in young people.

What Rite of passage means

For the people who keep them, these ceremonies are not just markers on a calendar. They say that a community has taken notice of a change and now accepts the person in a new place. Van Gennep wrote about a sacred side to the passage, and outward objects carry that meaning: a ring, a cord, a belt, a bracelet or a crown stands for the bond that has been made. Writers on African initiation say these rites connect a person to the community and the community to a wider spiritual world.

Questions people ask about Rite of passage

See also

Islamic marriageThe sacred contract, agreement and wedding celebration forming an Islamic marriagePostpartum confinementA period of rest, nourishment, and seclusion for mothers after giving birth.Shichi-Go-SanA Japanese festival celebrating the growth of three-year-old girls, five-year-old boys, and seven-year-old girls.Coming of Age DayA Japanese public holiday welcoming new adults with municipal rites and celebrations

Good reading and sources

• Encyclopaedia BritannicaArticle

• Rite of passage on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.