Rite of passage
A ritual that marks a change of status, such as birth, coming of age, marriage or death, in three stages.
Also: rites de passage, life-cycle ritual, initiation
The folklorist Arnold van Gennep, in Les rites de passage (1909), argued that such rituals share a structure: separation from the old state, a threshold phase, and incorporation into the new one. Examples include baptism, bar and bat mitzvah, a Maasai age-grade ceremony, graduation, a wedding and funeral customs. Many include protective acts, for example around a birth or a bride, which is why magic and rites of passage so often overlap. Victor Turner later built on the middle stage, which he called liminal. The idea remains one of the most used in anthropology, though critics say not every ritual fits the pattern.