<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (July 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (July 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> A shotgun wedding is a wedding that is arranged to avoid embarrassment due to premarital sex possibly leading to an unintended pregnancy, rather than out of the desire of the participants . The phrase is an American colloquialism, though it is also used in other parts of the world, based on a supposed scenario that the father of the bride - to - be must resort to using coercion (such as threatening with a shotgun) to ensure that the man who possibly impregnated her follows through with the wedding . </P> <P> The concept of a wedding held to avoid the threat of death dates back millennia; the book of Deuteronomy lays out a law governing premarital sex where, if a man rapes a virgin who is not pledged to be married and is caught doing so, the man must pay the bride price (50 shekels), take her as his wife, and may never divorce her, or else risk being stoned to death . </P>

Where does the term shotgun wedding come from