THE QUIET WEDDING.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 132, 10 July 1914, Page 4

THE QUIET WEDDING.

ORIGIN OF HONEYMOONS. At present "quiet weddings" are the latest thing, and bride and bridegroom alike seem anxious to be married as quietly as possible. One reason why fussy weddings were popular in England for- so many years is that in the good old days there were so many irregular marriages. Consequently bridal couples married regularly in a church liked to make the fact known, and so made the ceremony as public as possible. It was not only at Gretna Green that such irregular marriages took place. Hundreds, if not thousands, were celebrated in the Chapel of the Fleet Prison, and many in the taverns in the neighbourhood. The clergy officiating were generally men of bad character, who had been sent to prison, and were ready to marry any two people at a moment's notice. Many grave abuses arose from this irregular method of performing the marriage ceremony, and men in high positions gave false names and were "married" many times over. And often girls of property were dragged to the Fleet and married absolutely against their will. The chapels of the Savoy, the Mint, and Mayfair were also used for these irregular marriages. And the so-called "Sion Chapel" at Hampstead, a little building belonging to a publie-house

near by, was publicly advertised as a "private place" for people to get married in. It was announced. that a. minister was in attendance to perform the ceremony, and any couple who had their wedding dinner in the gardens of the public-house would be married by him without any feel Ultimately these irregular marriages were put a stop to by a Bill making any marriage that had not been celebrated publicly in a chureh or chapelnull and void.- The day before that Bill became law, no less than 217 irregular marriages were celebrated, for the last time, in the Fleet Prison Chapel alone.

Just as weddings are becoming simpler, so the honeymoon, too, is much shorter nowadays than it used to be. At one time it was quite usual for the honeymoon of people who could afford it to last three or four, or even six, months, and more than one society bridal pair have gone off for a tour of the world, or some similar extended that has occupied a year or more. Nowadays, many a honeymoon "trip'' lasts only a day or two. By the way, the origin of the honeymoon, as given by Miss Ethel Xi. Urlin in her book, "A Short History of Marriage, " published recently, is most interesting. It is a survival of the days when the bridegroom carried off his bride by force from her father's dwelling. "For at least a month," she says, "the audacious pair kept out of the way, and at the end of. that time strove to reconcile papa to the situation by making him handsome presents." If the bridegroom was wealthy, pro-

bably papa'took a good deal of "reconciling. '' The best man is another survival of those barbarous days, being originally the friend ehosen by the bridegroom to help capture the bride. He might have been seen prowling atound the family hut, and keeping -tlie family at bay* while the bridegroom made off at full" speed with the always protesting maiden.

The book also explains some other in-f teresting marriage customs. Wedding presents, for instance.

In old English days, if a couple were very poor, they sent round a cart, called the bridal wain," to collect corn or other offerings'in kind from their friends.

In time, the friends fell into the habit of bringing the gifts themselves, and so we got our modem custom c of wedding presents. Frequently, too, in the ease of poor families, the cost of the wedding was defrayed by subscriptions, from the guests, and this is the origin of the "penny weddings which were almost universal in Scotland.

In Wales, brides and bridegrooms stand as closely as possible together to prevent witches. creeping in between them. An American bride, too, will not allow anyone to walk between herself and her husband on the wedding dav r because she believes it would ultimately; * part them.