HOW TO GET MARRIED.

Thames Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 1882, 4 August 1874, Page 3

HOW TO GET MARRIED.

The Japanese, not caring to be burdened' for half their lives with the consequences of indulging, against their will, in the extravagant festivities necessary for getting married in ■ the orthodox manner, resort to a species of elopement, to avoid pecuniary embarrassments. An honest couple have a marriageable daughter, aud the latter is acquainted with a fine young fellow, who would be a capital match, if only he possessed the necessary means of making his lady-love and her parents the indispensable weddiug presents, and of keeping open house for a week. One tine evening the father and mother, returning from the bath, find the house empty; tlio daughter is gone. They make inquiries in the neighbourhood; no one has seen her; but the 1 neighbours hasten to offer their services in seeking her, together with her distracted parents. Xhey accept the offer, and head a solemn procession, which goes from street to street, to tho lover s door. In vaiu does he, hidden behind his panels, turn a deat ear; lie is at length obliged to yield to tho importunities of the besieging crowd. He opens the door, and the young' girl, drowned in tears, throws herself at the feet of her parents, who threatened to curse her. Then comes the intervention of charitable friends, deeply moved by this spectacle; the sotteaiug of the mother, tho proud and inexorable attitude of the father, the combined eloquence of the multitude, employed to soften his heart; the lover's endless pro-; testation of his resolution to become tho best of sons-in-law. At length the lather yields, his resistance is overcome; he raises his kneeling daughter, pardons her lover, and calls him his son-indaw. Then, almost as if by enchantment, cups ofsaki circulate through the assembly. Everybody sits down upon the mais; the two culprits are placed in the eeuire ot the circle, large bowls of saki are handed to them; and, when they are emptied, the marriage is recognised, and declared to be validly contracted in the presence of a sufficient uiimber of witnesses, and is registered the nexi. day by the proper officer with-'• out any difficulty..—Humbert's Japan.