MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3225, 31 October 1881, Page 4

MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.

Before the Reformation a widow was directed by the rubric to give her gloved hand to the bridegroom, a maiden removed the glove—a less expressive matter than the giving and receiving of the ring, which is said to havo been a Jewish usage from time immemorial, and pointing back, no doubt, to the time when the ring and the signet were one and the same. The exchange of rings, sometimps practised in Europe, is also Jewish, though the distinction made —the bride's ring being of silver, but tbe groom's to her of gold — seems questionable. The kissing of the bride by the bridegroom as a part of the ceremony, was so important in the Eastern world, and even in thp Justinian code, as to be solemnly provided for, and made a necessary element in a legal marringe. The Westerns have dropped it a« a necessary. Another peculiarity of the Eastnrn Church, seen in the Greek ritual, is that the Presbyter who solemnizes second marriages does not jpin the party at the wedding feast, and so important was this thought that it formed the Bubject of canonical legislation. Second marriages, while not forbidden, have been discouraged in the Greek Church, and are absolutely forbidden, it is well known, to the clergy. The ceremony, for ifc _ is, according to Dr. Bingham, who has given the results of his studies on the subject to the world, of a generally secondary character.

A singular difference exists among the great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race on the time and place of marriage. In Great Britain the place is, as a rule, the Church building ; the wedding in a private house is a matter for special license. So the time is usually in the forepart of the day. In Ireland the Episcopalians must be married before noon, while Presbyterians have the time extended to 2 o'clock, unless in both cases special license is obtained —a step commonly taken only by the richer persons in the community. In America, on the other hand it is well known, time and place are left to the will of the .parties, and the 'wedding breakfast' is not the uniform thing it is in Great Britain. One good result of the European plan is that secret, irregular marriages are rendered less easy than in days when ministers used to be roused from their beds to marry young people. But there is no good without some drawback. The wedding breakfast in Great Britain entails an amount of dreary speech-making, the toasting of ' bride and groom,' the parents of the same, tbe ' officiating clergymen,' the bridesmaids, &c, with replies, of which, happily, Western civilisation has not to carry the burden.—Rev. Dr. John Hall, in the New York Ledger.