OLD MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.

Evening Post, Volume XLVII, Issue 88, 14 April 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

OLD MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.

From the earliest times white was the uniform colour for a virgin bride, and three ornaments were worn by her on her way to the altar. These were the ring on her Anger, the brooch on her breast, and the garland on her head— the first being typical of the endlessness of matrimonial love, the brooch signifying maidenly innocence, while the garland was the reward accorded to her for having successfully resisted the temptations to evil that had beset her course from childhood to matrimony. No widow on her re-marriage might wear a garland, nor could any bride whose reputation had suffered from her own lightness of conduct. The garlands were mostly composed of roses and myrtle, and the hair was generally worn in loose tresses to the altar, in token of her freedom, but on laying aside her virgin crown the newlymade bride bound up her hair, significant of her subjection toa husband. After the marriage ceremony had been performed, it was customary for the bridal procession to walk round the leBB sacred part of the church before sitting down to the wedding feast, which was often held in the nave, this part being generally used in those early times for the transaction of secular business and the enjoyment of social diversion. The feast being over, the bride and bridegroom, accompanied by their guests, went in procession to take possession of their new home j after a short interval of time the majority of the guests (ook their departure, leaving the bridesmaids and groomsmen to perform their last duty to the newlymarried pair, which was to undress them and put them to bed preparatory to the arrival of the priest, whose duty, it was to bless the bed and its occupants, while the alcoytes, waving to and fro their burning censers, fumigated the room with hallowing incense. These ceremonies being completed, the happy couple were left to their own reflections and the enjoyment of each other's society. — Frank Shelley, in Lippincott's Magazine.