THE LADY OF THE KEYS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 32, 7 August 1923, Page 3

THE LADY OF THE KEYS

When the bridegroom of Old Roma placed, on his wedding day, with due ceremonies, the keys of the household in his bride's hands, he was paying her a significant compliment, the "meaning of which was well understood by them both. For the .key ranks high" among the early symbols of authority, responsibility, and governing power, observes a writer in the "Westminster Gazette." The gods of the ancient world were themselves called "Key-Bearers," and were often represented carrying .the keys with which they were thought to open and shut the gates of life and death, summer and winter, storm and shine. And all the great officers of State had their great official keys, which were carried before them at public functions to mark their rank, and striko awe into the spectators. As keeper of the domestic keys, and guardian of the family treasures and the • family honour, the young matron, in her own way, took her place among those exalted personages. "The Lady of the Keys" played her part also in medieval Christendom. The dame of the Middle Ages carried her keys carefully attached to her girdle; and the very name of Chatelaine, or lady of the castle, toy which she herself was known, came to be applied also to the ornamental chain from which her keys were suspended, as though it were understood that she and they were inseparable. To ■■ resign your keys was equivalent to resigning your wifely duty and privileges; and the dame who, for one reason or another, wished to repudiate her husband, might signify her intention by the dramatic gesture of plucking her keys from her girdle and throwing them to the ground. Another curious custom, which shows the symbolic importance of the household keys, was the casting of them, on occasion, into the dead husband's grave, as a sign that the widow could not be responsible for his debts, and must not be harassed by his creditors..