MARRIAGE CUSTOMS

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 92, 15 October 1927, Page 20

MARRIAGE CUSTOMS

GIVING OF PRESENTS.

Different countries have curious wedding customs, some of which are still kept up, though many have been allowed to drop. In. Scotland, the amusing and rather picturesquo custom of the bridegroom carrying the bride in his arms over the threshold of her future home has been -revivod.. This custom is somewhat suggestive of far-back times, when the bride was taken T>y capture (says a contributor to the Edinburgh "Weekly Scotsman"). The wouldbe bridegroom carried off his „ bride, whether the parents were willing or not, and sometimes it was against the lady's will. The funny, side presents itself when the bride is some sizes larger than the bridegroom. Fortunately, the custom is not obligatory. Another Scottish custom now discontinued) or of rare occurrence; was for the newly-wedded bride to carry a creel filled with something heavy across the threshold of her new home. This was adjusted by the bridegroom. Some old idea of the inequality of the sexes, then usual, originated it. ■■ In some districts it was customary to break a cake of shortbread over'the'head'of thebride as she entered her now home, while^in other country places there was the old custom of foot-washing on the eve of tko wedding. ' The "favours'? were eagerly coveted, and as'for pins from tlie bride's dress, what could be more lucky? Each meant a wedding to^the happy possessor. Another old Scottish custom, only discontinued within recent years,' -\vas the "Penny Wedding." It was at one ' time 'a' common practice among the poorer classes to expect from each guest at a wedding a contribution to defray .the expenses'of the feast, where musi<;, songs, dancing, feasting, and drinking were usuaJ. The contributions wei'le sometimes so liberal that they helped to set up the young couple in: comfort. After the* Reformation a strenuous effort-was made by the clergy to do away with those penny weddings, but they were too popular and of too long standing to be easily, put down. They managed, however, to limit the contributions of each guest to five/shillings (Scots); Another furious custom once observed in Scotland was that, after the ceremony, the bachelor friends of the bridegroom rail a race to the new home of the couple. The man who first reached it would be the first to be benedict, the married man, within the year. It was at one time considered extremely unlucky to ask where the honeymoon was to b6 spent, or, in fact, for it-to'be mentioned at all. But most unlucky of .all was it when, the bride, a little flurried . and nervous, signed her marriedname in the register instead of her maiden name.