THE HONEYMOON

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 68, 21 March 1931, Page 24

THE HONEYMOON

The history of one distinctively English custom is rather curious. Originally the word "honeymoon" was employed to denote an occasion of advantage, as when one goes out of ono 'a way to benefit from sonic opportunity that has unexpectedly presented itself. Later, Shakespeare used the term "honey" to indicate a fawning attitude, and Tennyson docs the same in at tho whisper of a lord," says tho "Manchester Guardian." In tho sense in which we apply it, the word appears to have been used at first purely as a jocular expression. "The first month," says an eighteenth century wit, in an allusion to married life, "is all honey and smiek-smaek; the second, hither and thither; the third, the devil tak ' him that brought thee and mo t'gether." The going-away honeymoon came, of course, with the accession of George 111., but there wero honeymoons of a sort before that. In an early issue of the old "Tatler" we are told that "sometimes the parties fly asunder in the midst of courtship, and sometimes grow cool in the very honeymonth," and in the "School for Scandal" there is the confession, ''I was more than once nearly choked with gall during the honeymoon, and had lost all comfort in life before my friends had done wishing me joy." What this earlier honeymoon was like may be gathered from "The Levellers," a quaint dialogue by two young ladies on the subject of matrimony, published in 1703. "Prom church they (a parson and his bride) went to her father's house, where, having dined, he tells his wife that she must put up such things as she desired to carry home with her, for he would quickly be going homewards. The relations begged of him to stay all night, it being the usual custom to do so. He told them that he would stay nowhere but at his own house. The relations, finding that no arguments would prevail upon him to tarry, got mistress bride ready, and the two mounted their saddles and rode home by themselves."

PURELY ENGLISH CUSTOM

There was obviously nothing very romantic about that kind of honeymoon, even when the "usual custom" was duly observed. But by the middle of the century the occasion had become of some variety and interest. In a gossipy pamphlet, entitled "Sir Charles Grandison" (ho himself married Harriet Byrou in circumstances of colourful pomp), we are told that the honeymoon consisted of festivities arranged for the wedding guests, galas staged for the entertainment of tenants and estate hands, visits to relatives, etc., and lasted for a round month. The bride also made "two public appearances" in the church where she had been wed, so that the friends who had not been present at the ceremony would have theso further opportunities of "rendering her their respects." It is hardly more than 70 years since the going-away honeymoon was accepted by all classes as a matter of regular course. The Isle of Wight was the first popular resort. Two hotels were there specially fitted out for the purpose, and were known far and wide as the "Sandrock" and the "Shanklin," names with which the wits played fast and loose. They were but two large tenements "covered all over with myrtle and ivy," the peculiar feature of their reconstruction being "pigeonhole sitting-rooms and bedrooms to accommodate only newly weds." From the records of these favoured haunts we learn that the general practice was to make the honeymoon literally a honeymonth, the truth being apparently that most people then made their honeymoon the one real holiday of their lives, and therefore quite naturally contrived t.o make it last as long as custom ordained or circumstances allowed. Among the "better class," who were slow at first in yielding to the new vogue, tho Isle of Wight was soon abandoned for the more exclusive reaches of the Pyrenees, Switzerland, and the Italian lakes, and in-this way tho resorts wero gradually increased until at length people felt themselves free to go wherever fancy led them.