MARRIAGE CUSTOMS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 138, 12 June 1936, Page 15

MARRIAGE CUSTOMS

LEGACIES FROM THE PAST

'A wedding has been arranged"

. . . complete with ring, bridesmaids, best man, trousseau, and honeymoon. It all seems so modern!

Yet every custom that .the bride observes links her unmistakably with the chain that stretches back across the centuries, little though she realises it (writes Marion Rae in the "Daily Mail").

Probably you are wearing white, with wreath and veil. Why? White for purity, said the ancients. White for joy, said the Romans. Even the ancient Patagonians gave their bodies a new coat of white paint on the eve of the wedding ceremony!

Orange blossom? Of course! Because the "golden apple" which Juno presented to Jupiter on their wedding day was probably an orange. How modern we are!

During the ceremony the bridegroom will be attended by the smartest of "best men," spruce and immaculate. Far removed from his prototype, who, in the days when men captured their brides by force and ran off with them, served as a strong friend handy with his fists and weapons to deal with pursuers. What about'the ring? The plain gold band .was popularised by Queen Mary at her wedding with Philip of Spain in 1554. Before that rings had been made of various metals. The poor people used leather and rush, while the rings of the rich were studded with gems. Mary, Queen of Scots, at 'her public wedding to Darnley, had three magnificent wedding rings.

The right hand for power and authority, the left for subjection, or so our forefathers thought. The Greeks believed a vein from the fourth finger connected directly with the heart, but the truth is more likely to be that the fourth finger of the left hand is the chosen one because it is the least used of all our fingers.

In early days the bridegroom put the ring on each of the bride's fingers of the left hand in turn. At the first, he would say: "In the Name of the Father," at the second, "In the Name of the Son," at the third, "In the Name of the Holy Ghost," and at the fourth simply, "Amen," and there it would remain.

And now for your honeymoon!, As you drive away, probably someone will throw an old shoe after you. Why? It isa symbol of the transfer of authority from the father to the husband. The ancient Egyptians had a custom of exchanging sandals when property had changed hands. The Hebrew always gave his sandals as a token of good faith in a business deal.

And what about the handful of rice? This is a symbolical way of expressing a sentiment usually unspoken even in these frank days. Rice and grain were the emblems of fruitfulness to the ancients.

Your trousseau will not at all look like a "little bundle"—the literal meaning of the world "trusse." At one time it was quite permissible for the bridegroom to examine the trousseau beforehand, and if he deemed it to be unworthy he could refuse to go on with the affair.

The idea of going away from your relations and friends is a relic of the days of marriage by capture. The bridegroom would of necessity take his bride into hiding until her angry kinsfolk tired of looking for her.