ANCIENT WEDDING CUSTOMS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16749, 2 June 1922, Page 11

ANCIENT WEDDING CUSTOMS

The bridal wreath dates from the time when. Roman brides wore chaplets of flo-wers or herbs (says a. writer in the London “Evening News” while those in early English days wore rosemary, or myrtle, or even ea|rs of corn. The orange is a native of China and ha 6 been always regarded by the Chinese as nil emblem of good fortune. Its blossom was probably first worn at weddings by the brides of the Saracens, and tho custom brought to Western Europe by the Crusaders. The throwing of rice is part of the marriage ceremony *of the Brahmins of India, for ripe is the most prolific of grains, and always emblematic of God’s injunction to tho ancient Hebrews to tc increase and multiply and replenish the earth.” Jews throw wheat, and Russians oats or barley, blit com appears to have always entered into our Western ceremony in some form or another, even from the remotest and uncivilised times. It is in this connection that the wedding cake can bo traced.

The shoe so often thrown after tho wedded couple j is unrivalled in its claim as an emblem of superstition, and has always been accounted a lucky symbol, for, os Ben Johnson says.

“ Hurl© after the old shoe. I’ll be merry whale’er I doe- !” And in Yorkshire, it is interesting to note, the practice is termed “ thrashing,” and Lixo older the shoe thrown the greater the luck to the bride. But it is a fact that the custom is really a relic of the Jewish mode of the transfer of land, the symbol of possession. ae in days of Boaz of old “ concerning redeeming and concerning changing, for to confirm all things a man plucked off his shoe and gavo it to his neighbour.” as anyone may read for themselves. Then again, the wearing *of sandals in the East brought the “shoe ” to be a sign of parental authority, the obvious and simple means of chastisement which oven to-day tlie

“ slipper ’* sometimes seeks to emulate as the pains of childhood may cause among us “ to remember with tears.”