Wedlock, indeed, hath oft compared been To public feasts, where meet a public rout, Where they that are without would fain go in, And they that are within would fain go out. Sir John Davies. Let us listen, for a moment, to the merry jingle of the wedding bells, as they echo through the corridors of the Hall of Time. What is a wedding, and a marriage, and why? What object was sought, in the beginning, when custom demanded a marriage ceremony before cohabitation? Why has that ancient custom followed man to every far corner of the globe, and why do all peoples resent any effort to destroy that custom? Why so many different forms of ceremony, what do they mean, and why do they differ so? Bolingbroke says that marriage was instituted because it was necessary that parents should know their own respective offspring; and that, as the mother can have no doubt that she is the mother, so a man should have all the assurance possible that he is the father: hence the marriage Monogamy was the original law of marriage, but in Genesis we are told that Lamech took unto himself two wives. The Jews, in common with other Oriental peoples, married when they were very young, but the Talmudists forbade marriage by a male under thirteen years and a day. There was not much ceremony, in the early days, except the removal of the bride from her father's house to that of the bridegroom, called "taking a wife," and in primitive ages this was done by seizure and force. The only "ceremony" took place on the preceding day, when the marriage had been agreed upon in advance, and consisted of a formal elaborate bath by the bride in the presence of her female companions. In later times, marriage ceremonies gradually became very elaborate, and have generally remained so and became more so ever since, in all parts of the world. Abraham appears to have the honor of having secured the first divorce in history, for we are told he sent Hagar and her child away from him. In Deuteronomy XXIV, it is stated that a man had the power to dispose of a faithless wife by writing her bill of divorcement, giving it into her hand and sending her out Cecrops seems to have been the first to introduce among the Athenians the formal marriage ceremony with all its solemn and binding obligations. The ancient Greeks early decided that marriage was a private as well as a public necessity, and the Spartans treated celibacy as a crime. Lycurgus made laws so that those who married too late, or unsuitably, or not at all, could be treated like ordinary criminals, and not only was it unrespectable to be a bachelor, but it was dangerous. Plato preached that a man should consider the welfare of his country rather than his own pleasure, and that if he did not marry before he was thirty-five he should be punished severely. The Spartans advocated marriage for the reason that they wanted more children born to the state, and when a married woman gave By the Romans, as well as by the Jews and Greeks, marriage was deemed an imperative duty; and parents were reprehended if they did not obtain husbands for their daughters by the time they were twenty-five. The Roman law recognized monogamy only, and polygamy was prohibited in the whole empire. Hence, the former became practically the rule in all Christiandom, and was introduced into the canon law of the Eastern and Western churches. During the time of Augustus, bachelorhood became fashionable, and to check the evil, as well as to lessen the alarming number of divorces, which were also getting fashionable, Augustus imposed a wife tax on all who persisted in the luxury of celibacy. The superstition that some days and months We know very little of the marriage affairs of the ancient Egyptians, but we do know that they were not restricted to any number of wives. In modern Egypt, a woman can never be seen by her future husband till after she has been married, and she is always veiled. A similar custom prevailed in ancient Morocco, the bride being first painted and stained, and then carried to the house of her husband-to-be, where she was formally introduced to him. He was satisfied, however, that she would suit him, for he had previously sent some of his female relatives to inspect her at the bath. The Mahomedans of Barbary do not buy their wives, like the Turks, but have portions with them. They retain in their marriage rites many ceremonies in use by the ancient Goths and Vandals. The married women must not show their faces, even to their fathers. The Moors of West Barbary have practically the same customs as the Mahomedans and the Trial marriages were also in vogue in Persia, and seldom was a marriage contract made for life. A new wife was a common luxury. Persian etiquette demands that before the master of The Chinese believe that marriages are decreed by heaven, and that those who have been connected in a previous existence become united in this. Men are allowed to keep several concubines, but they are entirely dependent on the legitimate wife, who is always reckoned the most honorable. The Chinese marry their children when they are very young, sometimes as soon as they are born. In Japan, polygamy and fornication are allowed, and fathers sell or hire out their daughters with legal formalities for limited terms. In Finland it was the custom for a young woman to wear suspended at her girdle the sheath of a knife, as a sign that she was single and wanted a husband. Any young man who was enamored of her, obtained a knife in the shape of the sheath, and slyly slipped it in the latter, and if the maiden favored the proposal, she would keep the knife, otherwise she would return it. In another part of Finland, a young couple were allowed to sleep together, partly, if not completely dressed, for two weeks, which custom, called bundling or tarrying, was common in Wales and the New England States, and is In Scotland, the custom has long prevailed of lifting the bride over the threshold of her new home, which custom is probably derived from the Romans. The threshold, in many countries, is thought to be a sacred limit or boundary, and is the subject of much superstition. In the Isle of Man, a superstition prevails that it is very lucky to carry salt in the pocket, and the natives always do so when they marry. They also have the international custom of throwing an old shoe after the bridegroom as he left his home, and also one or more after the bride as she left her home. In Wales the old-time weddings were characterized by several curious customs, such as Bundlings, Chainings, Sandings, Huntings and Tithings. In Britain, before Caesar's invasion, an indiscriminate (or but slightly restricted) intermixture of the sexes was the practice, and polygamy prevailed; and it was not uncommon for several brothers to have only one wife among them, paternity being determined by resemblance. The foregoing facts and customs do not show the evolution of marriage, because in some countries the same forms and customs prevail to-day that prevailed six thousand years ago. As |