“Now for good lucke, cast an old shoe after me.”—Heywood.

The folk-lore of marriage is probably the most interesting feature of the general subject, to the tender sex, at least, with whom indeed none other, in the nature of things, could begin to hold so important a place. In consequence, all favorable or unfavorable omens are carefully treasured up in the memory, quite as much pains being taken to guard against evil prognostics as to propitiate good fortune.

Quite naturally, the young unmarried woman is possessed of a burning desire to find out who her future husband is to be, what he is like, whether he is rich or poor, short or tall, and if they twain are to be happy in the married state or not. To this end the oracle is duly consulted, either openly or secretly, after the best approved methods.

One of the best known modes of divination is this: If, fortunately, you find the pretty little lady-bird bug on your clothes, throw it up in the air, repeating at the same time the invocation:—

All charms of this nature are supposed to possess peculiar power if tried on St. Valentine’s day, Christmas Eve, or Hallowe’en. Curious it is that on a day dedicated to All the Saints in the Calendar, evil spirits, fairies, and the like are supposed to be holding a sort of magic revel unchecked, or that they should be thought to be better disposed to gratify the desires of inquisitive mortals on this day than on another. At any rate, calendar or no calendar, St. Matrimony is the patron saint of Hallowe’en.

Among the many methods of divination employed, a favorite one was to drop melted lead into a bowl of water, though any other sort of vessel would do as well, and whatever form the lead might take would signify the occupation of your future husband. Or to go out of doors in the dark, with a ball of yarn, and unwind it until some one should begin winding it at the unwound end. At this trial, the expected often happened, as the enamored swain would seldom fail to be on the watch for his sweetheart to appear. So also the white of an egg dropped in water, and set in the sun, was supposed to take on the form of some object, such as a ship under full sail, indicating that your husband would be a sailor.

Burning the nuts is perhaps the most popular mode of trying conclusions with fate, as it certainly is the most mirth-provoking. On this interesting occasion, lads and lassies arrange themselves in a circle before a blazing wood fire, on the hearth. Nuts are produced. Each person, after naming his or her nut, puts it upon the glowing coals, with the unspoken invocation:—

The poet Gay turns this somewhat differently, but it is not our affair to reconcile conflicting presages. He sings:—

A still different rendering is given by Burns. According to him each questioner of the charm names two nuts, one for himself, one for his sweetheart, presumably the mode practised in Scotland in his time:—

Popping corn sometimes takes the place of burning the nuts. The spoken invocation is then “Pit, put, turn inside out!”

There are also several methods of performing this act of divination with apples. The one most practised in New England is this: First pare an apple. If you succeed in removing the peel all in one piece, throw it over your head, and should the charm work well, the peel will so fall as to form the first letter of your future husband’s name, or as Gay poetically puts it:—

When sleeping in a strange bed for the first time, name the four posts for some of your male friends. The post that you first look at, upon waking in the morning, bears the name of the one whom you will marry. Care is usually taken to fall asleep on the right side of the bed.

By walking down the cellar stairs backward, holding a mirror over your head as you go, the face of the person whom you will marry will presently appear in the mirror.

The oracle of the daisy flower, so effectively made use of in Goethe’s “Faust,” is of great antiquity, and is perhaps more often consulted by blushing maidens than any other. When plucking away the snowy petals, the fair questioner of fate should murmur low to herself the cabalistic formula:—

As the last leaf falls, so goes the prophecy.

If you put a four-leaved clover in your shoe before going out for a walk, you will presently meet the one you are to marry. The same charm is used to bring back an absent or wayward lover. Consequently there is much looking for this bashful little plant at all of our matrimonial resorts. The rhymed version runs in this wise:—

In some localities a bean-pod or a pea-pod put over the door acts as a charm to bring the favored of fortune to lift the latch and walk in. This is old. The poet Gay has it in rhyme thus:—

Another mode of divination runs in this way: On going to bed the girl eats two spoonfuls of salt. The salt causes her to dream that she is dying of thirst; and whoever the young man may be that brings her a cup of water, in her dream, is the one she will marry.16

If after seeing a white horse you count a hundred, the first gentleman you meet will be your future husband.

So far as appearances go, at least, the custom of brewing love-philters or love-potions, to forestall or force the natural inclinations, has completely died out. From this source the astrologers, magicians, and fortune-tellers of former times reaped a rich harvest. Many instances of the use of this old custom occur in literature. Josselyn naÏvely relates the only one we can call to mind, coming near home to us. He says: “I once took notice of a wanton woman’s compounding the solid roots of this plant (Satyrion) with wine, for an amorous cup, which wrought the desired effect.”

Would that the hideous and barbarous custom of administering poisons to gratify the cravings of hatred or the pangs of jealousy had become equally obsolete! But alas! the “green-eyed monster” is “with us yet.”

It is a fact, well known to students of folk-lore, that those customs or usages relating to marriage are not only among the oldest, but have become too firmly intrenched in the popular mind to be easily dislodged. Thus, the ceremony of Throwing the Shoe continues to hold an honored place among marriage customs. In another place, it has been referred to as sometimes employed in the common concerns of life. But in the case of marriage, a somewhat deeper significance is attached to it. It is but fair to say, however, that authorities differ widely as to its origin, some referring it to the testimony of the Scriptures (Deut. xxv.), where the loosing of a shoe from a man’s foot by the woman he has refused to marry, is made an act of solemn renunciation in the presence of the elders. Thereafter, the obdurate one was to be held up to the public scorn, and his house pointed at as “the house of him that hath his shoe loosed.” So again we read in Ruth of a man who plucked off his shoe, and gave it to his kinsman, as an evidence to the act of renunciation, touching the redeeming of land, and this, we are there told, was then the manner in Israel. Hence, it has been very plausibly suggested, especially by Mr. Thrupp, in “Notes and Queries,” that throwing an old shoe after a bride was at first a symbol of renunciation of authority over her, by her father or guardian. However that may be, it is certain that no marriage ceremony is considered complete to-day without it, although there is danger of its being brought into ridicule, and so into disrepute, by such nonsensical acts as tying on old shoes to the bride’s trunks, or to some part of her carriage, as I have seen done here in New England, the original design of the custom being lost sight of in the too evident purpose to make the wedded pair as conspicuous as possible, and their start on life’s journey an occasion for the outbreak of ill-timed buffoonery.

In “Primitive Marriage” Mr. McLennan thinks that throwing the shoe may be a relic of the ancient custom, still kept up among certain Hindu tribes, where the bride, either in fact or in appearance only, is forcibly carried off by the groom and his friends, who are, in turn, themselves hotly pursued and in good earnest pelted with all manner of missiles, stones included, by the bride’s kinsfolk and tribesmen. This sham assault usually ends in the pursuers giving up the chase,—as, indeed, was intended beforehand,—and is probably a survival of the earliest of marriage customs, namely, that of stealing the bride, as recorded in ancient history. But this explanation is chiefly interesting as fixing the status of woman in those primitive days, when she was more like the slave of man than his equal. That relation is now so far reversed, however, that it is now the man who has become the humble suitor and declared servitor of womankind. So, at least, he insists. Now and then, though quite rarely, the old barbaric custom is recalled by the forcible abduction of some unwilling victim by her rejected lover; but only in a few instances, so far as we know, has a bride been kidnapped and held to ransom, in this country, before being restored to her friends. The American Indians are known to have practised this custom of stealing the bride, quite after the manner described by Mr. McLennan as in vogue among the Hindus.

Even royalty itself must bow to the behests of old custom, as well as common mortals. When the Duke and Duchess of Albany left Windsor, while they were still within the private grounds, the bridegroom’s three brothers and Princess Louise and Princess Beatrice ran across a part of the lawn enclosed within a bend of the drive, each armed with a number of old shoes, with which they pelted the “happy pair.” The Duke of Albany returned the fire from the carriage with the ammunition supplied him by his friendly assailants, causing the heartiest laughter by a well-directed shot at the Duke of Edinburgh. It was always reckoned a good omen if the sun shone on a couple when coming out of church. Hence the saying: “Happy is the bride that the sun shines on.”

Every one knows, if not from experience, at least by observation, what self-consciousness dwells in a newly married pair—what pains they take to appear like old married folk, and what awkward attempts they make to assume the dÉgagÉ air of ordinary travellers. As touching this feature of the subject, I one day saw a carriage driven past me, at which every one stopped to look, and stare in a way to attract general attention, and after looking, gave a broad grin. The reason was apparent. On the back of the carriage was hung a large placard, labelled “Just Married.” Several old shoes, besides some long streamers of cheap cotton cloth, were dangling from the trunks behind. When the carriage, thus decorated, drew up at the station, followed by a hooting crowd of street urchins, it was greeted with roars of laughter by the throng of idlers in waiting, while the unconscious cause of it all first learned on alighting what a sensation they had so unwittingly created.

The custom of throwing rice over a bride, as an emblem of fruitfulness, also is very old, though in England it was originally wheat that was cast upon her head. The poet Herrick says to the bride,

All the sentiment of this pretty and very significant custom is in danger of being killed by excess on the part of the performers, who so often overdo the matter as to render themselves supremely ridiculous, and the bride very uncomfortable, to say the least. To scatter rice, as if one were sowing it by the acre, when a handful would amply fulfil all the requirements of the custom, is something as if an officiating clergyman should pour a pailful of water on an infant’s head, instead of sprinkling it, at a baptism. It is not surprising that now and then cases arise where a newly married couple try to escape from the shower prepared for them by giving these over-zealous assistants the slip. A chase then begins corresponding somewhat to that just related of ignorant barbarians; and woe to the runaways if the pursuers should catch up with them!

The custom of furnishing bride-cake at a wedding is said to be a token of the firm union between man and wife, just as from immemorial time breaking bread has been held to have a symbolic meaning. The custom is centuries old. At first it was only a cake of wheat or barley. What it is composed of now, no man can undertake to say. That it is conducive to dreaming, or more probably to nightmare, few, we think, will care to dispute.

We learn that it was a former custom to cut the bride-cake into little squares or dice, small enough to be passed through the wedding-ring. A slice drawn through the ring thrice (some have it nine times), and afterward put under the pillow, will make an unmarried man or woman dream of his or her future wife or husband. This is another of those old customs of which trial is so often made “just for the fun of the thing, you know!”

The Charivari, or mock serenade, is another custom still much affected in many places, notably so in our rural districts, though to our own mind “more honored in the breach than in the observance.” The averred object is to make “night hideous,” and is usually completely successful. In the wee sma’ hours, while sleeping peacefully in their beds, the newly wedded pair are suddenly awakened by a most infernal din under their windows, caused by the blowing of tin horns, the thumping of tin pans, ringing of cowbells, and like instruments of torture. To get rid of his tormentors the bridegroom is expected to hold an impromptu reception, or, in other words, “to treat the crowd,” which is more often the real object of this silly affair, to which we fail to discover one redeeming feature.

The custom of wearing the wedding ring upon the left hand originated, so we are told, in the common belief that the left hand lay nearest to the heart.

As is well known, the Puritans tried to abolish the use of the ring in marriage. According to Butler in “Hudibras”:—

The times have indeed changed since in the early days of New England no Puritan maiden would have been married with a ring for worlds. When Edward Winslow was cited before the Lord’s Commissioners of Plantations, upon the complaint of Thomas Morton, he was asked among other things about the marriage customs practised in the colony. He answered frankly that the ceremony was performed by magistrates. Morton, his accuser, declares that the people of New England held the use of a ring in marriage to be “a relic of popery, a diabolical circle for the Devell to daunce in.”

The first marriage in Plymouth Colony, that of the same Edward Winslow to Susannah White, was performed by a magistrate, as being a civil rather than a religious contract. From this time to 1680, marriages were solemnized by a magistrate, or by persons specially appointed for that purpose, who were restricted to particular towns or districts. Governor Hutchinson, in his history of Massachusetts, says he believes “there was no instance of marriage by a clergyman during their first charter.” If a minister happened to be present, he was desired to pray. It is difficult to assign the reason why clergymen were excluded from performing this ceremony. In new settlements, it must have been solemnized by persons not always the most proper for that purpose, considering of what importance it is to society, that a sense of this ordinance, at least in some degree sacred, should be maintained and preserved. The first marriage solemnized at Guilford, Connecticut, took place in the minister’s house. It is not learned whether he performed the ceremony or not. The marriage feast consisted wholly of pork and beans. As time wore on, marriages became occasions of much more ceremony than they were fifty or sixty years ago. During the Revolutionary period, and even later, the bride was visited daily for four successive weeks.

A gold wedding-ring is accounted a sure cure for sties.

If the youngest daughter of the family should be married before her older sisters, they must all dance at her wedding in their stockings-feet, if they wish to have husbands.

It is strongly enjoined upon a bride, when being dressed for the marriage ceremony, to wear,—

June is now at the height of popularity as the month of all months to get married in, for no other reason that I can discover, than that it is the month of roses, when beauty and plenty pervade the fair face of nature.

It is now the custom for the bride, if she is married at home, or on returning there from church, to throw away her bouquet for the guests to scramble for. The one getting the most flowers will be married first, and so on.

Giving wedding presents was not practised before the present (nineteenth) century.

One old marriage custom, though long since obsolete, may be briefly alluded to here, not only for its singularity, but for its suggestiveness touching a state of mind that would admit of such tomfoolery. This was the so-called Smock-marriage, in which the bride went through the ceremony standing only in her shift, thereby declaring herself to be possessed of no more than she came into the world with. On being duly recorded, the act exempted the husband from liability for his wife’s debts previously contracted. If she went through this ridiculous performance in the presence of witnesses, and in the “King’s Highway,” that is to say, the lawfully laid out public road, she thereby cleared herself from any old indebtedness. As amazing as it may seem, several such cases are recorded in New England, the formalities observed differing somewhat in different localities.

It is considered unlucky to get married before breakfast.

May is considered an unlucky month to be married in.

To remove an engagement or wedding ring from the finger is also a bad omen.17 To lose either of them, or to have them broken on the finger, also denotes misfortune.

It is extremely unlucky for either the bride or groom to meet a funeral when on their way to be married.

It is an unlucky omen for the church clock to strike during the performance of a marriage ceremony, as it is said to portend the death of one of the contracting parties before the year is out.