MARRIAGE DAY SUPERSTITIONS
Superstitions and customs vary greatly in different countries and periods, but they all bear somehow a strong family resemblance.
For instance, one old English proverb runs: "Blest be the bride that the sun shines on," yet in Germany a bride prays for rain, believing that a new joy comes with each raindrop, and that then all her tears will be shed before, and not after, her wedding. There, too, it used to be the custom to take a lot of old dishes to the door of the bride's house and break them to pieces in the street, and if by any chance one escaped, it was accepted as a bad omen.
In China, however, when a marriage was being arranged, and any article of value, such as a vase or a bowl, was broken the ceremony was postponed.
At the wedding feast in Scandinavia someone makes a speech or sings a song, which ends up in a tremendous noise, and this is the signal for a general peal of laughter and for the guests to present their congratulations to the newly-wedded couple.
The Slavs pour a tankard of beer over the bridegroom's horse for luck, and in the North of England, the maid pours a kettle of hot water over the doorstep to ensure that another wedding will take place ere long from the same house.
A curious idea among the Burmese is that people born on the same day of the week must not marry, and that if they defy the Fates their union will be marked by much ill-luck.
To prevent these disastrous marriages, every girl carries a record of her birthday in her name, each day of the week having a letter belonging to it, and all children are called by a name that begins with that letter.
In New Guinea it is always Leap Year, for in that island the men consider it to be beneath their dignity to notice women, much less to make overtures of marriage to them. The proposing is left to the women to do. When a New Guinea woman falls in love with a man she sends a piece of string to his sister, or, if he has no sister, to his mother or some other lady relative.