WEDDING-CEREMONY IN TURKEY.
In Turkey, negotiations for marriage are conducted by friends or relations, the parties in interest not being allowed to see each other. The bargain being concluded to their mutual satisfaction, preparations are made for the customary festivities.
About nine or ten o’clock in the evening the nuptial knot is tied,—the Imaam, or priest, placing himself in a short passage which leads between two rooms, respectively occupied by the bride and bridegroom, who neither see each other nor the priest during the ceremony. That functionary asks the bride if she will take the man to be her husband, whether he be blind, lame, etc. She replies yes, three times.
They are now man and wife, though as yet they have not gazed on each other’s features.
After the conclusion of the ceremony the festivities are resumed.
Meanwhile the bride is escorted by her female friends to the bridal chamber, where she is seated on an ottoman and left alone. Shortly after, the bridegroom makes his appearance. Discovering that his wife is still enveloped in her veil, he requests her to throw it aside, so that he can feast his eyes upon her beauty. This she coquettishly declines doing until he has become very earnest in his persuasions, when she discloses to him for the first time a view of her face.
After much persuasion on his part, and affected reluctance on hers, he at length succeeds in kissing her, and the curtain drops.