[CHAPTER XIX]
MARRIAGE CEREMONIES AND RITES
Among primitive men marriage was, of course, contracted without any ceremony whatever; and this is still the case with many uncivilized peoples. Among the Eskimo, visited by Captain Hall, “there is no wedding ceremony at all, nor are there any rejoicings or festivities. The parties simply come together, and live in their own tupic or igloo.”[2528] The Bonaks of California, according to Mr. Johnston, have no marriage ceremony. The man simply speaks to the girl’s parents, and to the girl herself; and, if the couple live together for some time harmoniously, they are considered husband and wife.[2529] Among the Comanches, too, “there is no marriage ceremony of any description;”[2530] and the same is said of several other aboriginal tribes of America,[2531] as also of the Outanatas of New Guinea,[2532] the Solomon Islanders,[2533] and the Tasmanians.[2534] In Australia, wedding ceremonies are unknown in most tribes, but it is said that in some there are a few unimportant ones.[2535] In the Hill Tribes of North Aracan, marriage “is a simple contract unaccompanied by ceremony.”[2536] So also among the Khasias,[2537] Chalikata Mishmis,[2538] Aino,[2539] Negroes of Bondo,[2540] &c.
Marriage ceremonies arose by degrees and in various ways. When the mode of contracting a marriage altered, the earlier mode, from having been a reality, survived as a ceremony. Thus, as we have seen, the custom of capture was transformed into a mere symbol, after purchase was introduced as the legal form of contracting a marriage. In other instances the custom of purchase has survived as a ceremony, after it has ceased to be a reality.
According as marriage was recognized as a matter of some importance, the entering into it came, like many other significant events in human life, to be celebrated with certain ceremonies. Very commonly it is accompanied by a wedding feast. Among the Nufi people, for example, the nuptials consist of the payment of the bride-price followed by eating and drinking.[2541] Among the Wanyoro, the wedding is celebrated by a great deal of feasting, and the bride is taken by a procession of friends to her new lord.[2542] Often the feast continues for several days, a week, or even longer.[2543] In Mykonos, of the Cyclades, according to Mr. Bent, ten or fifteen days of festivity usually accompany a marriage.[2544] Among some peoples, the expenses are defrayed by the bridegroom,[2545] in others by the father of the bride.[2546] Probably, in the former cases, the feast is considered almost a part of the purchase sum, whilst in the latter it is, perhaps, occasionally regarded as a compensation for the bride-price.
The marriage ceremony often indicates in some way the new relation into which the man and woman enter to each other. Sometimes it symbolizes sexual intercourse,[2547] but far more frequently the living together, or the wife’s subjection to her husband. Among the Navajos, the ceremony merely consisted in eating maize pudding from the same platter;[2548] and among the Santals, says Colonel Dalton, “the social meal that the boy and girl eat together is the most important part of the ceremony, as by the act the girl ceases to belong to her father’s tribe, and becomes a member of her husband’s family.”[2549] Eating together is, in the Malay Archipelago, the chief and most wide-spread marriage ceremony.[2550] The same custom occurs among the Hovas, Hindus, Esthonians, in Ermland in Prussia, and in Sardinia.[2551] Again in some Brazilian tribes, marriage is contracted by the husband and wife drinking brandy together.[2552]
In Japan, where the ceremony seems to be regarded as the least important part of the whole proceeding, it consists in the drinking by both parties, after a prescribed fashion, of a fixed number of cups of wine.[2553] In Scandinavia, the couple used to drink the contents of a single beaker—a custom which also occurs in Russia.[2554] The joining of hands, or the bridegroom’s taking the bride by the hand, is, as Dr. Winternitz remarks, one of the most important marriage ceremonies among all Indo-European peoples.[2555] The same custom occurs among the Orang-Banûwa of Malacca;[2556] whilst, among the Orang-Sakai, “the little finger of the right hand of the man is joined to that of the left hand of the woman.”[2557] At Khasia weddings, “the couple about to be married merely sit together in one seat, and receive their friends, to whom they give a dinner or feast.”[2558] Among the Veddahs of Ceylon, the bride ties a thin cord of her own twisting round the bridegroom’s waist, and they are then husband and wife. This string is emblematic of the marriage tie, and, “as he never parts with it, so he clings to his wife through life.”[2559] The Hindu bride and bridegroom, again, have their hands bound together with grass.[2560] Among the Gonds and Korkús, the actual marriage ceremonies consist, in part, of “eating together, tying the garments together, dancing together round a pole, being half drowned together by a douche of water, and the interchange of rings,—all of which may be supposed to symbolize the union of the parties.”[2561] In many parts of India, bride and bridegroom are, for the same reason, marked with one another’s blood,[2562] and Colonel Dalton believes this to be the origin of the custom, now so common, of marking with red-lead. Thus, the Parkheyas use a red powder called “sindúr,” the bridegroom sealing the compact by touching and marking with it the forehead of his bride.[2563]
Among the Australian Narrinyeri, on the other hand, a woman is supposed to signify her consent to the marriage by carrying fire to her husband’s hut, and making his fire for him.[2564] The Negroes of Loango contract their marriages by the bridegroom’s eating from two dishes, which the bride has cooked for him in his own hut.[2565] In Dahomey, according to Mr. Forbes, there is no ceremony in marriage, except where the king confers the wife, “in which instance the maiden presents her future lord with a glass of rum.”[2566] In Croatia, the bridegroom boxes the bride’s ears in order to indicate that henceforth he is her master.[2567] And in ancient Russia, as part of the marriage ceremony, the father took a new whip, and after striking his daughter gently with it, told her that he did so for the last time, and then presented the whip to the bridegroom.[2568]
Many of the ceremonies observed at our own weddings belong to the classes here noticed. The “best man” seems originally to have been the chief abettor of the bridegroom in the act of capture; the nuptials are generally celebrated with a feast in the house of the bride’s father, and the wedding-ring is a symbol of the close union which exists between husband and wife.[2569] Even the religious part of the ceremony has its counterpart among many Pagan nations.
It was natural that a religious character should be given to nuptials, as well as to other events of importance, by the invoking of divine help for the future union. In Hudson’s Island, says Turner, “hardly anything could be done without first making it known to the gods and begging a blessing, protection, or whatever the case might require.”[2570] Among the Dyaks, one of the eldest male members of the assembled party smears at the wedding the hands of the bridegroom and bride with the blood of a pig and a fowl, implores the protection of the male spirit, Baak, and the female spirit, Hiroeh Bakak, and recommends the married couple to their care, wishing them all sorts of earthly blessings.[2571] Among the Gonds, sacrifice to the gods, and unlimited gorging and spirit drinking are usually the wind-up of the wedding.[2572] In Patagonia, the husband, after having brought the bride into his hut, makes a sacrifice to the foul spirit; and the Macatecas, a tribe subject to the Mexican empire “fasted, prayed, and sacrificed to their gods for the space of twenty days after their marriage.”[2573]