We may as well begin with the Santals, one of the tribes of Bengal of which I have already spoken. Among them the couple to be married fast on the wedding-day until after the sindra dán, when they sit down together and eat. Colonel Dalton, in describing the custom, reminds us that it is the more remarkable because the Hindu husband and wife never eat together, and tells us that this meal is the first time the maiden is supposed to have sat with a man at his food, and that it “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.”[344.1] Among the Santals, in fact, marriage is admission into the kin. None but members of a kin have, we know, commensal rights; and admission frequently takes the form of a ceremonial common meal, which probably is a modification of the blood-covenant. Among the Khyoungtha, one of the Chittagong Hill-tribes, the bride and bridegroom are tied together with a new-spun cotton thread, and the poongyee, or priest, muttering prayers, takes a handful of cooked rice in each hand, and crossing and re-crossing his arms he gives seven alternate mouthfuls to each. Then he hooks the little finger of the bridegroom’s left hand into the little finger of the bride’s right, and with some further mutterings the ceremony is concluded. The Chukma, a neighbouring tribe, bind the couple together with a muslin scarf; and in that position they have to feed one another. Their hands are guided by the bridesmaid and best man to one another’s mouths amid general hilarity.[344.2] Father Bourien was present at several marriages of Mantras or wild tribes of the Malay peninsula. According to his report, “a plate containing small packages of rice wrapped up in banana-leaves having been presented, the husband offered one to his future wife, who showed herself eager to accept it, and ate it; she then in her turn gave some to her husband, and they afterwards both assisted in distributing them to the other members of the assemblage.” In the feast which followed the remaining ceremonies husband and wife ate from one dish.[345.1] Eating from one dish, or one leaf—a more archaic form of dish—is in fact the usual rite all over south-eastern Asia and the East Indian islands; and although the Hindu husband and wife now never eat together, the ancient ritual prescribed that they should do so at the marriage ceremony.[345.2] Boiled rice appears to have been the food, as it is in Dardistan at the present day, where a dish of rice boiled in milk is brought in, and the boy and girl take a spoonful each.[345.3] Married couples of Kafa, in the north-eastern corner of Africa, are only allowed to eat out of the same dish and drink out of the same horn or glass. And the etiquette is more rigorous than that of Sairey Gamp and Betsy Prig; for they are expected to eat as well as to “drink fair.”[345.4] The custom of eating together as a marriage rite is recorded as in use by the aborigines of the greater part of America. The simple ceremony is thus related in a Pawnee legend: “He entered his tent. She made a very good bed for him. She was sitting with him. She married him. She had food with him. And the young men said as follows: ‘Why friends, the chief’s daughter has married the Orphan.’ ”[345.5] It is the same among the Polynesians. On the island of Mangaia, in the Hervey Group, the pair sit to eat together in the presence of their friends on a single piece of the finest native cloth, just as in the Finnish lay they sat on the whale’s hide, and at Rome they sat, during one portion of the proceedings, on the fell of a sheep which had been slain in sacrifice.[346.1] Among the tribes of New Guinea, when the bride is brought to her husband’s dwelling a dish of food is presented to them, out of which they both eat. In some cases a roasted banana is eaten half by the bride, the other half by the bridegroom.[346.2] So, after getting into bed the South Slavonic bride from her bosom takes an apple which has been given to her by the bridegroom in the course of the day, eats one half of it and hands the other to him.[346.3] One of the Epirote ceremonies is the eating of a cake made of flour, butter and cheese. It is cut into slices; and the husband taking one dips it in honey and eats, afterwards giving to his wife. This is repeated thrice. Then, after eating some fruit, a round loaf with a hole in the middle is brought to them. Putting their fingers into the hole, they pull against one another until the loaf is torn in two; after which they and their nearest relatives eat it.[346.4] Bread and honey are eaten together in alternate bites by a Greek, or an Albanian, pair.[346.5] In the Obererzgebirge before setting out for church the bride and bridegroom eat from the same dish; and in some districts of Thuringia they partake of soup from one plate.[346.6] In Provence, as also in Esthonia, this is done after the return; and in Esthonia a piece of bread and butter, or a little bread with salt, is also eaten.[346.7] At the same point in the province of Berry, France, and in the Jura, a piece of bread and wine are offered to the young couple. The husband takes the first bite out of the bread; and his example is followed by his wife.[347.1] The Wallon practice is for the bride to eat half a tart and give her husband the rest: this ensures his affection.[347.2] In the old Parisian marriage rite the betrothal took place at the church-door. The priest then led the newly wedded into the church, and said mass. After mass he blessed a loaf and wine. The loaf was bitten and a little of the wine drunk by each of the spouses, one after the other; and the officiating priest then taking them by the hands led them home.[347.3] In the celebration of a Yezidi wedding a loaf of consecrated bread is handed to the husband; and he and his wife eat it between them. The Nestorians, their near neighbours, require the pair to take the communion.[347.4] Nor is this requirement by any means confined to the Nestorians among Christian sects; and even until the last revision of the Book of Common Prayer the Church of England herself commanded, in the final rubric of the solemnisation of matrimony, that “the new married persons the same day of their marriage must receive the holy communion”:—a practice which continues to be recommended and is occasionally followed.
Many of the foregoing ceremonies include a drink out of the same vessel. Either alone or accompanied by eating, it is usual from Italy to Norway, from Brittany to Russia; and traces of it have been found even in Scotland.[348.1] According to the old Lombardic laws no further ceremony was necessary to constitute a valid marriage than a kiss and a drink together. The Church long struggled against this rule, but was in the end obliged to sanction it, subject to the condition that a priest should be present to impart the benediction and a “spousal sermon.” It has been adopted into the rites of the Greek Church in Russia, where the priest in the course of the ceremony solemnly blesses a small silver ladle, called the Common Cup, filled with wine and water, and holds it to the lips of the pair, who sip it alternately each three times. In the West of England there is evidence which a careful examination of ecclesiastical records would probably extend to other parts of the country that at the time of the Reformation formal betrothals were usually performed by any respectable friend of both parties. He joined their hands; they gave their faith and troth in his presence; and after the betrothal gift, or token, had been handed over, or else promised, or acknowledged as already received, they kissed and drank together. This seems to have been considered as a binding union, though the banns and religious ceremony generally followed shortly after. To this day in Hesse the custom is preserved in the Weinkauf (literally, wine-purchase), or assembly of relatives on both sides. At this assembly the conditions are fixed on which the bride is to be discharged from her native kin to enter the kindred and protection of the bridegroom. When these are arranged she drinks to her bridegroom in token of her consent, and both then drink out of the same glass. From that moment they are regarded as practically husband and wife; and it only remains to obtain ecclesiastical sanction for the union. This usually follows shortly after; and between the Weinkauf and the wedding it was formerly not thought proper for a virtuous maiden to go out of doors.[349.1]
Going eastward we may note a few out of many other instances. The loving cup is part of the Jewish and Armenian ceremonies.[349.2] Among the Mohammedan Yusufzais of Afghanistan it is the bride’s father and the bridegroom that drink out of the same vessel;[349.3] obviously a change of the earlier practice to suit the faith of Islam. In Singbhúm, among the Hos and other tribes, the young couple are given beer, which they proceed to mix, the bridegroom pouring some of his into the bride’s cup, and she in turn pouring from her cup into his. They then drink, “and thus become of the same kili, or clan.”[349.4] Rice is sprinkled over the heads of a Lepcha pair; they eat together and drink maruá beer out of the same cup.[350.1] Among the Tipperahs of the Chittagong Hill districts, “the girl’s mother pours out a glass of liquor and gives it to her daughter, who goes and sits on her lover’s knee, drinks half and gives him the other half; they afterwards crook together their little fingers.”[350.2] The Annamite youth and maiden being placed on either side of the ancestors’ altar, they help one another to drink, exchanging cups and then putting them back one on the other. This is said to be the relic of a very ancient rite which consisted in fitting together the two halves of a calabash, used no doubt for the drink.[350.3] It was the ancient custom in China for bride and bridegroom to eat together of the same sacrificed animal, and to drink out of cups made of the two halves of the same melon, the bride drinking from the bridegroom’s half and he from hers: thus showing, as we are expressly told in the Lî Kî, “that they now formed one body, were of equal rank and pledged to mutual affection.”[350.4] At present, about Foochow, and possibly in other parts of the empire, the ceremonial drink is sometimes taken by bride and bridegroom out of the same goblet; where two are used they are often tied together with red cord.[350.5] In Korea the lady hands a gourd-bottle of rice-wine, adorned with red and blue thread to her spouse, and they drink together out of one little cup several times filled by the bridesmaids who stand beside them.[350.6] And in general we may say that, as the eating from one vessel, so the drinking together, is found all over the East Indies, on the islands as well as on the continent, and as far to the south as Fiji, save where in the East Indian islands it is replaced by the parallel custom of chewing a quid of betel together.[351.1] Whatever shapes the practice takes, they all resolve themselves into the thought presented on another side to us by the tale, said to be of Oriental origin, that on the first day Allah took an apple and cut it in two, giving one half to Adam and the other to Eve, and directing each at the same time to seek for the missing half. That is why one half of humanity has ever since been seeking its corresponding half.[351.2]
But here we must go a step further. The remains of the cake, which, in the Roman ceremony of Confarreatio, seems to have been broken and eaten by the bride and bridegroom, were distributed among the guests; just as our own bride-cake, after being cut by the bride and bridegroom, is shared with the entire wedding party. The ritual distribution of cakes or drink is common in Europe from one end to the other. The Esthonian bride gives to each guest of the bread and salt whereof she and her husband have just partaken.[351.3] At a marriage in the Ukrainian provinces a cake called the korovaï is made with a number of formalities. Immediately before the bride is conducted to her husband’s house this cake is solemnly cut. The moon which crowns it is divided between the happy pair; and the rest is distributed among the relatives in order of age, great care being manifested that every one shall have his due portion. The cutting and distribution are performed with ceremonies showing the importance attached to the act; and we learn from an ancient song that it was formerly the custom to light a candle and search diligently every corner to make sure that no one had been overlooked.[352.1] A bridal pair of La Creuse, in the south of France, on arriving at their home from the church, find at the door a soup-tureen filled with a certain broth or porridge, of which they are required to taste with the same spoon. The soup-tureen is then passed round to all the guests; after which a glass of wine is taken in the same manner, and the soup-tureen and wine-glass are broken to ward off witchcraft.[352.2] In Caltanisetta, Italy, the ritual food consists of toasted almonds and honey. An eye-witness at a wedding some five-and-thirty years ago describes a boy, with a towel hung round his neck like a sacerdotal stole, who mounted the table, took a silver spoon, and after blessing the basin in dumb show, tasted the sweet compound within it. The table was then removed; and the boy carried round the basin, while the bride’s mother put a spoonful of the almonds and honey in the mouth of every one present, beginning with the happy couple, and wiped their lips with the towel.[352.3] As with other rites already referred to, this is one regarded not only among comparatively civilised peoples. Backward races, as convivial in their instincts as the most enlightened, join indeed in feasting on these occasions; but they also join in ceremonially partaking with the newly-made spouses of a special article of food or drink. Such is the Mantra rite already mentioned; such also is the striking ceremony of the Saráogi Baniyás, referred to in a previous chapter, at which a Brahman is slain in effigy and the contents of the figure shared among the kinsmen present. It will be enough to recall two others. Among the Garos of North-eastern India the married couple complete their wedding festivities by each drinking a bowl of rice-beer and presenting a cup to every guest.[353.1] On the Kingsmill Islands bride and bridegroom are led to their hut by an old woman who spreads for them a new mat of cocoa-palm leaves, and makes around them a circle of cooked pandanus-fruits. Of these she takes two and hands them to the pair, having first called on the goddess Eibong to take them under her protection, and bless their union richly with children. When these two fruits have been eaten the others are divided among the relatives and friends, who are waiting outside to receive them.[353.2]
The meaning of this extension of the rite must be interpreted by its meaning when limited to husband and wife, and both by reference to the rites of kinship. It is not merely assent to the marriage on the part of the guests. It is indeed that; but assent, though, as we shall see, very necessary, may be obtained and given in other ways. To understand its full force we must turn back to some of the examples I have cited. By sitting and eating with her husband, the Santal maiden “ceases to belong to her father’s tribe, and becomes a member of her husband’s family.” The Ho and the Múnda bride and bridegroom, drinking the blended liquor from their two cups, become of one kili. But the woman who enters her husband’s kili, or clan, becomes related to all its members. Becoming of one flesh with him, she becomes of one flesh with all of his kindred. This is implicitly recognised among the Amils of Sindh, where the bridegroom and all his female friends are marked with vermilion by the officiating Brahman.[354.1] Among the Bodos and the Kochh of Bengal it would seem to be the rule for two women to accompany the bridegroom and his friends in their procession to the bride’s house. These women it is who, penetrating to her apartment, anoint her head with oil mixed with red lead, prior to her being presented to her husband.[354.2] Conversely, the Santal bridegroom in some districts, after reaching the bride’s village, is stripped by her clanswomen, and by them bathed and dressed in new garments properly stained with vermilion.[354.3] When, among the Mál Paháriás, the bridegroom has daubed the bride with sindur, the compliment is returned not by her but by her maidens, who adorn his forehead with seven red spots.[354.4] The analogy to the blood-covenant is in these cases carried to the point of identity. The same may be conjectured with some probability to be the effect of marriage on the island of Bonabe in Micronesia, where the wife is tattooed with the marks representing her husband’s ancestors.[354.5] Ellis describes the female relatives of a bride and bridegroom in the Society Islands as cutting their faces, receiving the flowing blood on a piece of native cloth, and depositing the cloth, “sprinkled with the mingled blood of the mothers of the married pair, at the feet of the bride.” And he tells us in so many words that the rite removed any inequality of rank that might have existed between them, and that “the two families to which they respectively belonged were ever afterwards regarded as one.”[355.1]
But even when marriage does not amount to reception into the kin, it constitutes a quasi-relationship with the entire kindred; and the ceremony initiates, or at least expresses, this. A crude instance is afforded by the Wukas of New Guinea, already cited. A hideous rite susceptible of no other interpretation is performed by the Kingsmill Islanders immediately upon the consummation of a marriage; and a similar one is mentioned by a Chinese traveller at the end of the thirteenth century as taking place in Cambodia.[355.2] On Teressa, one of the Nicobar Islands, a pig is killed and the faces of the guests are smeared with its blood.[355.3] Here the pig’s blood is doubtless a substitute for that of the bridal pair. In the south of India the Wadders use for the wedding feast the rice which has been poured over the new husband and wife: a practice to which a similar intention must probably be ascribed.[355.4]
For the effect of marriage is to give the kindred of the husband or the wife new rights over the person of the spouse. There are in Europe some very general usages pointing to the rights which must once have been exercised by the husband’s kin over the wife. Among the Esthonians, when the bride has at length been brought into the bridegroom’s house a repast is served, and the day is concluded with a dance, wherein all the guests in turn dance with her, for which she is entitled to a piece of money from each of them.[356.1] The custom of the Polish inhabitants of the Prussian province of Posen is the same.[356.2] Du Chaillu witnessed a similar wedding dance in Dalecarlia, Sweden. It appears to have taken place in the bridegroom’s father’s house.[356.3] In the Tirol, and among the Masurs, the bride has to dance the Bride-dance with every one of the guests. In Transylvania she begins with the beistand, or best man; and after every dance she must drink a glass of wine with her partner, who throws a piece of money into a plate ready for the purpose.[356.4] Among the Wends, every male guest is expected to dance with the bride, formal permission being first obtained from the brautführer. The bridegroom, and this is an important point, is sent away the while; and the dances are continued until midnight, when he is brought back. They take place, unlike the Dalecarlian ceremony, in the bride’s house.[356.5] In the Lowlands of Scotland, after the wedding ceremony, which was usually performed at the bride’s residence, she was expected to go round the room with her bridesmaids and kiss every male in the company. “A dish was then handed round, in which every one placed a sum of money, to help the young couple to commence housekeeping.”[356.6] Dr. Gregor describes a similar dance as performed in the north-east of Scotland. It was opened by the bride and her best maid dancing with the two sens, officials sent by the bridegroom on the wedding morning formally to demand the bride. The dance began and ended with a kiss, and when it was over the bride fixed a favour on her partner’s right arm, and the bridesmaid one on her partner’s left arm. “The two sens then paid the fiddler. Frequently the bride and her maid asked if there were other young men who wished to win favours. Two jumped to the floor, danced with the bride and her maid, and earned the honour on the left arm. Dancing was carried on far into the morning with the utmost vigour, each dance being begun and ended by the partners saluting each other.”[357.1] At Bourges it was the custom for brides on coming out of church to embrace indifferently all whom they met in the street; and still in country places of the province of the Marche the practice is said to be followed, with the variation that it is done before the marriage service. Generally in the province of Berri the guests after the feast approach in turn and deposit an offering (formerly gifts in kind proper for setting up housekeeping), receiving in return a kiss from the bride.[357.2] In the valley of Pragelato, near Pinerolo, the festivities are held in a large outhouse, the rooms in the house being usually too small. The bride is the first to enter. She stands on the threshold, holding a platter covered with a small cloth. Every one entering, without distinction of age, embraces and kisses her, and drops a piece of money clinking under the cloth.[358.1] Similar customs obtain in other parts of Italy, sometimes repeated more than once during the festivities.[358.2] The bride-dance is also practised in Provence. And at the village of Fours, near Barcelonnette, on leaving the church the bride is conducted to a rock (possibly, an erratic boulder) called the Bride-stone, whereon she is made to sit with one foot in a certain hollow of the rock. While in this position each of the relatives and guests comes in turn, kisses her and gives her a ring.[358.3]
We must look back to savage customs to discover the origin and meaning of the European rites I have here set forth; and I think we must connect them with those of the Nasamonians mentioned by Herodotus, the Auziles, an Ethiopian tribe mentioned by Pomponius Mela, and the Balearic Islanders, among all of whom in ancient times the bride was, on the wedding-night, considered as common property.[358.4] The information we have about these peoples is meagre and fragmentary. About the Kurnai of Australia, however, we have full and precise statements, extending, far beyond the act of marriage, to all their connubial relations. Their only recognised form of marriage was by a species of elopement or capture, performed with the aid of the other unmarried youths of the tribe. With all these youths the unfortunate bride had to observe the Nasamonian rite. She then went off with her new husband. This process had to be repeated once, if not twice again, before her relatives could be got to sanction the match; and meantime both bride and bridegroom incurred their wrath, which was much more than a mere form. But when once the elopement had been condoned, if the bride had an unmarried sister, it is said that she also would be handed over to the husband; and in any case on his wife’s death he had a right to her. Moreover, on his death, his widow, if he left but one, went by right to his brother; if more than one, they went to his brothers in order of seniority. If the wife ran away from her husband with another man, “all the neighbouring men might turn out and seek for her, and in the event of her being discovered, she became common property to them until released by her husband or her male relatives.” Further, the husband was obliged to supply his wife’s parents with the best of the food he killed; but on the other hand he was free to hunt over their country as well as the country of his own ancestors.[359.1]
In considering these particulars we must remember that the constitution of society among the Australian aborigines is in process of transformation. They had a system of group-marriage, whereby every tribe consisted of certain classes, all exogamous. Their table of prohibited affinities is highly complex, and need not be here discussed. It is enough to say that the members of each class were looked upon among themselves as brothers and sisters; but towards the class into which they could marry they were husbands and wives; and they were entitled to act accordingly whenever they met any members of the latter class. No sexual relations were permitted with any other class. The system has been in a state of decadence—greater in some tribes, like the Kurnai, less in others—from a time probably anterior to the English settlement. A custom had arisen, it matters not from what causes, of appropriating one woman, or more, to one man. This custom, if not interfered with, would have issued in the evolution of a different idea of kinship, and ultimately of the true family. In group-marriage the wives were not regarded as akin to the husbands. Marriage was the status into which husbands and wives alike were born. The union required no ceremonies to its consummation, because no relationships were changed by it. But with the rise of monopoly by individuals of one another, the unappropriated women would be kept at a greater distance from the men, and the act of appropriation would gradually assume a ceremonial form. The kindred would be called upon to take part in it, both as assistants and as witnesses. From Mr. Howitt’s account it seems likely that the evolution would be in the direction of patriarchal clans. If so, the woman would be introduced by marriage into a special relation with her husband’s kin. The exogamous classes would ultimately be effaced; a new idea of the clan would supersede them; and the act of marriage would at length operate as admission into the clan.
Now it is clear from Mr. Howitt’s statement that, by the marriage, rights were acquired on the part of the husband’s kin in the wife and on the part of the wife’s kin in the husband. The decaying system would doubtless at that stage operate to permit only members of the husband’s class to take part in the capture of a bride, or of a runaway wife; and they would as yet be all reckoned of his kin. The rights they then exercised would afterwards be held in abeyance; but, subject to the husband’s monopoly, those rights would survive, to reappear upon his death, if not upon any other occasion in his lifetime. The gradual circumscription of the kindred, by the recognition of closer ties than those of the exogamous class, is indicated by the duty laid upon the husband to supply his wife’s parents with food, as well as by the limitation to his brothers of the right to his widows. The peoples referred to by the classical writers I have cited were probably in the stage in which group-marriage had died, or was dying, out in favour of individual unions. The bride was hardly yet conceived of as taken into the kindred. The Nasamonian habits in particular, as recorded by Herodotus, appear little, if at all, advanced beyond those of the Kurnai. Both among the Nasamonians, however, and the Auziles it was the practice for each of the guests who had taken part in the rite to reward the bride with a gift, just as among European peoples the bride is rewarded for her dance or her kiss: an indication that her compliance was becoming something more than the guests could demand,—something they had, therefore, to purchase. This does not appear to have been the case with the Balearic Islanders: at least Diodorus Siculus, who mentions the custom, says nothing about any gift. A similar usage is reported by Garcilasso of some of the aborigines of Peru at the time of the Spanish conquest. Here we are expressly told what we may probably assume to have been the case among the Nasamonians, namely, that it was only the relatives and friends of the bridegroom who shared in the rite; and from the historian’s expressions we may infer that no payment was made.[362.1] Nor is it found in an account of the marriages of the Wa-taveta given by a lady who has recently travelled in Eastern Africa. In other respects the Wa-taveta would appear to be somewhat higher in the scale of civilisation than the Kurnai or the Baleares. The bridegroom’s friends are limited to four in number. The capture of the bride, in which they aid him, is a mere ceremony followed by a five days’ feast, during which they participate in the Nasamonian rite.[362.2] More remarkable than any of these, however, as attesting the rights of the bridegroom’s kindred, is a custom of the Eesa and Gadabursi, two of the western Somali tribes. When the bride enters the hut which is to be her new home, she is followed by the bridegroom and some of his nearest male relatives. He takes a leathern horsewhip and with it inflicts three severe blows upon his wife; and his example is followed by his companions, “who by this act obtain ever afterwards peculiar rights and power over the bride, which her husband dare not dispute.”[363.1]