Among the Germans at the present day the interchange of rings is practised at the publication of the banns among the Lutherans; the minister joins the hands of the couple, and rings are interchanged.
‘The Italians,’ observes Mr. Wood, ‘in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries used betrothing rings, which were generally made of silver, inlaid with niello. The bezel was either oval or circular, and the shoulders of the hoop were shaped so as to form sleeves, from each of which issued a right hand. The hands were clasped together in the Fede. Some of these rings were of a large size, and were worn by men. The diamond was long esteemed by the mediæval Italians as the favourite stone for setting in espousal rings, and it was called “pietra della reconciliazione,” from its supposed power to maintain concord between man and wife.’
It was also usual, at the periods mentioned, for the Italian ladies to give their lovers rings which contained their portraits. Lovers wore these rings on holidays, as was the practice in England, as we find in ‘England’s Helicon’ (1600):—
My songs they be of Cinthia’s prayse,
I weare her rings on holly-dayes.
When a noble Venetian married in the seventeenth century, a day was appointed for giving the bride a ring, and the ceremony was performed in her house, in the presence of relations and friends. The ring-giving was followed by the usual sacrament in church.
In modern Greece, two rings, one of gold and the other of silver, are interchanged at the betrothal, which takes place as follows:—The priest, remaining in the sacrarium, delivers to the persons to be betrothed, and who are standing without the sacred doors, lighted candles into the hands of each, and then returns with them into the body of the church. Here, after prayers have been said, two rings are brought out, of gold and silver respectively, which had previously been placed upon the altar to be dedicated and consecrated, and the priest gives the gold ring to the man, and the silver ring to the woman, repeating three times this form of words: ‘The servant of God, M., espouses the handmaid of God, N., in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, now and ever, and to endless ages, Amen.’
After a threefold repetition of the same words to the woman, the rings are put on the right-hand finger, and are taken off, and interchanged by the bridegroom’s man, both in order that the woman may not take too deeply to heart her inferiority, which the less costly material of the ring seems to hint at, as also to confirm the mutual right and possession of property, either present or future.
The ring ceremony in Russian marriages differs materially from that of English usage. In the first place, there are two rings, and these are changed three times. The man places the ring first on the woman’s finger, then the priest changes the man’s ring, and places it on her finger, and then again the priest and the man join and place the ring where it is to remain for life.
Have these three changes anything in connection with a peculiarity in Russian legends of the ever-predominating number ‘three’? Thus fathers are said usually to have three sons, the heroes and knights-errant ride through three times nine empires; the bravest are always thirty-three years old; they achieve their deeds only on the third attempt. Or, are the three changes emblematic of the Trinity?
At the Russian marriages of the Imperial family the rings are exchanged by a third person. At the wedding of the Duke of Edinburgh and the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna, daughter of the Emperor of Russia (January 23, 1874), the master of the ceremonies carried the marriage rings on plates of gold, and placed them on the altar. The confessor of the Emperor and Empress then received the rings from the Archipretres of the court, and, whilst a prayer was being said, placed them upon the fingers of the bride and bridegroom, when the Metropolitan began the office.