Marriage customs in various parts of the world, in ancient and modern times, illustrate this idea of the sacredness of the threshold as the family altar.

In portions of Syria, when a bride is brought to her husband’s home, a lamb or a kid is sacrificed on the threshold, and she must step across the outpoured blood.[[66]] This marks her adoption into that family.

Among the wide-spreading ʾAnazeh Bed´ween, the most prominent and extensive tribe of desert Arabs, whose range is from the Sinaitic Peninsula to the upper Desert of Syria, “when the marriage day is fixed, the bridegroom comes with a lamb in his arms to the tent of the father of his bride, and then, before witnesses, he cuts its throat. As soon as the blood falls upon the earth [and the earth is the only threshold of a tent], the marriage ceremony is regarded as complete.”[[67]] “In Egypt, the Copts sacrifice a sheep as the bride steps into the bridegroom’s house, and she is compelled to step over the blood which flows upon the threshold in the doorway.”[[68]] It is evident, moreover, that this custom is not confined to the Copts.[[69]]

Blood on the threshold, as an accompaniment of a marriage, is still counted important among Armenian Christians in Turkey. After the formal marriage ceremony at the church, the wedded pair, with their friends, proceed to the bridegroom’s home. “At the moment of their arrival a sheep is sacrificed on the threshold, over the blood of which the wedding party steps to enter the house.”[[70]]

In the island of Cyprus, a bridegroom is borne to the house of his bride on the wedding morning, in a living chair formed by the crossed hands of his neighbor friends. Dismounting at her door, “as he is about to pass in, a fowl is brought and held down by head and feet upon the threshold of the door; the bridegroom takes an axe, cuts off the head, and only then may he enter.”[[71]]

Like customs are found among yet more primitive peoples. Thus, for instance, with the western Somali tribes, in east Central Africa: “On reaching the bridegroom’s house a low-caste man sacrifices a goat or sheep on the threshold; and the bride steps over it;” and again when the bridegroom returns from his devotions at a neighboring masjid (a place of public prayer) to claim his bride, as he reaches his threshold, “another goat is sacrificed, and he steps over it in the same way as his bride.”[[72]] Again the bridegroom himself brings the bride from her father’s hut to his own, accompanied by young men and maidens dancing and singing. “On reaching the new hut, the bride holds a goat or sheep in the doorway, while the bridegroom cuts its throat in the orthodox manner with his jambia (long knife). The bride dips her finger in the blood, smears it on her forehead, ... and then enters the gúrí, stepping over the blood. The bridegroom follows her, also stepping over the blood, and is accompanied by some of his nearest male relatives.”[[73]]

There are traces of such customs, also, among the natives of South Africa,[[74]] and elsewhere.

Besides the bloody sacrifices at the threshold, in the marriage ceremony, there are, in different countries, various forms of making offerings at the threshold, and of surmounting obstacles at that point, as an accompaniment of the wedding covenant. All these point to the importance and sanctity of the threshold and doorway in the primitive mind.

A bride, in portions of Upper Syria, on reaching her husband’s house, is lifted up so that she can press against the door-lintel a piece of dough, prepared for the purpose, and handed to her at the time. This soft dough, thus pressed against the plastered or clay wall, adheres firmly, and is left there as long as it will remain. The open hand of the bride stamps the dough as it is fixed in place, and in some cases the finger points are pricked before the stamping, so that the blood will appear as a sign manual on the cake of dough.[[75]]

When a bride reaches the door of her husband’s house, among the fellaheen of Palestine, a jar of water is placed on her head. She must call on the name of God as she crosses the threshold; and, at the same moment, her husband strikes the jar from her head, and causes the water to flow as a libation.[[76]]