CHAPTER XII
WEDDINGS AND SOCIAL HALLS
When we came to Henry Street, the appearance of a carriage before the door caused some commotion, and members of the settlement returning to the house would be met by excited little girls who announced, “You’s got a wedding by you. There’s a carriage there.” It was taken for granted in those days that nothing short of a wedding would justify such magnificence.
In one way or another we were continually reminded of the paramount importance of the wedding in the life of the neighborhood. “What!” said a shocked father to whom I expressed my occidental revolt against insistence upon his daughter’s marriage to a man who was brought by the professional matchmaker and was a stranger to the girl; “let a girl of seventeen, with no judgment whatsoever, decide on anything so important as a husband?” But as youth asserts itself under the new conditions, the Schadchen, or marriage-broker, no longer occupies an important position.
When we first visited families in the tenements, we might have been misled as to the decline in the family fortunes if we judged their previous estate by the photographs hung high on the walls of the poor homes, of bride and groom, splendidly arrayed for the wedding ceremony. But we learned that the costumes had been rented and the photographs taken, partly that the couple might keep a reminder of the splendor of that brief hour, and also that relations on the other side of the water might be impressed with their prosperity.
Since those days the neighborhood has become more sophisticated, and brides are more likely to make their own wedding gowns, often exhibiting good taste as well as skill; though the shop windows in the foreign quarters still display waxen figures of modishly attired bride and groom, with alluring announcements of the low rates at which the garments may be hired.
We were invited to many weddings, and often pitied the little bride who, having fasted all day as required by orthodox custom, went wearily through the intricate ceremony, reminiscent of tribal days. One bride to whom we offered our congratulations accepted them without enthusiasm, and added, “’Tain’t no such easy thing to get married.”
The younger generation, born in America, whose loyalty and affection for their elders is unimpaired by the changed conditions, but for whom the old symbols and customs have no longer a religious meaning, often submit to the orthodox wedding ceremony out of deference to the wishes of the parents and grandparents.
