“Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,
And swear I lost the ring defending it.”
In “Taming of the Shrew” Shakespeare gives numerous allusions to the customs of his day connected with courtship and marriage. Indeed, in the second act (sc. 2) we have a perfect betrothal scene:
“Petruchio. Give me thy hand, Kate: I will unto Venice,
To buy apparel ’gainst the wedding-day.—
Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests;
I will be sure my Katharine shall be fine.
Baptista. I know not what to say: but give me your hands;
God send you joy, Petruchio! ’tis a match.
Gremio. Tranio. Amen, say we; we will be witnesses.
Petruchio. Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu;
I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace.
We will have rings, and things, and fine array;
And, kiss me, Kate, we will be married o’ Sunday.”
Although Katharina is only his spouse, and Baptista not yet his father-in-law, Petruchio, in accordance with fashion, calls her “wife” and him “father.” The spouses of old times used to term one another “husband” and “wife,” for, as they argued, they were as good as husband and wife.
Formerly there was a kind of betrothal or marriage contract prevalent among the low orders called “hand-fasting,” or “hand-festing,” said to have been much in use among the Danes, and which is mentioned by Ray in his “Glossary of Northumbrian Words.” It simply means hand-fastening or binding. In “Cymbeline” (i. 5) the phrase is used in its secondary sense by the Queen, who, speaking of Pisanio, declares that he is
“A sly and constant knave,
Not to be shak’d; the agent for his master,
And the remembrancer of her, to hold
The hand-fast to her lord.”
In the “Christian State of Matrimony,” 1543, we find the following illustration of this custom: “Yet in this thing almost must I warn every reasonable and honest person to beware that in the contracting of marriage they dissemble not, nor set forth any lie. Every man, likewise, must esteem the person to whom he is ‘handfasted’ none otherwise than for his own spouse; though as yet it be not done in the church, nor in the street. After the handfasting and making of the contract, the church-going and wedding should not be deferred too long.” The author then goes on to rebuke a custom “that at the handfasting there is made a great feast and superfluous banquet.” Sir John Sinclair, in the “Statistical account of Scotland” (1794, vol. xii. p. 615), tells us that at a fair annually held at Eskdalemuir, Dumfriesshire, “it was the custom for the unmarried persons of both sexes to choose a companion according to their liking, with whom they were to live till that time next year. This was called ‘handfasting,’ or hand-in-fist. If they were pleased with each other at that time then they continued together for life; if not, they separated, and were free to make another choice as at the first.”