It seems to have been customary for the bride at her wedding to wear her hair unbraided and hanging loose over her shoulders. There may be an allusion to this custom in “King John” (iii. 1), where Constance says:
“O Lewis, stand fast! the devil tempts thee here
In likeness of a new untrimmed bride.”
At the celebration of her marriage with the Palatine, Elizabeth Stuart wore “her hair dishevelled and hanging down her shoulders.” Heywood speaks of this practice in the following graphic words:
“At length the blushing bride comes, with her hair
Dishevelled ’bout her shoulders.”
It has been suggested that the bride’s veil, which of late years has become one of the most conspicuous features of her costume, may be nothing more than a milliner’s substitute, which in old time concealed not a few of the bride’s personal attractions, and covered her face when she knelt at the altar. Mr. Jeaffreson[718] thinks it may be ascribed to the Hebrew ceremony; or has come from the East, where veils have been worn from time immemorial. Some, again, connect it with the yellow veil which was worn by the Roman brides. Strange, too, as it may appear, it is nevertheless certain that knives and daggers were formerly part of the customary accoutrements of brides. Thus, Shakespeare, in the old quarto, 1597, makes Juliet wear a knife at the friar’s cell, and when she is about to take the potion. This custom, however, is easily accounted for, when we consider that women anciently wore a knife suspended from their girdle. Many allusions to this practice occur in old writers.[719] In Dekker’s “Match Me in London,” 1631, a bride says to her jealous husband:
“See, at my girdle hang my wedding knives!
With those dispatch me.”
In the “Witch of Edmonton,” 1658, Somerton says:
“But see, the bridegroom and bride come; the new
Pair of Sheffield knives fitted both to one sheath.”
Among other wedding customs alluded to by Shakespeare we may mention one referred to in “Taming of the Shrew” (ii. 1), where Katharina, speaking of Bianca, says to her father:
“She is your treasure, she must have a husband:
I must dance bare-foot on her wedding-day,
And, for your love to her, lead apes in hell,”