At the ball the singing is done alternately by some of the guests. The favorite song in the cities is that of the class called arie—in the country, canzoni. The three songs above cited are those which are heard on such occasions.
Song, dance and music alternate, and are prolonged for hours, until the guests are tired out and prepare to leave the bride and groom, who are already sleepy.
Let the reader accompany the pair to their abode. The door is open, the room lighted, the bed prepared: some sighs and laments are heard among the bystanders. It is the mother, the married sisters (young girls do not accompany to her home the sister who marries), who are grieved at seeing their sister leave her home and become another's, uncertain of the lot that will be hers in the future. An old custom requires the bride to be undressed and put to bed by her mother-in-law. In lack of the mother-in-law the right belongs to the oldest sister-in-law. Woe to whoever dares to transgress this custom! Grave quarrels would arise, and even worse. I have myself been present when a family having wished to do as they pleased and not adhere to custom, blows and wounds followed, and the bride and groom were obliged to spend the night in jail.
The first visits paid to the newly-married pair are by their mothers, who hasten to congratulate them. These are followed later by friends, who go to make the bon lirata.
The bride remains at home a week to receive the visits of relatives, friends and acquaintances who either did or did not share in the wedding-festivities. After this time she leaves the house solemnly for the first time to go and hear mass, high mass being ordinarily preferred. The white dress which in some localities constitutes the wedding-dress, in others is the one worn on the first occasion of leaving the house and in returning the visits of the guests.
The last act of this drama or comedy of life is a journey on which the husband must take his wife within a year after their marriage. In the marriage-contract, written or verbal, there is a clause by which the husband assumes the obligation of taking his wife within the year to such and such a festival of some town more or less remote—the farther away the more important to the contracting parties and their relatives. Where no contract is made the custom is enough, the "word"—which, as the proverb says, "is more than the contract"—is sufficient. In Piana dei Greci, an Albanian colony of Sicily, the husband obliges himself to take his wife a journey in honor of St. Rosalia on the 4th of September to the sanctuary of Monte Pellegrino in Palermo. In many of the villages of the Conca d'oro ("the golden shell," the plain of Palermo) the husband binds himself to take his wife to the festino of St. Rosalia in Palermo, the 13th-15th of July; and this is an obligation that involves much expense, because the statue of Charles V. in the Piazza Bologni (Palermo) says, according to the people, "Palermu un saccu tantu!"[27] The husband of Noto was accustomed, and perhaps still is, to take his wife to the festival of St. Venera in Avola.
The wife of Monte Erice (province of Trapani) by a very old custom should be taken, the first time she leaves the house, on an excursion out of Erice—the longer the better for the reputation of her husband. The one who is worth anything will take her to the sanctuary of St. Vito lo Capo or to the festival of the Madonna of Trapani in the middle of August: the worthless husband will take her a short distance from Erice, as, for example, to the church of the Capuchins or to the neighborhood delle Ficàri. Here are four proverbs which refer to these marriage-journeys: "The beautiful bride the first time goes to the Annunciation;" "Who has a fine husband goes the first time to St. Vito;" "Who has a mean husband goes the first time to the Capuchins;" "Who has a worthless husband goes the first time to the Ficàri."
Not every season is propitious for weddings. From ancient times the months of May and August have been deemed unlucky, and no one would marry during these months, mindful of the proverb, "The bride of May will not enjoy her marriage;" and the other, "The bride of August, the torrent will carry her away." Instead of these months, February, the Carnival, April, June and September are preferred. This last month is recommended in another proverb: "In September tender marriages are made." Likewise two days of the week are avoided for weddings—Tuesday, and especially Friday—it being a common saying that on Friday and Tuesday one should not marry or set out on a journey. Friday is a fatal day, on which one would believe he ran a certain danger not only in marrying, but also in beginning any work. On the other hand, Sunday is a lucky day, on which marriages always turn out according to the wishes of the parties.
These are not all the superstitious beliefs relating to marriage, which extend so far as to ordain that if, for example, the bride or one of the company slips, or the ring falls in the house, or one of the candles on the altar takes fire or goes out, something unlucky is to be expected, as these are bad omens; that if two sisters are married the same evening, the younger must suffer; finally, that marriages between relatives always turn out badly.
In addition, it must not be believed that a marriage can be made, or is made, with any one without due regard being had to the relations and spirit of the family of the bride or groom. The intimate, unwritten history of Sicily and the Sicilians is full of facts that show how between natives of this town and that, of this ward and that, and between the partisans of different factions, marriages cannot, and ought not, and will not, be made. Municipal and country contentions kept many parts of Sicily in such enmity that they quarrelled even about the thing most sacred to Sicilians—religion. It was not enough that hatred grew up between the natives of two different but neighboring localities: it was often born and perpetuated "between those whom one wall and one fosse shut in," and assumed considerable proportions. Thus we see as far back as the fifteenth century the inhabitants of a certain "fifth" (Palermo was divided into five wards) so hostile to those of another ward that the intervention of the senate was necessary in order to obtain from King Alfonso (in 1448) supplementary laws to obviate the evil.[28] In like manner the members of different confraternities are often unfriendly. In Modica it is a rare thing for a man devoted to St. George to marry a woman devoted to St. Peter. An excellent young lady of Syracuse, devoted to St. Philip and engaged to a distinguished young man of the same city who was a member of the confraternity of the Holy Ghost, a few days before the wedding broke her engagement because on visiting her betrothed, who was ill, she found hanging above his head a picture of the Holy Ghost, which she tore down and broke to pieces in anger and scorn.