It was formerly customary in Ireland for the priest to conclude the marriage ceremony by saying, “kiss your wife.” Instructions more easily given than performed, for other members of the party did their utmost to give the first salute.
In England, a kiss was the established fee for a lady’s partner after the dance was finished. In a “Dialouge between Custom and Veirtie concerning the Use and Abuse of Dancing and Minstrelsie,” the following appears:
“But some reply, what foole would daunce,
If that when daunce is doone
He may not have at ladye’s lips
That which in daunce he woon?”
The following line occurs in the Tempest:
“Curtsied when you have and kissed.”
In Henry VIII., says the prince:
“I were unmannerly to take you out,
And not to kiss you.”
Numerous other references to kissing are contained in the plays of Shakespeare. From his works and other sources we find that kissing was general in the country in the olden time. It is related of Sir William Cavendish, the biographer of Cardinal Wolsey, that, when he visited a French nobleman at his chateau, his hostess, on entering the room with her train of attendant maidens, for the purpose of welcoming the visitor, thus accosted him:
“Forasmuch as ye be an Englishman, whose custom it is in your country to kiss all ladies and gentlemen without offence, it is not so in this realm, yet will I be so bold as to kiss you, and so shall all my maidens.”
It is further stated how Cavendish was delighted to salute the fair hostess and her many merry maidens.