Carlisle, June 3. 1850.
_May Marriages_ (Vol. i., p. 467.).--This superstition is one of those
which have descended to Christianity from Pagan observances, and which the
people have adopted without knowing the cause, or being able to assign a
reason. Carmelli tells us that it still prevailed in Italy in 1750.[2] It
was evidently of long standing in Ovid's time as it had passed then into a
proverb among the people; nearly two centuries afterwards Plutarch (_Quæst.
Rom._ 86.) puts the question: [Greek: Dia ti toi Maiou mênos ouk agontai
gunaikas], which he makes a vain endeavour to answer satisfactorily. He
assigns three reasons: _first_, because May being between April and June,
and April being consecrated to Venus, and June to Juno, those deities held
propitious to marriage were not to be slighted. The Greeks were not less
observant of fitting seasons and the propitiation of the [Greek: gamêlioi
theoi]. _Secondly_, on account of the great expiatory celebration of the
_Lemuria_, when women abstained from the bath and the careful cosmetic
decoration of their persons so necessary as a prelude to marriage rites.
_Thirdly_, as some say, because May was the month of old men, _Majus a
Majoribus_, and therefore June, being thought to be the month of the young,
_Junius a Junioribus_, was to be preferred. The Romans, however, held other
seasons and days unpropitious to matrimony, as the days in February when
the Parentalia were celebrated, &c. _June_ was the favourite month; but no
marriage was celebrated without an augury being first consulted and its
auspices proved favourable (_Val. Max._ lib. ii. c. 1.). It would be well
if some such superstitions observance among us could serve as a check to
ill-advised and ill-timed marriages; and I would certainly advise all
prudent females to continue to think that
"The girls are all stark naught that wed in May."