MARRIAGES
"He was a pompous, stiff-jointed man," said my friends, "an official
in a small town, who would go to the stake rather than break the
letter of the law. But when he came to Berlin to attend a niece's
marriage he thought he would have some fun. He arrived late on
_Polterabend_, and he brought with him an enormous earthenware crock.
Instead of ringing he hurled the crock against the outside door of the
flat, so that it smashed to atoms with a noise like thunder. The
inhabitants of that flat came forth like a swarm of bees, but they
were not laughing at the fun, because it was not their _Polterabend_."
He had broken crockery on the wrong floor.
In cities this ancient German custom of breaking crockery at the
bride's door on _Polterabend_ (the night before the wedding) has died
out, but it has not long been dead. I have talked with people who
remembered it in full force when they were young. I believe that the
idea was to appease the _Poltergeist_, who would otherwise vex and
disturb the young couple. My dictionary, the one that has 2412 pages,
says that a _Poltergeist_ is a "racketing spectre," probably what we
who are not dictionary makers would call a hobgoblin. In Brands'
_Antiquities_ I find reference to this old custom at the marriage of a
Duke of York in Germany, when great quantities of glass and china were
smashed at the palace doors the night before the wedding.
Polterabend is still celebrated by Germans, although they no longer
consider it polite to smash crockery. There is always a large
entertainment, sometimes at the bride's house, sometimes at the house
of a near relative; there are theatricals with personal allusions, or
recitations of home-made topical poetry, some good music, and the
inevitable evergreens woven into sentiments of encouragement and
congratulation. The bride's presents are set out much as they are in
England, and perhaps class for class more valuable presents are given
in Germany than in England. Electro-plate, for instance, was
considered impossible a few years ago. A wedding present, if it was
silver at all, must be real silver. But it is not so much the custom
as with us to give presents of money.
The civil marriage takes place either the day before or early on the
same day as the religious ceremony. The bride used to wear black silk,
and still wears a dark plain costume for this official function. Her
parents go with her and the necessary witnesses. The religious
ceremony often used to take place in the house, but that is no longer
customary. The anonymous author of _German Home Life_, a book
published and a good deal read in 1879, says that marriage is a
troublesome and expensive ceremony in Germany, and that this accounts
for the large number of illegitimate children. Mr. O. Eltzbacher, the
author of _Modern Germany_ published in 1905, confirms what was said
in 1877 as to the number of illegitimate children born in Germany and
Austria, for he says that in Germany itself they are 9 per cent.,
while in those districts of Austria where the Germans form about
nine-tenths of the population, from 20 per cent, to 40 per cent, of
the children are born out of wedlock. In France statistics give 9 per
cent., in Scotland 7.4 per cent., and in England and Wales 4.2 per
cent. Nevertheless in modern Germany children are not illegitimate
because their parents are too poor to pay their marriage fees. The
civil marriage is obligatory everywhere, and costs nothing. The
religious ceremony need cost nothing at all. In the porch of every
church in Prussia there is a notice stating on which days _Freie
Trauungen_ are conducted. Several couples are married at the same
time, but they have the full liturgy and the marriage sermon. A small
charge is made for the organist and for the decoration of the church.
A friend whose husband has a large poor parish in Berlin tells me that
the Social Democrats object to the religious ceremony, and will stand
guard outside the house on the day of the civil marriage, to make sure
that the newly made husband and wife do not leave together to go to
church. Sometimes an artisan will wait a fortnight after the civil
ceremony before he ventures to have the religious one. Every artisan
in Berlin has to belong to the _Sozialdemokratischer Verband_, because
if he did not his fellow-workmen would destroy his tools and ruin his
chances of work. Apparently they interfere with his private affairs as
well.
The marriage service is not to be found in the prayer-book Germans
take to church, but I have both read it and listened to it. The vows
made are much the same as here; but in Germany great importance is
attached to the homily or marriage sermon. This is often long and
heavy. I have heard the pastor preach to the young couple for nearly
half an hour about their duties, and especially about the wife's duty
of submission and obedience. His victims were kept standing before him
the whole time, and the poor little bride was shaking from head to
foot with nervousness and excitement. In some cities the carriage used
by a well-to-do bride and bridegroom is as big as a royal coach, and
upholstered with white satin, and on the wedding day decorated inside
and out with garlands of flowers. The bridegroom fetches his bride in
this coach, and enters the church with her. When a pretty popular girl
gets married all her admirers send flowers to the church to decorate
it. The bride and bridegroom exchange rings, for in Germany men as
well as women wear a plain gold wedding ring, and it is always worn on
the right hand. The bridegroom and all the male guests wear evening
dress and silk hats. The women wear evening clothes too, and no hats.
The bride wears the conventional white silk or satin and a white veil,
but her wreath must be partly of myrtle, for in Germany myrtle is the
bride's emblem.
After the wedding dinner the bride slips away unnoticed and changes
her gown, and is presently joined by the bridegroom, but not by any of
the guests. No rice and no old slippers are thrown in Germany, and no
crowd of friends assembles to see the young pair start. The bride bids
her parents farewell, and slips away with her husband unseen and
unattended. After the wedding dinner there is often dancing and music.
A hundred years ago wedding festivities lasted for many days after the
wedding, and the bride and bridegroom did not go till they were over.
When the celebrated and much married Caroline Schlegel married her
first husband, George Böhmer, in 1784, the ceremony took place at her
own home in Göttingen, where her father was a well-known professor.
"It would be unnatural if a young wife did not begin with an account
of her wedding day," she says in one of her letters. "Mine was
delightful enough. Böhmer breakfasted with me, and the morning hours
passed gaily, and yet with quietness. There was no trepidation--only
an intercourse of souls. My brother came. We were together till four,
and when he left us he gave us his blessing with tears.... Lotte and
Friederike wove the bridal wreath.... Then I had a talk with my father
and dressed myself.... Meanwhile those dear Meiners sent me a note,
with which were some garters they had embroidered themselves. Several
of my friends wrote to me, and last of all I got a silhouette, painted
on glass, of Lotte and Friederike weaving my bridal wreath. When I was
dressed I was a pretty bride. The room was charmingly decorated by my
mother. Soon after four o'clock Böhmer arrived, and the guests,
thirty-eight in number. Thank Heaven, there were no old uncles and
aunts, so the company was of a more bearable type than is usual on
such occasions. I stood there surrounded by my girl friends, and my
most vivid thought was of what my condition would be if I did not love
the man before me. My father, who was still far from well, led me to
the clergyman, and I saw myself for life at Böhmer's side and yet did
not tremble. During the ceremony I did not cry. But after it was over
and Böhmer took me in his arms with every expression of the deepest
love, while parents, brothers, sisters, and friends greeted me with
kind wishes as never a bride was greeted before, my brother being
quite overwhelmed--then my heart melted and overflowed out of sheer
happiness."
A week later Caroline and her husband are still at Göttingen, and
still celebrating their marriage. At one house, under pretence of the
heat, the bride was led into the garden, and beheld there an
illuminated motto: "Happy the man who has a virtuous wife: his life
will be doubly long." Another friend arrayed her son as Hymen, and
taught him to strew flowers in Caroline's path, leading her thus to an
arbour where there was a throne of moss and flowers, with high steps
ascending to it, a canopy and a triumphal arch. Concealed behind a
bush were musicians, who sang an appropriate song, while the bride and
bridegroom mounted the throne and sank in each other's arms before a
crowd of sympathising and tearful spectators.
This took place more than a hundred and twenty years ago, but I have
in my possession what I can only describe as the "literature" of a
marriage celebrated three years ago between a North and a South
German, both belonging to commercial families of old standing; and it
supplies me, if I needed it, with documentary evidence that Germans
enjoy now what they enjoyed then. The marriage took place in winter
and from a flat, so that the bride's friends could not build grottoes
or hide musicians behind a bush; but for weeks before both sides of
the family must have been busy composing the poems sung at the wedding
feast, the music that accompanied them, and the elaborate humorous
verses containing allusions to the past history of the bride and
bridegroom. To begin with, there is a dainty book of picture
postcards, the first one giving portraits of a very handsome and
dignified bridegroom with his dainty bride. Then there is a view of
Dresden where the bridegroom was born, another of the Rhenish town in
which he found his bride, and one of Berlin where she used to stay
with a married sister and deal "baskets" right and left to would-be
admirers. In Germany, when a girl refuses a man she is said to give
him a "basket," and a favourite old figure in the cotillon used to put
one in a girl's hands and then present two men to her. She danced with
the one she liked best, and the rejected man had to dance round after
them with the basket.
Besides the book of postcards, each guest at this wedding was
presented with printed copies of the _Tafel-Lieder_ composed by
members of the family. One of these has eight verses and each verse
has eight lines. It relates little events in the life of the
bridegroom from babyhood onwards. You learn that he was a clever
child, that he lived at home with his mother instead of going abroad
to learn his work, that when he was young he ardently desired to go on
the stage, that he is a fine gymnast and musician, but that he needs a
wife because he is a dreamy person capable of putting on odd boots.
Another _Tafel-Lied_ describes the courtship step by step, and even
the assistance given by the poet's wife to bring the romance to its
present happy conclusion.
"At last Frau Sophie stirred in the affair,
Her eyes had pierced to his heart's desire,
With fine diplomacy she coaxed Miss Clare
To own her maiden heart was set on fire.
On all the words and sighs there follow deeds:
He comes, he woos her, and at last succeeds."
The songs are not all sentiment. They are jocular, and contain puns
and play upon names. Three out of the five end with an invitation to
everyone to raise their glasses with a _Hoch_ to the married pair.
This is done over and over again at German weddings, and as all the
guests want to clink glasses with the bride and bridegroom, there is a
good deal of movement as well as noise. Besides the _Tafel-Lieder_,
each of which made a separate booklet with its own dedication and
illustration, every guest received an elaborate book of samples:
samples of the various straws used that summer for ladies' hats. The
bridegroom's family had manufactured hats for many generations; they
were wealthy, highly considered people, and extremely proud of their
position in their own industry. I am sure that when an Englishman in
the same trade and of the same standing gets married, the last thing
that would be mentioned at his wedding would be hats. It would be
considered in the highest degree indecorous. But the German is still
guileless enough to be satisfied with his station in life when it is
sufficiently honourable and prosperous, and for this wedding two
little nieces had prepared this card of samples and composed a rhyme
for each different colour--
"Wie ist doch der Onkel hoch beglückt
Das Tantchen heute der 'Brautkranz' schmückt"
went with "myrtle green."
"Liebe Gäste, mit Genuss,
Wollet alle Euch erheben--
Hoch das Brautpaar--
Es soll leben!"
went with the "champagne" straw at the end; and one accompanying the
"silver" straw contained an allusion to the "silver" wedding
twenty-five years hence, when the bride's golden hair would be
silver-grey.
Here is the _menu_, mostly in French, to which all the _Tafel-Lieder_
were sung, and all the toasts drunk and congratulatory speeches made.
You will observe that it is none of your light cup, cake, and ice
entertainments that you have substituted for the solid old wedding
breakfast in this country.
HOCHZEITS-TAFEL.
Caviar-Schnitten
Potage Douglas
Saumon-S^{ce} Bernaise
Pommes Naturelles
Selle de Chevreuil à la Chipolata
Ris de Veau en demi Deuil
Poularde
Salade & Compote
Asperges en Branches S^{ce} Mousseline
Glace Napolitaine
Patisserie
Fruits & Dessert
Fromage
Scharzberger Mousseux
1900er Caseler
1896er St. Emilion
1890er Schloss Johannisberg
Moet et Chandon
White Star
And that no guest should depart hungry--
Kaltes Abendbrot
Bier
Germans celebrate both silver and golden weddings with as much
ceremony and rejoicing as the first wedding. The husband and wife
receive presents from all their friends, and entertain them according
to the best of their circumstances. Children will travel across the
world and bring grandchildren with them to one of these anniversaries,
and they are of course a great occasion for the topical poetry,
theatricals, and tableaux that Germans enjoy. If the grandmother by
good luck has saved a gown she wore as a girl, and the grandchild can
put it on and act some little episode from the old lady's youth,
everyone will applaud and enjoy and be stirred to smiles and tears.
There is as much feasting as at a youthful wedding, and perhaps more
elaborate performances. Silver-grey is considered the proper thing for
the silver bride to wear.
It seems like a want of sentiment to speak of divorce in the same
breath with weddings; but as a matter of fact, divorce is commoner in
Germany than in England, and more easily obtained. Imprisonment for
felony is sufficient reason, and unfaithfulness without cruelty,
insanity that has lasted three years, desertion, ill treatment or any
attempt on the other's life. You hear divorce spoken of lightly by
people whose counterparts in England would be shocked by it; people, I
mean, of blameless sequestered lives and rigid moral views. Some
saintly ladies, who I am sure have never harboured a light thought or
spent a frivolous hour, told me of a cousin who played whist every
evening with her present husband and his predecessor. My friends
seemed to think the situation amusing, but not in any way to be
condemned. At the same time, I have heard Germans quote the
saying--"_Geschiedene Leute scheiden fort und fort_," and object
strongly to associate with anyone, however innocent, who had been
connected with a matrimonial scandal.
A woman remains in possession of her own money after marriage even
without marriage settlements; but the husband has certain rights of
use and investment. Her clothes, jewels, and tools are her own, and
the wages she earns by her own work. A man's creditors cannot seize
either these or her fortune to pay his debts. Both in Germany and
England the wife must live in the house and place chosen by the
husband, but in Germany she need not follow him to _unwirtlichen_
countries against her will. He can insist on her doing the housework
and helping him in his business when he has no means to pay
substitutes; but she can insist on being maintained in a style proper
to their station in life. He is responsible for her business debts if
he has consented to her undertakings; but he can forbid her to carry
on a business if he prefers that she should be supported by him and
give her time and strength to the administration of their home. When
they are legally separated he must make her an allowance, but it need
only be enough for the bare necessaries of life if the separation is
due to her misconduct. The father and mother have joint control of the
children, but during the father's lifetime his rule is paramount. When
he is dead or incapacitated parental authority remains in the mother's
hands. It is her right and duty to care for the child's person, to
decide where it shall live, and to superintend its education. She can
claim it legally from people who desire to keep it from her. A child
born in wedlock is legitimate unless the husband can prove otherwise,
and he must establish proof within a year of the birth coming to his
knowledge. But a woman is not allowed to prove that a child born in
wedlock is illegitimate.
If a man dies intestate and leaves children or grandchildren, his
widow inherits a fourth of his property; if he only has more distant
relatives, half; if he has none, the whole. A man cannot cut his wife
off with a shilling. He must leave her at least half of what would
come to her if he died intestate. All the laws relating to husband and
wife are to be found in the _Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch_, which can be
bought for a mark. As far as the non-legal intelligence can grasp
them, they seem according to our times to be just to women, except
when they give the use of her income to the husband. This is a big
exception, however. I remember hearing a German say that his sister's
quarterly allowance, which happened to be a large one, was always sent
to her husband, as it was right and proper that important sums of
money should be in the man's hands and under his control. This
undoubtedly is the general German view. After the moonshine, the
nightingales, the feasting, the toasts, and the family poetry come the
realities of life: and the realities in German make the man the
predominant partner.