or usages relating to marriage are not only among the oldest, but
have become too firmly intrenched in the popular mind to be easily
dislodged. Thus, the ceremony of Throwing the Shoe continues to hold
an honored place among marriage customs. In another place, it has been
referred to as sometimes employed in the common concerns of life. But
in the case of marriage, a somewhat deeper significance is attached to
it. It is but fair to say, however, that authorities differ widely as
to its origin, some referring it to the testimony of the Scriptures
(Deut. xxv.), where the loosing of a shoe from a man’s foot by the
woman he has refused to marry, is made an act of solemn renunciation
in the presence of the elders. Thereafter, the obdurate one was to be
held up to the public scorn, and his house pointed at as “the house of
him that hath his shoe loosed.” So again we read in Ruth of a man who
plucked off his shoe, and gave it to his kinsman, as an evidence to
the act of renunciation, touching the redeeming of land, and this, we
are there told, was then the manner in Israel. Hence, it has been very
plausibly suggested, especially by Mr. Thrupp, in “Notes and Queries,”
that throwing an old shoe after a bride was at first a symbol of
renunciation of authority over her, by her father or guardian. However
that may be, it is certain that no marriage ceremony is considered
complete to-day without it, although there is danger of its being
brought into ridicule, and so into disrepute, by such nonsensical acts
as tying on old shoes to the bride’s trunks, or to some part of her
carriage, as I have seen done here in New England, the original design
of the custom being lost sight of in the too evident purpose to make
the wedded pair as conspicuous as possible, and their start on life’s
journey an occasion for the outbreak of ill-timed buffoonery.
In “Primitive Marriage” Mr. McLennan thinks that throwing the shoe may
be a relic of the ancient custom, still kept up among certain Hindu
tribes, where the bride, either in fact or in appearance only, is
forcibly carried off by the groom and his friends, who are, in turn,
themselves hotly pursued and in good earnest pelted with all manner of
missiles, stones included, by the bride’s kinsfolk and tribesmen. This
sham assault usually ends in the pursuers giving up the chase,--as,
indeed, was intended beforehand,--and is probably a survival of the
earliest of marriage customs, namely, that of stealing the bride,
as recorded in ancient history. But this explanation is chiefly
interesting as fixing the _status_ of woman in those primitive days,
when she was more like the slave of man than his equal. That relation
is now so far reversed, however, that it is now the man who has become
the humble suitor and declared servitor of womankind. So, at least, he
insists. Now and then, though quite rarely, the old barbaric custom is
recalled by the forcible abduction of some unwilling victim by her
rejected lover; but only in a few instances, so far as we know, has
a bride been kidnapped and held to ransom, in this country, before
being restored to her friends. The American Indians are known to have
practised this custom of stealing the bride, quite after the manner
described by Mr. McLennan as in vogue among the Hindus.
Even royalty itself must bow to the behests of old custom, as well as
common mortals. When the Duke and Duchess of Albany left Windsor, while
they were still within the private grounds, the bridegroom’s three
brothers and Princess Louise and Princess Beatrice ran across a part of
the lawn enclosed within a bend of the drive, each armed with a number
of old shoes, with which they pelted the “happy pair.” The Duke of
Albany returned the fire from the carriage with the ammunition supplied
him by his friendly assailants, causing the heartiest laughter by a
well-directed shot at the Duke of Edinburgh.
It was always reckoned a good omen if the sun shone on a couple when
coming out of church. Hence the saying: “Happy is the bride that the
sun shines on.”
Every one knows, if not from experience, at least by observation, what
self-consciousness dwells in a newly married pair--what pains they
take to appear like old married folk, and what awkward attempts they
make to assume the _dégagé_ air of ordinary travellers. As touching
this feature of the subject, I one day saw a carriage driven past me,
at which every one stopped to look, and stare in a way to attract
general attention, and after looking, gave a broad grin. The reason
was apparent. On the back of the carriage was hung a large placard,
labelled “Just Married.” Several old shoes, besides some long streamers
of cheap cotton cloth, were dangling from the trunks behind. When the
carriage, thus decorated, drew up at the station, followed by a hooting
crowd of street urchins, it was greeted with roars of laughter by the
throng of idlers in waiting, while the unconscious cause of it all
first learned on alighting what a sensation they had so unwittingly
created.
The custom of throwing rice over a bride, as an emblem of fruitfulness,
also is very old, though in England it was originally wheat that was
cast upon her head. The poet Herrick says to the bride,
“While some repeat
Your praise and bless you sprinkling you with wheat.”
All the sentiment of this pretty and very significant custom is in
danger of being killed by excess on the part of the performers, who so
often overdo the matter as to render themselves supremely ridiculous,
and the bride very uncomfortable, to say the least. To scatter rice, as
if one were sowing it by the acre, when a handful would amply fulfil
all the requirements of the custom, is something as if an officiating
clergyman should pour a pailful of water on an infant’s head, instead
of sprinkling it, at a baptism.
It is not surprising that now and then cases arise where a newly
married couple try to escape from the shower prepared for them by
giving these over-zealous assistants the slip. A chase then begins
corresponding somewhat to that just related of ignorant barbarians; and
woe to the runaways if the pursuers should catch up with them!
The custom of furnishing bride-cake at a wedding is said to be a token
of the firm union between man and wife, just as from immemorial time
breaking bread has been held to have a symbolic meaning. The custom is
centuries old. At first it was only a cake of wheat or barley. What it
is composed of now, no man can undertake to say. That it is conducive
to dreaming, or more probably to nightmare, few, we think, will care to
dispute.
We learn that it was a former custom to cut the bride-cake into little
squares or dice, small enough to be passed through the wedding-ring.
A slice drawn through the ring thrice (some have it nine times), and
afterward put under the pillow, will make an unmarried man or woman
dream of his or her future wife or husband. This is another of those
old customs of which trial is so often made “just for the fun of the
thing, you know!”
The _Charivari_, or mock serenade, is another custom still much
affected in many places, notably so in our rural districts, though to
our own mind “more honored in the breach than in the observance.” The
averred object is to make “night hideous,” and is usually completely
successful. In the wee sma’ hours, while sleeping peacefully in their
beds, the newly wedded pair are suddenly awakened by a most infernal
din under their windows, caused by the blowing of tin horns, the
thumping of tin pans, ringing of cowbells, and like instruments of
torture. To get rid of his tormentors the bridegroom is expected to
hold an impromptu reception, or, in other words, “to treat the crowd,”
which is more often the real object of this silly affair, to which we
fail to discover one redeeming feature.
The custom of wearing the wedding ring upon the left hand originated,
so we are told, in the common belief that the left hand lay nearest to
the heart.
As is well known, the Puritans tried to abolish the use of the ring in
marriage. According to Butler in “Hudibras”:--
“Others were for abolishing
That tool of matrimony--a ring
With which the unsatisfied bridegroom
Is married only to a thumb.”
The times have indeed changed since in the early days of New England
no Puritan maiden would have been married with a ring for worlds.
When Edward Winslow was cited before the Lord’s Commissioners of
Plantations, upon the complaint of Thomas Morton, he was asked among
other things about the marriage customs practised in the colony. He
answered frankly that the ceremony was performed by magistrates.
Morton, his accuser, declares that the people of New England held the
use of a ring in marriage to be “a relic of popery, a diabolical circle
for the Devell to daunce in.”
The first marriage in Plymouth Colony, that of the same Edward Winslow
to Susannah White, was performed by a magistrate, as being a civil
rather than a religious contract. From this time to 1680, marriages
were solemnized by a magistrate, or by persons specially appointed for
that purpose, who were restricted to particular towns or districts.
Governor Hutchinson, in his history of Massachusetts, says he believes
“there was no instance of marriage by a clergyman during their first
charter.” If a minister happened to be present, he was desired to
pray. It is difficult to assign the reason why clergymen were excluded
from performing this ceremony. In new settlements, it must have been
solemnized by persons not always the most proper for that purpose,
considering of what importance it is to society, that a sense of this
ordinance, at least in some degree sacred, should be maintained and
preserved.
The first marriage solemnized at Guilford, Connecticut, took place
in the minister’s house. It is not learned whether he performed the
ceremony or not. The marriage feast consisted wholly of pork and beans.
As time wore on, marriages became occasions of much more ceremony than
they were fifty or sixty years ago. During the Revolutionary period,
and even later, the bride was visited daily for four successive weeks.
A gold wedding-ring is accounted a sure cure for sties.
If the youngest daughter of the family should be married before
her older sisters, they must all dance at her wedding in their
stockings-feet, if they wish to have husbands.
It is strongly enjoined upon a bride, when being dressed for the
marriage ceremony, to wear,--
“Something old and something new,
Something borrowed and something blue,
And a four-leaved clover in her shoe.”
June is now at the height of popularity as the month of all months to
get married in, for no other reason that I can discover, than that it
is the month of roses, when beauty and plenty pervade the fair face of
nature.
It is now the custom for the bride, if she is married at home, or on
returning there from church, to throw away her bouquet for the guests
to scramble for. The one getting the most flowers will be married
first, and so on.
Giving wedding presents was not practised before the present
(nineteenth) century.
One old marriage custom, though long since obsolete, may be
briefly alluded to here, not only for its singularity, but for its
suggestiveness touching a state of mind that would admit of such
tomfoolery. This was the so-called Smock-marriage, in which the bride
went through the ceremony standing only in her shift, thereby declaring
herself to be possessed of no more than she came into the world with.
On being duly recorded, the act exempted the husband from liability
for his wife’s debts previously contracted. If she went through this
ridiculous performance in the presence of witnesses, and in the “King’s
Highway,” that is to say, the lawfully laid out public road, she
thereby cleared herself from any old indebtedness. As amazing as it may
seem, several such cases are recorded in New England, the formalities
observed differing somewhat in different localities.
It is considered unlucky to get married before breakfast.
“If you marry in Lent,
You will live to repent.”
May is considered an unlucky month to be married in.
“Marry in May,
And you’ll rue the day.”
To remove an engagement or wedding ring from the finger is also a bad
omen.[17] To lose either of them, or to have them broken on the finger,
also denotes misfortune.
It is extremely unlucky for either the bride or groom to meet a
funeral when on their way to be married.
It is an unlucky omen for the church clock to strike during the
performance of a marriage ceremony, as it is said to portend the death
of one of the contracting parties before the year is out.
[Illustration]
IX
OF EVIL OMENS
“A woman’s story at a winter’s fire.”--_Macbeth._
We come now to those things considered as distinctly unlucky, and to be
avoided accordingly. How common is the peevish exclamation of “That’s
just my luck!” Spilling the salt, picking up a pin with the point
toward you, crossing a knife and fork, or giving any one a knife or
other sharp instrument, are all deemed of sinister import now, as of
old.
One must not kill a toad, which, though
“ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in its head,”
or a grasshopper, possibly by reason of the veneration in which this
voracious little insect was held by the Athenians, whose favorite
symbol it was, although it is now outlawed, and a price set upon its
head as a pest, to be ruthlessly exterminated, by some of the Western
states. So, too, with the warning not to kill a spider, against which,
nevertheless, the housemaid’s broom wages relentless war. If, on the
contrary, you do not kill the first snake seen in the spring, bad
luck will follow you all the year round. Be it ever so badly bruised,
however, the belief holds fast in the country that the reptile will not
die until sunset, or with the expiring day,
“That like a wounded snake drags its slow length along.”
The peacock’s feathers were supposed to be unlucky, from an old
tradition associating its gaudy colors with certain capital sins,
which these colors were held to symbolize. Nevertheless, this tall
and haughty feather has been much the fashion of late years as an
effective mantel ornament, showing how reckless some people can be
regarding the prophecy of evil.
Getting married before breakfast is considered unlucky. It would be
quite as logical to say this of any other time of the day; hence
unlucky to get married at all, though it is not believed all married
people will cordially subscribe to this heresy.
May is an unlucky month to be married in. So, also
“If you marry in Lent
You will live to repent.”
Old Burton says, “Marriage and hanging go by destiny; matches are made
in heaven.”
Getting out of bed on the wrong side bodes ill luck for the rest of the
day. A common remark to a person showing ill-humor is, “I guess you got
out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.” It has in fact become a
proverb.
To begin dressing yourself by putting the stocking on the left foot
first would be trifling with fortune. I know a man who would not do
so on any account. It is also unlucky to put a right foot into a
left-hand shoe, or _vice versa_. These are necessary corollaries of the
“right-foot-foremost” superstition.
According to that merry gentleman, Samuel Butler:--
“Augustus having b’oversight
Put on his left shoe for his right,
Had like to have been slain that day,
By soldiers mutining for their pay.”
Cutting the finger nails on the Sabbath is a bad omen. There is a set
of rhymed rules for the doing of even this trifling act. Apparently,
the Chinese know the omen, as they do not cut the nails at all.
Of the harmless dragon-fly or devil’s darning-needle, country girls say
that if one flies in your face it will sew up your eyes.
In some localities I have heard it said that if two persons walking
together should be parted by a post, a tree, or a person, in their
path, something unlucky will surely result--
“Unless they straightway mutter,
‘Bread and butter, bread and butter.’”
Low, the pirate, would not let his crew work on the Sabbath, not so
much, we suppose, from conscientious scruples, as for fear it would
bring him bad luck. The rest of the Decalogue did not seem to bother
him in the least.
After having once started on an errand or a journey, it is unlucky
to go back, even if you have forgotten something of importance.
All persons afflicted with frequent lapses of memory should govern
themselves accordingly. This belief seems clearly grounded upon the
dreadful fate of Lot’s wife.
It was always held unlucky to break a piece of crockery, as a second
and a third piece shortly will be broken also. This is closely
associated with the belief respecting the number three, elsewhere
referred to. In New England it is commonly said that if you should
break something on Monday, bad luck will follow you all the rest of the
week.
To stumble in going upstairs is also unlucky; perhaps to stumble at any
other time. Friar Lawrence says, in “Romeo and Juliet,”--
“They stumble that run fast.”
Two persons washing their hands in the same basin or in the same water
will quarrel unless the sign of the cross be made in the water.
It is considered unlucky to take off a ring that was the gift of a
deceased person, an engagement, or a marriage ring.
The term “hoodoo,” almost unknown in the Northern United States a few
years ago, has gradually worked its way into the vernacular, until
it is in almost everybody’s mouth. It is, perhaps, most lavishly
employed during the base-ball season, as everyone knows who reads
the newspapers, to describe something that has cast a spell upon the
players, so bringing about defeat. The term is then “hoodooing.” The
hoodoo may be anything particularly ugly or repulsive seen on the way
to the game--a deformed old woman, a one-legged man, a lame horse,
or a blind beggar, for instance. Most players are said to give full
credit to the power of the hoodoo to bewitch them. Indeed, the term has
been quite widely taken up as the synonym for bad luck, or, rather,
the cause of it, even by the business world. If this is not, to all
intents, a belief in witchcraft, it certainly comes very close to what
passed for witchcraft two hundred years ago.
This vagrant and ill-favored word “hoodoo” is, again, a corruption of
the voudoo of the ignorant blacks of the South, with whom, in fact, it
stands, as some say, for witchcraft, pure and simple, or, perhaps, the
Black Art, as practised in Africa; while others pronounce it to be a
religious rite only. More than this, the voudoo also is a mystic order,
into whose unholy mysteries the neophyte is inducted with much barbaric
ceremony. In the case of a white woman so initiated in Louisiana,
this consisted in the elect chanting a weird incantation, while the
novitiate, clad only in her shift, danced within a charmed circle
formed of beef bones and skeletons, toads’ feet and spiders, with
camphor and kerosene oil sprinkled about it. All those present join in
the dance to the accompaniment of tom-toms and other rude instruments,
until physical exhaustion compels the dancers to stop.
In its main features we find a certain resemblance between the voudoo
dance of the ignorant blacks and the ghost dance practised by some of
the wild Indians of the West, and by means of which they are wrought up
to the highest pitch of frenzy, so preparing the way for an outbreak,
such as occurred a few years ago with most lamentable results.
While the sporting fraternity is notoriously addicted to the hoodoo
superstition, yet it is by no means confined to them alone. Not long
ago a statement went the rounds of the newspapers to the effect that
the superstitious wife of a certain well-known millionnaire had refused
to go on board of their palatial yacht because one of the crew had
been fatally injured by falling down a hatchway. In plain English, the
accident had hoodooed the ship.
But the power of the hoodoo would seem not to be limited to human
beings, according to this statement, taken from the columns of a
reputable newspaper: “A meadow at Biddeford, Maine, is known as the
hoodoo lawn, for the reason that rain follows every time it is mowed,
before the grass can be cured. It is said that this has occurred for
twenty-five consecutive years.”
To break the spell of the hoodoo, it is as essential to have a mascot,
over which the malign influence can have no power, as to have an
antidote against poisons. Therefore most ball-players carry a mascot
with them. Sometimes it is a goat, or a dog, or again a black sheep,
that is gravely led thrice around the field before the play begins.
It is not learned whether or not the different kinds of mascot have
ever been pitted against each other. Perhaps the effect would be
not unlike that described by Cicero in his treatise on divination.
He says there that Cato one day met a friend who seemed in a very
troubled frame of mind. On being asked what was the matter, the friend
replied: “Oh! my friend, I fear everything. This morning when I
awoke, I saw, shall I say it? a mouse gnawing my shoe.” “Well,” said
Cato, reassuringly, “calm yourself. The prodigy really would become
frightful if the shoe had been gnawing the mouse.”
Naval ships often carry a goat, or some other animal, as a mascot, in
deference to Jack’s well-known belief in its peculiar efficacy; and in
naval parades the goat usually gravely marches in the procession, and
comes in for his share of the applause. Simple-minded Jack christens
his favorite gun after some favorite prize-fighter. And why not? since
the great Nelson, himself, carried a horseshoe nailed to his mast-head,
and since even some of our college foot-ball teams bring their mascots
upon the field just like other folk.
The war with Spain could hardly fail of bringing to light some
notable examples of the superstitions of sailors concerning mascots.
The destruction of Admiral Cervera’s fleet, off Santiago de Cuba,
by the American fleet, under command of Admiral Sampson, is freshly
remembered. One of the destroyed Spanish ships was named the _Colon_.
Twenty-six days after the battle, the tug-boat _Right Arm_ of the
Merritt-Chapman Wrecking Company visited the _Colon_, for the purpose
of raising the Spanish cruiser. The only living thing aboard was a
black and white cat. For nearly a month it had been the sole crew and
commander of the wrecked battle-ship.
The crew of the _Right Arm_ took possession of the cat, adopted it as a
mascot and named it Tomas Cervera. But Cervera brought ill luck. When
Lieutenant Hobson raised the _Maria Teresa_ the rescued cat was placed
aboard her, to be brought to America.
The _Maria Teresa_ never reached these shores, and when the vessel
grounded off the Bahamas the cat fell into the hands of the natives. He
was rescued the second time, and at last reached America, a passenger
on the United States repair ship _Vulcan_.
It will be admitted that this cat did not belie that article of the
popular belief, which ascribes nine lives to his tribe. But poor Tomas
Cervera did not long survive the various hardships and perils to which
he had been subjected. He gave up the ghost shortly after all these
were happily ended.
Speaking of ships and sailors, it is well known to all seafaring folk
that the reputation of a ship for being lucky, or unlucky, is all
important. And this reputation may begin at the very moment when she
leaves the stocks. Should she, unfortunately, stick on the ways, in
launching, a bad name is pretty sure to follow her during the remainder
of her career, and to be an important factor in her ability to ship a
crew. Even the practice of christening a ship with a bottle of wine is
neither more nor less than a survival of pagan superstition by which
the favor of the gods was invoked.
The superstition regarding thirteen persons at the table also boasts a
remarkable vitality. Just when or how it originated is uncertain. It
has been surmised, however, that the Paschal Supper was the beginning
of this notion, for there were thirteen persons present then, and
what followed is not likely to be forgotten. It has, perhaps, been
the subject of greater ridicule than any other popular delusion,
probably from the fact of its touching convivial man in his most tender
part,--to wit, the stomach. In London some of the literary and other
lights even went to the trouble of forming a Thirteen Club for the
avowed purpose of breaking down the senseless notion that if thirteen
persons were to sit down to dinner together, one of them would die
within a twelvemonth. The motto of this club should have been, “All men
must die, therefore all men should dine.” If the club’s proceedings
showed no lack of invention and mother wit, we still should very much
doubt their efficacy toward achieving the avowed end and aim of the
club’s existence, for surely such extravagances could have no other
effect than to raise a laugh. We reproduce an account of the affair for
the reader’s amusement:--