Marriage customs in various parts of the world, in ancient and modern
times, illustrate this idea of the sacredness of the threshold as the
family altar.
In portions of Syria, when a bride is brought to her husband’s home, a
lamb or a kid is sacrificed on the threshold, and she must step across
the outpoured blood.[66] This marks her adoption into that family.
Among the wide-spreading ʾAnazeh Bed´ween, the most prominent and
extensive tribe of desert Arabs, whose range is from the Sinaitic
Peninsula to the upper Desert of Syria, “when the marriage day is fixed,
the bridegroom comes with a lamb in his arms to the tent of the father
of his bride, and then, before witnesses, he cuts its throat. As soon as
the blood falls upon the earth [and the earth is the only threshold of a
tent], the marriage ceremony is regarded as complete.”[67] “In Egypt,
the Copts sacrifice a sheep as the bride steps into the bridegroom’s
house, and she is compelled to step over the blood which flows upon the
threshold in the doorway.”[68] It is evident, moreover, that this custom
is not confined to the Copts.[69]
Blood on the threshold, as an accompaniment of a marriage, is still
counted important among Armenian Christians in Turkey. After the formal
marriage ceremony at the church, the wedded pair, with their friends,
proceed to the bridegroom’s home. “At the moment of their arrival a
sheep is sacrificed on the threshold, over the blood of which the
wedding party steps to enter the house.”[70]
In the island of Cyprus, a bridegroom is borne to the house of his bride
on the wedding morning, in a living chair formed by the crossed hands of
his neighbor friends. Dismounting at her door, “as he is about to pass
in, a fowl is brought and held down by head and feet upon the threshold
of the door; the bridegroom takes an axe, cuts off the head, and only
then may he enter.”[71]
Like customs are found among yet more primitive peoples. Thus, for
instance, with the western Somali tribes, in east Central Africa: “On
reaching the bridegroom’s house a low-caste man sacrifices a goat or
sheep on the threshold; and the bride steps over it;” and again when the
bridegroom returns from his devotions at a neighboring _masjid_ (a place
of public prayer) to claim his bride, as he reaches his threshold,
“another goat is sacrificed, and he steps over it in the same way as his
bride.”[72] Again the bridegroom himself brings the bride from her
father’s hut to his own, accompanied by young men and maidens dancing
and singing. “On reaching the new hut, the bride holds a goat or sheep
in the doorway, while the bridegroom cuts its throat in the orthodox
manner with his _jambia_ (long knife). The bride dips her finger in the
blood, smears it on her forehead, ... and then enters the _gúrí_,
stepping over the blood. The bridegroom follows her, also stepping over
the blood, and is accompanied by some of his nearest male
relatives.”[73]
There are traces of such customs, also, among the natives of South
Africa,[74] and elsewhere.
Besides the bloody sacrifices at the threshold, in the marriage
ceremony, there are, in different countries, various forms of making
offerings at the threshold, and of surmounting obstacles at that point,
as an accompaniment of the wedding covenant. All these point to the
importance and sanctity of the threshold and doorway in the primitive
mind.
A bride, in portions of Upper Syria, on reaching her husband’s house, is
lifted up so that she can press against the door-lintel a piece of
dough, prepared for the purpose, and handed to her at the time. This
soft dough, thus pressed against the plastered or clay wall, adheres
firmly, and is left there as long as it will remain. The open hand of
the bride stamps the dough as it is fixed in place, and in some cases
the finger points are pricked before the stamping, so that the blood
will appear as a sign manual on the cake of dough.[75]
When a bride reaches the door of her husband’s house, among the
fellaheen of Palestine, a jar of water is placed on her head. She must
call on the name of God as she crosses the threshold; and, at the same
moment, her husband strikes the jar from her head, and causes the water
to flow as a libation.[76]
Among the Wallachians there is a marriage rite, said to be of Latin
origin, because there was a similar rite among the old Latins. The
Wallachian bride is borne on horseback, with an accompanying procession,
to the house of the bridegroom. “At the moment when the betrothed maiden
dismounts from her steed, and is about to cross the threshold, they
present to her butter, or sometimes honey, and with this she smears the
door-posts.”[77]
An observer says of this rite: “For the same reason among the Latins,
the word for wife, _uxor_, originally _unxor_, was derived from the verb
_ungere_, ‘to anoint,’ because the maidens when they reached the
threshold of their future husbands, were similarly accustomed to anoint
the door-posts.” In support of this fanciful etymology, old-time
commentators on Terence and Virgil are cited;[78] which shows, at least,
that this ceremony at the threshold of the husband’s home has long been
recognized as of vital importance in the marriage contract and relation.
It is customary, among the Greeks in Turkey, for the mother of the
bridegroom, as he leaves his home to go for his bride on the morning of
his wedding, to lay across his pathway a girdle, over which he steps,
and to pour a libation of water before him.[79]
In the Morea, in the vicinity of Sparta, it is said that, when the bride
is brought to her new home, the mother of the bridegroom “stands waiting
at the door, holding a glass of honey and water in her hand. From this
glass the bride must drink; ... while the lintel of the door is smeared
with the remainder; ... in the meantime one of the company breaks a
pomegranate on the threshold.”[80] In Rhodes, when the newly married
couple enter the doorway of their new home, the husband “dips his finger
in a cup of honey, and traces a cross over the door.... A pomegranate is
placed on the threshold, which the young husband crushes with his foot
as he enters, followed by his wife, over whom the wedding guests throw
corn and cotton seeds and orange flower water.”[81]
On Skarpanto (Carpathos), an island lying between Rhodes and Crete, when
the bridegroom reaches the door of the bride’s house “he is greeted by
the mother of the bride, who touches the nape of his neck with a censer
containing incense.... She further gives him a present called
_embatikon_,–that is to say, ‘the gift of in-going,’–and then places on
the threshold a rug or blanket folded, with a stick resting on one of
the corners. The bridegroom advances his right foot, breaks the stick
and passes in.”[82]
Among the Morlacchi, in Dalmatia, it is, or was, a custom for a bride to
kneel and kiss the threshold of her husband’s home, before crossing it
for the first time. Her mother-in-law, or some other near relative of
her husband, at the same time presented her with a sieve full of
different kinds of grain, nuts, and small fruits, which the bride
scattered behind her back as she passed in.[83]
It is a custom in portions of Russia, when the bride is about to leave
her father’s home to meet the bridegroom, for the friends of the
bridegroom to appear at the door, and request that the bride be brought
to them. “After their request has been many times repeated, the
‘princess’ [as the bride is called] appears, attended by her relatives
and attendants, but stops short at the door. Again the bridegroom’s
friends demand the bride, but are told first to ‘cleanse the threshold;
then will the young princess cross the threshold.’” Thereupon gifts are
made by the bridegroom’s friend, and the bride crosses the threshold to
go to the bridegroom.[84]
Among the Mordvins (or, Mordevins), a Finnish people on the Volga, there
are various customs in connection with marriage, tending to confirm the
idea that the threshold is the household altar. In a ceremony of
betrothal, with a conference over the terms of dowry, a prayer is
offered to the “goddess of the homestead,” and the “goddess of the
dwelling-house;” “the girl’s father then cuts off the corner of a loaf
of bread with three slashes of a knife, salts it, and places it under
the threshold, where the Penates are believed to frequent. This is
called the ‘gods’ portion.’” Bread and salt are factors in a sacred
covenant, and their proffer to the household gods, at the threshold
altar, would seem to be an invitation to those gods to be a party to the
new marriage covenant. Again, after the terms of betrothal are agreed
on, there is the feast of “hand-striking,” or ratification of the
betrothal. On that occasion also the “gods’ portion” is offered; and “a
little brandy is spilt under the threshold. Bread and salt are once more
placed under the threshold by the bride’s father, who carries it from
the table to the household altar “on the point of the knife–under no
circumstances in his hands.”[85]
A custom of strewing the threshold of the home of a new-married couple
prevailed in Holland until recent times.[86] This was obviously a form
of offering at the household altar.
On the evening before the marriage ceremony, in the rural districts and
smaller towns of Northern Germany, the boys and girls, and others in the
neighborhood, are accustomed to appear at the door of the bride’s house,
and smash on the threshold earthen pots and jars, with loud cries of
joy. “Sometimes, whole car-loads of broken pottery have to be removed
from the door the next morning.” And when the young couple return to
their home, after the ceremony at the church, poor boys and girls are
accustomed to stretch a colored cord across the door of the house, to
prevent a passage over the threshold, unless the bridegroom throws a
handful of small coins among those who bar the way.[87]
Traces of the sacredness of the threshold altar seem to exist in the
wedding ceremonies in villages on the coast of Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
“After the marriage is solemnized, ... the bride’s guests are
entertained at her home, and the bridegroom’s at his.... When the bride
returns to her father’s house, after the marriage, broken bread of
various sorts is thrown over her before she enters. The same ceremony is
gone through with the bridegroom at his father’s door.”[88]
When a girl among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo is married, the wedding takes
place at her house. The marriage rite includes the erecting an altar
before the door of the house, and placing on it an offering of prepared
areca-nut, covered with a red cloth, the color of blood. The families of
the bride and the groom then partake of that offering in covenant
conclave.[89]
A lover, among the Woolwas, in Central America, when wooing a bride,
would bring a deer’s carcass, and a bundle of firewood, and deposit it
outside of her house door. If she accepted these, and took them over the
threshold, it was a betrothal.[90] The covenant seemed to consist in the
reaching across the threshold and accepting a proffered offering in a
spirit of loving agreement.
Among the Towkas, in the same part of the world, a bridegroom would go
with his friends to the home of his bride, carrying a bundle of gifts
for her. Sitting down outside of the door, he would call on her family
to open to him. There being no response, music would then be tried by
his friends. At this the door would be opened just far enough for him to
put a gift inside over the threshold. One by one his gifts would be
passed in, in this way, while the door opened wider and wider. When the
last gift was over the threshold, the lover would spring within, and,
seizing the bride, would carry her across the threshold, and take her to
a temporary hut erected within a charmed circle near by, while his
friends guarded him from intrusion.[91]
And thus, in various ways, among widely different primitive peoples, the
marriage customs go to show that the home threshold cannot be passed
except by overcoming a barrier of some kind, and making an offering,
bloody or bloodless, at this primal family altar. An essential part of
the covenant of union is a halting at, and then passing over, the
threshold of the new home, with an accompanying sacrifice.