MARRIAGE 85 



Weddings are very often arranged to take place 

 at night in order to run less risk of danger from evil 

 spirits. Attempts are also made at hiding the iden- 

 tity of bride and bridegroom by their pretending to 

 be queen and king for the day, or by their wearing 

 entirely new clothing. Sometimes a mock bride is at 

 first substituted for the real one. An interesting 

 custom exists of first marrying one or both of the 

 pair to a tree. This insures the harmlessness and 

 success of the real ceremony. The bride and bride- 

 groom are sometimes attended by one or more persons 

 dressed up to resemble them. This custom is based 

 on the belief that there is safety in numbers; from 

 this has arisen our modern institution of bridesmaids 

 and groomsmen. 



Just as there are customs which aim at warding 

 off ill-luck, so there are other customs which have 

 the purpose of bringing good luck. Thus red is 

 worn as a lucky colour by Orientals and semi-Orien- 

 tals. In the Black Forest the bride weeps all the 

 way from church, since she that weeps enough on 

 her way to her new home will never weep in it. 



Coming to marriage customs nearer home, we have 

 already mentioned that the religious ceremony of the 

 Romans consisted in eating the sacred cake together. 

 In addition to this, there was a secular form of 

 marriage by purchase (coemptio), where the ceremony 

 of formal purchase was gone through ; this was 

 sufficient to constitute marriage. Similarly, in early 

 Europe, among the old English and other Teutonic 

 people, marriage was a private transaction, being a 

 formal sale of the bride by the father. There was 

 yet a third form of Roman marriage, in which the 



