Warrrs.—Savage and Barbaric ** Survivals " in Marriage. 953 
month? The answer to this is to be found in the religious customs of the 
ancient Romans. From pre-historic times downwards the Romans cele- 
brated in May the funeral rites of the Lemuralia. The Lemures were 
ghosts, spirits, hobgoblins ; and the month of May was specially devoted to 
religious or superstitious services in connection with them and the dead. 
May, therefore, notwithstanding its beauty and its flowers, and its abound- 
ing life, became to the old Romans a month of gloom and terror. The 
poet Ovid, who lived 1900 years ago, says that in his time it was considered 
unlucky to marry in May, on account of the occurrence in that month of 
these funeral rites of the Lemuralia. This curious superstition seems to 
have spread as far as the Roman conquests extended, and even farther ; 
and in this, I doubt not, we have the true origin, of the idea so widely 
prevailing among ourselves and in the modern world that marriages made 
in May are unlucky. 
4, The modern honeymoon, with its marriage jaunt or wedding tour, is 
another survival from ancient and barbarous times. Fighting for a girl to 
make a wife was naturally associated with stealing her. Capture by force 
and theft are closely allied. The relatives of the captured or stolen girl 
would endeavour to get her back, and would long be angry with the robber 
or thief. He would keep himself, and his fair charmer too, out of the way 
for a time till their wrath was somewhat abated. When, in the progress of 
civilization, the reality of capture passed into a symbol, this frequently con- 
comitant part of the transaction was not likely to escape symbolization. 
It is still kept up in many semi-civilized communities. It is still kept up 
among ourselves, for some of our philosophers regard our honeymoon, with 
its going away from home and the keeping out of our friends’ way, as the 
symbolized continuation of the primeval state of things. Against this 
barbarous survival the English press is beginning to lift up its protest. I 
mean against driving newly-married people away from their friends on a 
wedding tour of about a month’s duration. Hiding themselves away from 
all the comforts of home, they cannot help making each other miserable. 
With great truth and feeling the ** Saturday Review” the other day said :— 
« We condemn the unfortunate couple to a penance which would try the 
deepest affection and irritate the sweetest temper. When Hodge and his 
sweetheart crown their pastoral loves in the quiet old country church, they 
enjoy a walk in their finery and white cotton gloves, and then take posses- 
sion of the cot beside the wood, and settle down at once to connubial 
comfort. But they have chances of happiness denied to their richer 
neighbours. It is a matter almost of moral duty, certainly of superstitious 
strictness, that when the squire marries the rector’s daughter, or my lord 
marries my lady, the first month of married life must be passed (away from 
