Nuptials

“ On the positive side, there is the wedding itself, in which the bride is the central attraction in a beautiful and inspiring ceremony, symbolizing her triumph in securing a male to provide for all her needs for the rest of her life. On the negative side, there is the wedding night, during which the bride must pay the piper, so to speak, by facing for the first time the terrible experience of sex. ”

“ An excellent mood for a wife, no doubt—or for a husband—excellent, and, it may be, inevitable. But for a lover yet unmated, a bride still to be, a girl in her first love? Should she not leave reverend seniors to prate to her—quite vainly—of difficulties and dangers, while her fancy is roaming far afield in dreamy lands of golden joy? To endeavour, by an affectionate study of and consideration for your partner, to avoid unhappiness and to give comfort—such is wont to be the text of the officiating minister's little homily at a wedding. ”

“ We have already found the explanation of the fairness of the bride in her reflecting like a mirror the beauty of the Bridegroom. Well may He with satisfaction describe her beauty while she is thus occupied with Himself! The lips that speak only of Him are like a thread of scarlet; the mouth or speech which has no word of self, or for self, is comely in His sight. [41]
How sweet His words of appreciation and commendation were to the bride we can well imagine; but her joy was too deep for expression; she was silent in her love. ”

“ Elaborate and gay as are the festivities of betrothal, the celebrations of marriage are so much more so that one is inclined to look upon the essential religious ceremony as a pretext for the merry-making.9 The interval of a month which ordinarily intervenes between engagement and marriage is devoted to making the necessary preparations for the wedding. The bridegroom must get ready the promised ornaments, a white wedding-dress for his bride, a fine veil to cover her face, and a pair of shoes, a rather strange combination of gifts. ”

“ But, on behalf of the bride, the women answered in the same way as at first.
For twenty couplets, at least, the men enumerated all the wedding-presents, always mentioning something new in the last line: a handsome apron, pretty ribbons, a cloth dress, laces, a golden cross, and even a hundred pins to complete the modest list of wedding-presents. The refusal of the women could not be shaken, but at length the men decided to speak of
“A good husband, too, love.” ”

“ How many glorious married couples in heaven—Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Lapidoth and Deborah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, Zacharias and Elizabeth, Joseph and Mary, and many whom we have known as good as the most of them!
As once you stood in the village or city church or in your father's house, perhaps under a wedding-bell of flowers, to-day stand up, husband and wife, beneath the cross of a pardoning Redeemer, while I proclaim the banns of an eternal marriage. Join your right hands. ”

“ The wedding being over, and the bridegroom having enjoyed his charming bride, grew exceedingly fond of her, even to dottage, which sickened and palled her love toward him, and he perceiving it, strove to wind himself the more into her affections ”

“ And let the young men and the bride-maids share
Your garters; and their joints
Encircle with the bridegroom's points.
By the bride's eyes, and by the teeming life
Of her green hopes, we charge ye that no strife
(Farther than gentleness tends) gets place
Among ye, striving for her lace:
O do not fall
Foul in these noble pastimes, lest ye call
Discord in, and so divide
The youthful bridegroom and the fragrant bride:
Which love forfend; but spoken
Be't to your praise, no peace was broken. ”

“ On the highest, rear seat was James Williams, of Cloverdale, Missouri, and his Bride.
Capitalise it, friend typo—that last word—word of words in the epiphany of life and love. The scent of the flowers, the booty of the bee, the primal drip of spring waters, the overture of the lark, the twist of lemon peel on the cocktail of creation—such is the bride. Holy is the wife; revered the mother; galliptious is the summer girl—but the bride is the certified check among the wedding presents that the gods send in when man is married to mortality. ”

“ Her hue is blue and red: the fiend who clingeth close is driven off. Well thrive the kinsmen of this bride the husband is bound fast in bonds. 29. Give thou the woollen robe away: deal treasure to the Brahman priests. This female fiend hath got her feet, and as a wife attends her lord. 30. Unlovely is his body when it glistens with this wicked fiend, What time the husband wraps about his limbs the garment of his wife. 31. Consumptions, from her people, which follow the bride's resplendent train,- These let the Holy Gods again bear to the place from which they came. ”

“ The sole object of this ceremony has been to relieve the bride of the reproach of prolonged and unseasonable maidenhood. Whether you will ever see one another in this life I cannot say. If it should happen that you meet, you would not be able to recognise one another as husband and wife. ”

“ Make your self merry amongst the rest of the Wedding guests, so far as is becoming you: who knows, but that some brave Gentlemans man, Coachman, or neighbors servant, may fall in love with you; for many times out of one Wedding comes another, and then you might come to be a woman of good fashion. Udsbud Mally! then you would know, as well as your Mistress, what delights are to be had in the first Wedding night. Then you would also know how to discourse of the first Pleasure of marriage, and with the Bride expect the second.
THE SECOND PLEASURE.
The Woman goes to buy houshold-stuf. ”

“ As she passed into the vestry to sign the marriage register, leaning proudly upon the arm of her newly made husband, and followed by her few attending personal friends, a man who had witnessed the ceremony from behind a clustered pillar in the church, stole out into the square, his face lighted by a lurid smile, his eyes emitting the same peculiar, exultant gleam as the bride’s had done. ”

“ Silent the young wife sits by her husband's side, — it is the better part of her which is soon to be shorn away ; the memory of youthful courtship comes back, hopeful and fragrant as a morning in May, when the apple-trees have also put their nuptial glory on: she brings again the bridal's throbbing joy, and re-collects the scattered bliss of all the following years. ”

“ There was scarcely time to think of the pain of the coming partings from brother, uncles, and other relatives; pain it would be, yet not to be compared with that of many a young bride who must leave father, mother, home, and more than one loved brother and sister.
The wedding was a pronounced success; brides and bridesmaids looking their best—groom and groomsmen also—and each going through his or her part of the ceremony in an altogether creditable manner. ”

“ When she has thus obtained a wife for her husband, she carries her home, puts her to bed with her husband, where, having left her, she feasts with the bride's relations. There the children of the first marriage are produced, and the men of the bride's family put each their hands upon these children's heads, and afterwards take the oath in the usual manner, to live and die with them as their own offspring. ”

“ And then the bride and bridegroom, now that the delightful ceremony of marriage was accomplished in accordance with their long-cherished wishes, entered the inner apartments crowded with women, adorned with pure and variegated decoration, even as they penetrated the heart of the people full of pure and various loyalty. ”

“ Till the bride and the groom were a-bed.
And what they did there must be counsel to me,
Because they lay long the next day,
And I had haste home, but I got a good piece
Of the bride-cake, and so came away. ”

“ For you may never be another’s bride.
That line I learn’d not in the old sad song. Mother.
I pray thee, pretty one, now hold thy tongue,
Play with the bride-maids, and be glad, my boy,
For thou shalt be a second father’s joy. Child. ”

“ Yes, that old bride-look—for religion may be so presented to the child's heart as to appear for ever the bride elect of the soul, from whose queenly love promotion may be expected, whose sweet embraces bring a dower of honour, whose beautiful fingers twine a chaplet of grace for the head and set a crown of glory on the brow. ”

“ Seated upon the springy matting, with waves of shimmering silk tumultuous about them, the old dames chatted incessantly of other brides and other wedding outfits they had known. Marvellous were their tales of married life, some of them designed to cheer, others to warn the silent little third figure, that of the bride-to-be. ”

“ The wedding was celebrated with great pomp and joy. For many weeks afterwards, the silent princess kept busy with her needle, making little coats of swan feathers, but of this her husband seemed to approve and gladly he praised his bride’s industry. ”

“ Thou wilt marry within the year. I do entreat and command thee to marry one that feareth God. For thou art very clay. Mated ill thou shalt be naught. But wedding a worthy husband thou mayest, Dei gratia, live a pious princess ”

“ GROOM. He pays for the bridal bouquet carried by the bride at the wedding ceremony, and, if he wishes, for the bouquets carried by the bridesmaids.
MEN. If well acquainted with a debutante's family, a man may send her flowers at the time of her debut.
After a slightly intimate acquaintance, a man can present flowers to a young unmarried woman as a token of sympathy either of joy or sorrow.
It is not usual for a man to send flowers to a woman who is a mere acquaintance.
BALLS. It is permissible for a man, if he wishes, to send flowers to a woman he is to escort to a ball. ”

“ And the dawn having come on, the King arrived, and having supplied the table, brought it in before the bridegroom and the bride. And he found them sitting opposite each other, and he found the face of the bride uncovered, and the bridegroom was quite cheerful. And the mother came in and said to the bride, "Wherefore dost thou sit thus, child, and art not ashamed, but actest as if thou hadst for a long time lived with thine own husband?" And her father said, "It is because of thy great love to thy husband that thou art uncovered?" ”

“ When blushing she whispered the vow of a bride.
We sang an old song, as with garlands we crowned her,
And each left a kiss on her delicate brow;
And we prayed that a blessing might ever surround her,
And the future of life be unclouded as now. ”

“ The bride, thinking he is looking at her, casts down her eyes, pensive in her joy.
The bridegroom is at once the proudest, and the humblest, and the happiest man in the world. For our parts, we sit in a corner, and are in love with the sister. ”

“ The wedding-ring is the old token accepted by the woman when she gave her pledge of bondage. The coming of the groom with his aids to the marriage is a figurative marauding expedition. The honeymoon is the abduction. ”

“ When all the religious rites are finished and the festivities have come to an end, there is a final procession, when the wife and husband, gorgeously arrayed in all their jewellery, are carried 120round the town to the accompaniment of music, the explosion of fire crackers, the shooting of rockets, and the shouting of friends. Then, if the bride is still a child, she returns home with her parents, who keep her secluded until the time arrives for her to return to her husband’s home and fulfil the duties of a wife. ”

“ Suppose both our wives should conceive the first night of our marriage, and should happen to be brought to bed on one day, yours of a son, and mine of a daughter, we will give them to each other in marriage. ”

“ They inter their relations in a very slovenly manner, and may often be found lying drunk about the grave: their marriage forms are extremely simple, the bride and bridegroom mutually mark each other’s faces with red ochre, after which, they lock their little fingers together, and avow their union: the ceremony is usually concluded by a sacrifice to the muddled deity, in which all bear their parts with great eagerness, and devotion! ”

“ When the day set apart for the solemnization of the marriage ceremony, has arrived, the bridegroom, and his wife, and also the bride, together with their relatives, and such other guests as may be invited, assemble at the place which they have appointed. ”

“ But if the pleasures of Wooing are so very great, then what are the pleasures of Wedding? Consent being given, and the wedding resolved on, the lover has now free access to his mistress, and may kiss above board as much as he pleases; the which is another vast pleasure ”

“ But with the young people all was merriment, and shakings of hands, and congratulations, and kissing away the bride's tears, and kissings from her in return, till a young lady, who assumed some experience in these matters, having worn the nuptial bands some four or five weeks longer than her friend, rescued her, archly observing, with half an eye upon the bridegroom, that at this rate she would have "none left." ”

“ The ever-smiling, happy bride.
“Up and help yourselves, good people,”
Cries the bridegroom joyously.
“Open every room and cellar,
Take whate’er your fancy be.”
Music plays, they dance; then sudden
Stands a stranger by the groom. ”

“ In the honeymoon, then, study your husband's temper; for the best of men—and women too—carry (it may be unconsciously) a mask during the days of courtship, which, if not taken off, wears off, and [218] you must strive to know him as he really is; remembering that though lovers may be angels, husbands are only mortals. ”