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Marriage Ceremonies Es of Different Nations

Marriage ceremonies vary in different countries, and at different times. Where the practice is to purchase a wife, whether among savages, or among luxurious people in hot climates, payment of the price completes this marriage, without any other ceremony. Other ceremonies, however, are sometimes practised. In old Rome, the bride was attended to the bridegroom's house, with a female slave carrying a distaff and a spindle, importing that she ought to spin for the family. Among the savages of Canada, and of neighbouring countries, a strap, a kettle, and a faggot, are put in the bride's cabin, as symbols of her duty, viz. to carry burdens, to dress victuals, and to provide wood. On the other hand, the bride, in token of her slavery, takes her axe, cuts wood, bundles it up, and lays it before the door of the bridegroom's hut. All the salutation she receives is, "It is time to go to rest." The inhabitants of Sierra Leone, on the coast of Africa, have in all their towns a boarding-school, where young ladies are educated for a year, under the care of a venerable old gentleman. When their education is completed, they are carried in their best attire to a public assembly; which may be termed a matrimonial market, because there young men cou