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MATCHES

Courting Customs

DURING the reign of Queen Anne, St Valentine’s Day was celebrated with an unusual game. Men put numbers in a bowl, and the women did the same. The numbers were then drawn and the men and women with the same numbers spent the day together, regardless of their marital status.

UNTIL the last century, ‘bundling’ was a normal part of courting among the Dutch and German immigrants in America. When a young man went courting, especially in the winter, the girl’s parents would let him stay overnight in the same bed as their daughter, provided they both kept their clothes on, or bundled up in the bedcovers. There was a practical reason for this – the family did not have to burn precious wood in the evening, and the boy did not have to walk miles home on a cold night. Bundling boards were often used, which separated the couple while they were in bed. This custom still survives among the Amish in Pennsylvania.

WHEN a gentleman met a lady in public in eighteenth-century France, he was expected to kiss her on the neck.

I Thee Wed

MARRIAGE began in prehistoric times. When a man saw a woman he desired who was from another tribe, he would take her by force. These ‘capture marriages’ were legal in England until the thirteenth century. By that time, when the groom was going to abduct his chosen bride, he would take along his strongest friend or best warrior, in case of trouble with uncooperative relatives. This friend became known as ‘the best man’.

Later, marriage became more of a trade between the groom and the father. The word ‘wedd’ meant the groom’s pledge to marry in exchange for horses, land, cash, etc. The wedding was the actual exchange of goods. Sometimes the father of the bride would not let the groom see his intended for fear of the deal being cancelled if he disliked the look of her. So when the father gave his daughter away, the groom would lift the veil to see her face for the first time.