The relation of the Apt Sa re to the situation pre- supposed in the parable of the Ten Virgins requires elucidation. ‘More rarely it happened,’ says Nowack (i. p. 163), ‘that a procession poniinrtadi Sie bride to meet the bridegroom as he approached with his friends (1 Mac $7"); in the evening such a procession sometimes took place by lamp and torchlight.’ The explanation here suggested is that the marriage took place law at night, and that the bride’s company was preparing to sally forth to meet the bridegroom on his first appeararce. It le
272 MARRIAGE
MARRIAGE
however, plausibly argued by Mackie (Bibl. Manners and Customs) that the parable presupposes that this stage is t. The bride, he infers from existing custom, has already been conducted to her future home, the bridegroom has subsequently withdrawn to the house of a relative, where he is to stay with his companions till .a late hour ; meanwhile the bride and her companions grow weary, and sleep falls upon them; until at last a clamour in the street heralds the agree of the torch- illumined party, and within all are roused to life and excitement. ‘ Before he arrives the maidens in waiting come forth with lam and candles a short distance to light up the entrance and do honour to the bridegroom and the group of relatives and inti- mate friends around him. These in to the final rejoicing and the marriage supper ; the others, who have discharged their duty in accompanying him to the door, immediately disperse and the door is shut’ (p. 126).
The marriage supper, which took place in the house of the husband, was the great social event in the life of a family, and, where the standing and means allowed it, might be planned on the most lavish seale. In the parable of the Marriage of the King’s Son we have an example of boundless hos- Re ity, and also an indication of the resentment
elt when the invitation was slighted (Mt 22'™), A
difficulty in the parable has been met by the con- jecture that persons of high rank further showed their magnificence by furnishing the invited guests with festal robes (ἔνδυμα γάμου). The wedding at Cana of Galilee gives usa glimpse of the way in which the spirit of hospitality was exhibited in humbler homes (Jn 2"). But, while the same spirit prevailed throughout Hebrew society, it is to be remembered that enone we poorer classes the marriage feast must have been very different from the picture which at the name naturally rises before the imagination.*
The scene at the marriage supper is depicted with some fulness of detail. Now (probably not in the procession) the high-born bride appeared in the full splendour of her bridal array, in a robe embroidered with gold (Ps 45"-14, Jer 9533), which was gathered up by a peculiar girdle adorned with jewels (Is 49), and on her head a crown. Prominent in honour, as they had been in service, were the male friends of the bridegroom (υἱοὶ rod νυμφῶνος, Mt 9°), one of whom was charged with the duties of a master of ceremonies (Jn 28, οἵ. Jn 3%). From descriptions of later times we can fill out other spaces with panegyric and blessing uttered by the company in song and speech. At the close the bride was con- ducted by her parents to the nuptial chamber (cf. Jg 15). Throughout the whole proceedings it may be noted, as ex laining the deception practised upon Jacob, the bride had remained veiled (Gn 29%). The duty of preserving evidence of the bride’s antenup- tial chastity, which was enforced in Dt 22'*, was attended to as a safeguard against the slanders of a malicious or inconstant husband.
A marriage ceremony, to which proceedings like those described are mere adjuncts, is naturally assumed by us, but the idea is not to be summarily imported into early Hebrew marriage. We are doubtless nearer the mark in regarding the mar- riage supper as being in early times itself the marriage ceremony. Among primitive peoples the public meal has a quasi-sacramental character ; and it was quite in harmony with this mode of thonght to look on the feast of which bridegroom and bride partook in company with their friends as
* The following realistic descrivtion by a modern traveller is of use in this connexion: ‘He foun at the villagers of Schwat- el-Blat were engaged in the wedding festivities of one of the young men of the family. After the reception, etc., a huge platter, 6 feet in diameter, made of tinned copper, was brought in, on which was piled a mountain of boiled crushed wheat mingled with morsels of boiled meat. When this had been set in place, a dish of melted, clarified butter was poured over the wheat until it was quite saturated. Loaves of bread in the form of cakes were placed by the side of the platter, and the guests, rolling up their sleeves, proceeded to help themselves with their fingers, and consumed the provisions, as is usual, in silence. Water and soap were then passed around to the guests, who
washed off the remains of their greasy meal, after which coffee and pipes were served ' (Pal. Expl. Fund Quart. St. 1888, p. 204).
the rite by which they were definitely placed upon the conjugal footing. The view is supported by the fact that at a late period the feast was still treated as so essential a pee of the proceedings that γάμος stands oF or the marriage and the supper (Mt 224). Its original significance would thus have been similar to that of the confarreatio —a mode of contracting marriage through a sacri- ficial use of bread anciently practised in Rome. It was, however, inevitable that in course of time a more definite rite should be instituted. The most natural occasion might seem to be the point at which the bridegroom came to fetch the bride from her parents, but the evidence goes to show that the matter was still in suspense so long as her parents, who accompanied her to the feast, were at hur side. The act upon which attention would readily fasten as the decisive and uniting act was the leading of the bride to her ‘chamber,’ which in the old period was a tent specially erected for the wedded pair. The central importance of this act is further attested by the cireumstance that the chamber (97) supplied a name for marriage—marriage being described, as it were, as ‘the tenting’ (Wellhausen, op. cit. Ἢ: 444). Out of this other acts would as naturally develop to form a kind of ritual. From a hint in Mal 2 it is supposed that the pair entered into a solemn cove- nant, and it is also probable that the good wishes of the company came to be crystallized into defi- nite benedictions craving prosperity and ἘΣΘΛΆ After the Exile the ‘covenant’ was embodied in a written contract (To 7! συγγραφή, 73:n2).