MARRIAGE
798
MARRIAGE
contributed to the festivity in the bath, they also return with the bride to renew their concert. Their songs are always on tlie subject of love, and of the joyous event which occasions their presence. It is on this night, and sometimes also during the latter half of the preceding day, that the bridegroom gives his chief entertainment. Low farce-players often perform on this occasion before the house, or, if it be large enough, in the court. The other and more common performances by wliich the guests are amused have been before mentioned.
On the following day the bride goes in procession to the house of the bridegroom. Tlie ceremony usually occupies three or more hours. Sometimes, before bridal processions of this kind, two swordsmen, clad in nothing but their drawers, engage each other in a mock combat ; or two peasants cudgel each other with long staves. The bride and her party, having arrived at the bride- groom's house, sit down to a repast. Her friends short- h' after take their departure, leaving with her only her mother and sister, or other near female relations, and one or two other women. The bridegroom sits below. Before sunset he goes to the bath, and there changes his clothes ; or he merely does the latter at home, and, after having supped with a party of his friends, -waits till a little before the time of the night-prayer, or until the third or fourth hour of the night, when, according to general custom, he should repair to some celebrated mosque, such as that of the Hasaneyn, and there say his prayers. The party usually proceeds to the mosque with a quick pace, and without much order. A second group of musicians, with the same instruments, or with drums onh', closes the procession. The prayers are commonly performed merely as a matter of ceremony; and it is frequently the case that the bridegroom does not pray at all. The procession returns from the mosque with more order and display, and very slowly ; perhaps because it would be considered unbecoming in the bride- groom to hasten home to take possession of his bride. Soon after his return from the mosque, the bridegroom leaves his friends in a lower apartment, enjoying their pipes, and coffee, and sherbet. The bride's mother and sister, or whatever other female relations were left with her, are above, and the bride herself and her companion in a separate apartment. If the bridegroom be a youth or young man, it is considered proper that he, as AveU as the bride, should exhibit some degree -of bashfulness: one of his friends therefore carries him a part of the way up to the room. On entering the bride's apartment he gives a present to her companion, who then retires. The bride has a shawl thrown over her head, and the bride- groom must give her a present of money, which is called " the price of the uncovering of the face," before he at- tempts to remove this, which she does not allow him to do without some apparent reluctance, if not violent re- sistance, in order to show her maiden modesty. The bridegroom now sees the face of his bride for the first time, and generally finds her nearly what he has been led to expect. He remains with her but a few minutes: having satisfied his curiosity respecting her personal charms, he calls to the women (who generally collect at the door, where they wait in anxious suspense) to raise their cries of joy, and tlie shrill sounds acquaint the per- sons below and in the iieighlxirhood, and often, respond- ed by other women, spread still further the news that he has acknowledged himself satisfied with his bride: he soon after descends to rejoin his friends, and remains with them an hour or more before he returns to his wife. It very seldom happens that the husband, if dis- appointed in his bride, immediately disgraces and tli- vorces her ; in general he retains her a week or more, even if dissatistied with her.
IMarriagcs are sometimes conducted without any pomp or ceremony, even in the case of virgins, by mutual con- sent of the bridegroom and the bride's family, or the bride herself; and widows or divorced women are never honored with a procession on marrying again. The mere sentence, " I give myself up to thee," uttered by a
female to a man who proposes to become her husband (even without the presence of witnesses, if none can easily be procured), renders her his legal wife, if arrived at puberty ; and marriages with widows and divorced women, among the Moslems of Egypt, and other Arabs, are sometimes concluded in this simple manner. The dowry of such women is generally one quarter, or third, or half the amount of that of a virgin. Among persons not of the lowest order, though in very humble life, the marriage ceremonies are conducted in the same manner as among the midtUe orders. But when the expenses cannot by any means be paid, the bride is paraded in a very simple manner, covered with a shawl (generally red), and surrounded by a group of her female relations and friends, dressed in their best, or in borrowed clothes, and enlivened bj' no other sounds of joy than their shrill cry, which they repeat at frequent intervals. The general mode of processions among the inhabitants of the villages is different from those above described. The bride, usually covered with a sha^vl, is seated on a cam- el, and so conveyed to the bridegroom's dwelling. Some- times four or five women or girls sit with her on the same camel, one on either side of her, and two or three others behind, the seat being made very wide, and usu- ally covered -with carpets or other drapery. She is fol- l(jwed by a group of women singing. In the evening of the wedding, and often during several previous even- ings, in a village, the male and female friends of the two parties meet at the bridegroom's house, and pass several hours of the night in the open air, amusing themselves with songs and a rude kind of dance, accom- panied by the sounds of a tambourine, or some kind of drum : both sexes sing, but only the women dance.