HAND-FASTING.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16142, 21 February 1918, Page 7

HAND-FASTING.

TO THE EDITOR OF "THE mT.SS."

Sir, —When your correspondent, Mrs Julian Grande, writes of "Hcrr C. H. Torgcu's famous plea on behalf of legalised polygamy ('secondary marriago,' or what the Scotch call 'handfasting,' I belieye)," sho is entirely wrong on the last point. "Handfasting" is a custom or practice recognised some centuries ago in some parts of Scotland. It is thus described by Kir Walter Scott in "Tho Monastery" by the mouth of Sir Avcnel: — ••Hand-fastcd," repeated Warden? "Knowest thou not that rite, holy man?" said Avcnel, in tho samo tone of derision, "then I will tell theo. Wo Border-men arc more wary than your inland clowns of File and ijothian—no jump in the dark for us —no clenching tne fetters around our wrists till we Know how they will wear with us—wo take our wives, like our horses, upon trial. When wo are handfasted, as we term it, we arc man and wife for a year and a day; that space gone by, each may choose anothor mate, or at their pleasure may call the priest to marry them for life — and this wc call hand-fasting." To this tho author has added a footnote: —"This custom of hand-fasting actually prevailed in the upland days. It aroso partly from the ,want of priests. When the convents subsistod, monks were detached on regular circuits through the wilder districts to marry thoso who had lived in this species or connexion. A practice of the samo kind existed in tho Island of Portland."—Yours, etc.. J.E.D. / A\7n TT/^T>T7T^vr