A Roumanian Peasant Marriage.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 419, 13 November 1889, Page 5

A Roumanian Peasant Marriage.

The Roumanian peasants have many interesting social customs, and none more interesting than their fashion of making love and marrying. The Queen of Roumania (Carmen Sylva) tells in the " Forum " how the lads strip the marriageable girls of their long girdles and wind them about their own bodies. If after a time the parents of the girl demand the return of the girdle by the youth who wears it, he is an accepted lover. To a wedding the whole village is,invited. The troth sponsors stand beside the bridal pair before the altar, bearing in their hands each a tall, .stout wax candle. The bride and bridegroom must thrice eat of the same morsel and drink out of the same goblet, to signify that as long as they live they will share with each other every bib and sup. Then, led by the troth-father and troth-mother, they walk around the altar thrice £ that represents - the paths through life. During the walk the bride must give a tug to the foot of one of the maids present, who then is sure to be married before the year is out. If the bride is a maid the golden thread is solemnly taken off her head. It serves in the place of a veil, and is like a golden hair, being specially becoming when ib reflects the candlelight. Her hair is then clipped a little, rolled tight under the handkerchief, and now the girl is for the first time covered with the veil, the token of matrimonial dignity. During this performance the bride must weep and cry, tor henceforth she must never show her hair not even to her husband. '

" I see that a Soda Water Trust is talked of," remarked a Piotsburger to his best girl, as they quaffed the sweetened atmosphere "Ah," she replied. "Then if they would only trust us for ice cream, too, how nice it would be,"