WOMAN'S WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 114, 22 August 1910, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD.

WEDDING iL r ?ERSTITIONS. | Though popular superstitions may lack reason or reasonable explanation, they must have an origin, and this (has formed the basis of quite an interesting book by Mr. T. Shaper Ivnowlson, "The Origin of Popular 'Superstitions." The question of the wedding-ring and why. it should he placed on the fourth finger of the left hand he traces back to a writer in the British Apollo (1708). ''There is nothing more in this," it is stated, "than that the custom was handed down to the present age from the practice of our ancestors, w<ho found the left hand more convenient for such ornaments than the right, in that it is ever less employed; for the same reason they chose the fourth finger, which is not only less used tlhan either of the rest, but is more capable of preserving a ring from bruises, having this one quality peculiar to itself, that it cannot be extended but in company with some other finger, wlieieas the re.it may be singly stretched to their full leagth and fttraightness."

The old-fashioned notion that a shoe should 'bring luck at a wedding is another superstition curious to explain. "It was in the sense of confirming a sale or exchange that the Jews understood the removal and giving of a shoe or sandal. When the kinsman of Boaz consented to waive 'his claim upon the parcel of land whidh Naomi would sell, in favor of Boaz, he 'drew off his shoe,' for 'this was a testimony in Israel.'

"In a different sense the removal of a shoe marks the winding-up of negotiations among the laws and ordinances given in the Book of 'Deuteronomy, where the widow who is refused marriage by 'her husband's surviving brother is directed to 'come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot,' thus asserting her independence and heaping upon him the blame for failure to comply with the law. "When the Emperor Wadimar proposed marriage to the daughter of Reginald, she refused :him with the words: " 1 will not take off my shoe to the son of a slave.'

"In Anglo-Saxon marriages the bride's father delivered her shoe to the bridegroom, w!ho touched her on the head with it in token of his authority."