MILDER MARRIAGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 July 1941, Page 3

MILDER MARRIAGE

NO MORE RICE-THROWING. By a British Ministry of Food order it is forbidden, “except under licence (which does not, one imagines, include a marriage licence), to use rice for any other purpose than as human food, notes Lucio in the “Manchester Guardian." The practice of pelting the new-ly-married with that grain must therefore lapse. It will be no loss; it was always a foul and unfortunate practice, as anyone who has ever been caught full in the face by a powerfully-flung handful of rice will readily testify. And with the growing paper shortage the use of confetti, so troublesome to rectors and the custodians of churchyards, will also be under a cloud. It almost looks as though people who get married will soon be able to do so without suffering any of the minor forms of assault that have been so long associated with the ceremony. Even leather will be too valuable for anyone to hurl an old shoe with the pious hope of catching the bridegroom a really kncck-out blow under the chin. Marriage is becoming almost safe —it may be a lottery in its later developments, but the barrage habit on the day of its celebration is evidently in decline. War, ruthless in itself, yet puts an end to some of the brutal sports of peace-