ORIGIN OF THE WORD "WEDDING."

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 377, 13 October 1874, Page 2

ORIGIN OF THE WORD "WEDDING."

When the Anglo-Saxons settled in Britain, the patriarchal system' was in full force. The father was absolute master of his own family ; he sold his daughter in marriage, his son in slavery. When St Augustine landed in the island, the maiden waso a simple article of property, her price fixed at so many head of cattle. The primitive mode of procuring a wife was this : When a youth had fixed his choice upon a maiden, he went with a band of friends and earned her off, probably with her own secret connivance. The relations follow in hot pursuit, a feud between the families ensued, and was appeased by the lover agreeing to pay the value fixed upon by the father for retaining possession of the maid, he giving a " wed," or security, for his performance of the contract — hence the word wedding. The custom of stealing the bride is as ancient as the Spartans, and is still kept up in Brittany • where it forms one of the ceremonies of wedding festivites. The bargain made, the amount of the " morning gift" settled upon, the contracting parties took each other by the hand and pronounced themselves man and wife ; the ring was placed on the first finger of the left hand, and the father, having received the purchase money, delivered his daughter over to her husband. The transfer of authority was made by a symbolic gift. The father delivered the the bride's shoe to bridegroom, and the latter touched her over the head with it — a ceremony which took its origin in the custom of placing the foot on the neck of the slave, and was typical of a wife's sub-^Q jection to her husband — a ceremony still preserved in the custom of " throwing the shoe." The day after the wedding the bridegroom gave the " mor/ning gift" — supposed to be voluntary, but according to the value stipulated. It was general among the Teuton race, and often estates were thus bestowed. When Athclstan's sister, Eadgirth, married the Emperor Otho, Ms morning gift was the City of Miigdeburg.