Marriage Rites

Why do they bid the bride touch fire and water? Is it that of these two, being reckoned as elements or first principles, fire is masculine and water feminine, and fire supplies the beginnings of motio

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Why in the marriage rites do they light five torches, neither more nor less, which they call cereones? Is it, as Varro has stated, that while the praetors use three, the aediles have a right to more,

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Why do they not allow the bride to cross the threshold of her home herself, but those who are escorting her lift her over? Is it because they carried off by force also the first Roman brides and bore

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Why do they, as they conduct the bride to her home, bid her say, Where you are Gaius, there am I Gaia ? Is her entrance into the house upon fixed terms, as it were, at once to share everything and to

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Why is the far-famed Talassio sung at the marriage ceremony? Is it derived from talasia (spinning)? For they call the wool-basket (talaros) talasus. When they lead in the bride, they spread a fleece b

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Why do they part the hair of brides with the point of a spear? Does this symbolize the marriage of the first Roman wives by violence with attendant war, or do the wives thus learn, now that they are m

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For our admirable host, praising the married women, said that Hermippus stated in his book about lawgivers, that at Lacedæmon all the damsels used to be shut up in a dark room, while a number of unmar

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It is their custom for every man to have many wives; their intercourse with women is promiscuous, as among the Massagetae; a staff is placed before the dwelling, and then they have intercourse. When a

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But since I have but one maiden to plan for and so cannot please all of you, to those of you whose suit is rejected I make a gift of a talent of silver to each, for his desire to take a wife from my h

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For what reason is it not the custom for maidens to marry on public holidays, but widows do marry at this time? Is it, as Varro has remarked, that maidens are grieved over marrying, but older women ar

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Why does the husband approach his bride for the first time, not with a light, but in darkness? Is it because he has a feeling of modest respect, since he regards her as not his own before his union wi

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Why do men not marry during the month of May? Is it because this month comes between April and June, of which they regard April as sacred to Venus and June as sacred to Juno, both of them divinities o

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When the appointed day came for the marriage feast and for Cleisthenes' declaration of whom he had chosen out of them all, Cleisthenes sacrificed a hundred oxen and gave a feast to the suitors and to

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And Chares, in the tenth book of his History of Alexander, says—"When he took Darius prisoner, he celebrated a marriage-feast for himself and his companions, having had ninety-two bedchambers prepared

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Aristotle also, in his Constitution of the Massilians, mentions a similar circumstance as having taken place, writing as follows:—The Phocæans in Ionia, having consulted the oracle, founded Marseilles

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In Macedonia, then, as I have said, Caranus made a marriage feast; and the guests invited were twenty in number. And as soon as they had sat down, a silver bowl was given to each of them as a present.

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This is the equipment of their persons. I will now speak of their established customs. The wisest of these, in our judgment, is one which I have learned by inquiry is also a custom of the Eneti in Ill

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AT my son Autobulus’s marriage, Sossius Senecio from Chaeronea and a great many other noble persons were present at the same feast; which gave occasion to this question (Senecio proposed it), why to a

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But lest I should seem to find fault with those reasons others give, only because I have none of my own to produce, continued he, I begin by declaring that there is no such evident or public notice gi

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And we must not wonder at people having on some occasions fallen in love with others from the mere report of their beauty, when Chares of Mitylene, in the tenth book of his History of Alexander, says

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