if she allowed herself to be kissed for the first time before others she would never have any peace afterwards. During the struggle the father-in-law comes to assist his son and holds the bride by the scruff of the neck till the young man can kiss his wife. The bridegroom then requests the bride to sit at his side during the journey to his house, though he knows she will not consent, but will have to be led by force to the carriage. When this has been done the whole wedding party dashes off at full speed to the abode of the bridegroom. On reaching the gates[1] they are found bolted and guarded by the girls of the bridegroom’s village and the bride’s companions, who sing songs relating the previous love-adventures of the bridegroom; for it would be a great reproach if he had never had any, and would show that he was such a lout that no girl cared to look at him. But before they begin to sing the bridegroom dismounts from his carriage, slinks in unperceived by a side-entrance, and runs off to hide in an outhouse where the old women have prepared the nuptial bed. The bride is carried into the common room in the arms of some of the party, and now makes no resistance.[2] Her father-in-law meets her with a holy picture in his hand, and the nearest female relation of the bridegroom covers her with hops. On being brought into the common room she is placed opposite the stove near her friends, who continually abuse her husband, declaring he has one leg shorter than another,
- ↑ In some parts of Simbirsk, on reaching the bridegroom’s house, the best man detaches the body of the carriage in which the bride has sat from the axle—a symbol, no doubt, that henceforth she is not to leave her husband’s house.
- ↑ Among the Erza of Teryshevsk (Simbirsk) there are no songs sung on reaching the bridegroom’s house. The bride orders the best man “to light her father’s ‘blessing’, so that she shall enter a strange house with her own light.” The candle is lit, and, holding it in her hand, she enters the house. Some female relation of the bridegroom, wearing a fur coat turned inside out, with a crown on her head to which is attached a man’s cap, meets the bride, and from a hat full of hops she holds in her hands throws a handful over the bride.
