Part 4 (1/2)
A friend whose husband has a large poor parish in Berlin tells me that the Social Democrats object to the religious ceremony, and will stand guard outside the house on the day of the civil marriage, to make sure that the newly made husband and wife do not leave together to go to church. Sometimes an artisan will wait a fortnight after the civil ceremony before he ventures to have the religious one. Every artisan in Berlin has to belong to the _Sozialdemokratischer Verband_, because if he did not his fellow-workmen would destroy his tools and ruin his chances of work. Apparently they interfere with his private affairs as well.
The marriage service is not to be found in the prayer-book Germans take to church, but I have both read it and listened to it. The vows made are much the same as here; but in Germany great importance is attached to the homily or marriage sermon. This is often long and heavy. I have heard the pastor preach to the young couple for nearly half an hour about their duties, and especially about the wife's duty of submission and obedience. His victims were kept standing before him the whole time, and the poor little bride was shaking from head to foot with nervousness and excitement. In some cities the carriage used by a well-to-do bride and bridegroom is as big as a royal coach, and upholstered with white satin, and on the wedding day decorated inside and out with garlands of flowers. The bridegroom fetches his bride in this coach, and enters the church with her. When a pretty popular girl gets married all her admirers send flowers to the church to decorate it. The bride and bridegroom exchange rings, for in Germany men as well as women wear a plain gold wedding ring, and it is always worn on the right hand. The bridegroom and all the male guests wear evening dress and silk hats. The women wear evening clothes too, and no hats.
The bride wears the conventional white silk or satin and a white veil, but her wreath must be partly of myrtle, for in Germany myrtle is the bride's emblem.
After the wedding dinner the bride slips away unnoticed and changes her gown, and is presently joined by the bridegroom, but not by any of the guests. No rice and no old slippers are thrown in Germany, and no crowd of friends a.s.sembles to see the young pair start. The bride bids her parents farewell, and slips away with her husband unseen and unattended. After the wedding dinner there is often dancing and music.
A hundred years ago wedding festivities lasted for many days after the wedding, and the bride and bridegroom did not go till they were over.
When the celebrated and much married Caroline Schlegel married her first husband, George Bohmer, in 1784, the ceremony took place at her own home in Gottingen, where her father was a well-known professor.
”It would be unnatural if a young wife did not begin with an account of her wedding day,” she says in one of her letters. ”Mine was delightful enough. Bohmer breakfasted with me, and the morning hours pa.s.sed gaily, and yet with quietness. There was no trepidation--only an intercourse of souls. My brother came. We were together till four, and when he left us he gave us his blessing with tears.... Lotte and Friederike wove the bridal wreath.... Then I had a talk with my father and dressed myself.... Meanwhile those dear Meiners sent me a note, with which were some garters they had embroidered themselves. Several of my friends wrote to me, and last of all I got a silhouette, painted on gla.s.s, of Lotte and Friederike weaving my bridal wreath. When I was dressed I was a pretty bride. The room was charmingly decorated by my mother. Soon after four o'clock Bohmer arrived, and the guests, thirty-eight in number. Thank Heaven, there were no old uncles and aunts, so the company was of a more bearable type than is usual on such occasions. I stood there surrounded by my girl friends, and my most vivid thought was of what my condition would be if I did not love the man before me. My father, who was still far from well, led me to the clergyman, and I saw myself for life at Bohmer's side and yet did not tremble. During the ceremony I did not cry. But after it was over and Bohmer took me in his arms with every expression of the deepest love, while parents, brothers, sisters, and friends greeted me with kind wishes as never a bride was greeted before, my brother being quite overwhelmed--then my heart melted and overflowed out of sheer happiness.”
A week later Caroline and her husband are still at Gottingen, and still celebrating their marriage. At one house, under pretence of the heat, the bride was led into the garden, and beheld there an illuminated motto: ”Happy the man who has a virtuous wife: his life will be doubly long.” Another friend arrayed her son as Hymen, and taught him to strew flowers in Caroline's path, leading her thus to an arbour where there was a throne of moss and flowers, with high steps ascending to it, a canopy and a triumphal arch. Concealed behind a bush were musicians, who sang an appropriate song, while the bride and bridegroom mounted the throne and sank in each other's arms before a crowd of sympathising and tearful spectators.
This took place more than a hundred and twenty years ago, but I have in my possession what I can only describe as the ”literature” of a marriage celebrated three years ago between a North and a South German, both belonging to commercial families of old standing; and it supplies me, if I needed it, with doc.u.mentary evidence that Germans enjoy now what they enjoyed then. The marriage took place in winter and from a flat, so that the bride's friends could not build grottoes or hide musicians behind a bush; but for weeks before both sides of the family must have been busy composing the poems sung at the wedding feast, the music that accompanied them, and the elaborate humorous verses containing allusions to the past history of the bride and bridegroom. To begin with, there is a dainty book of picture postcards, the first one giving portraits of a very handsome and dignified bridegroom with his dainty bride. Then there is a view of Dresden where the bridegroom was born, another of the Rhenish town in which he found his bride, and one of Berlin where she used to stay with a married sister and deal ”baskets” right and left to would-be admirers. In Germany, when a girl refuses a man she is said to give him a ”basket,” and a favourite old figure in the cotillon used to put one in a girl's hands and then present two men to her. She danced with the one she liked best, and the rejected man had to dance round after them with the basket.
Besides the book of postcards, each guest at this wedding was presented with printed copies of the _Tafel-Lieder_ composed by members of the family. One of these has eight verses and each verse has eight lines. It relates little events in the life of the bridegroom from babyhood onwards. You learn that he was a clever child, that he lived at home with his mother instead of going abroad to learn his work, that when he was young he ardently desired to go on the stage, that he is a fine gymnast and musician, but that he needs a wife because he is a dreamy person capable of putting on odd boots.
Another _Tafel-Lied_ describes the courts.h.i.+p step by step, and even the a.s.sistance given by the poet's wife to bring the romance to its present happy conclusion.
”At last Frau Sophie stirred in the affair, Her eyes had pierced to his heart's desire, With fine diplomacy she coaxed Miss Clare To own her maiden heart was set on fire.
On all the words and sighs there follow deeds: He comes, he woos her, and at last succeeds.”
The songs are not all sentiment. They are jocular, and contain puns and play upon names. Three out of the five end with an invitation to everyone to raise their gla.s.ses with a _Hoch_ to the married pair.
This is done over and over again at German weddings, and as all the guests want to clink gla.s.ses with the bride and bridegroom, there is a good deal of movement as well as noise. Besides the _Tafel-Lieder_, each of which made a separate booklet with its own dedication and ill.u.s.tration, every guest received an elaborate book of samples: samples of the various straws used that summer for ladies' hats. The bridegroom's family had manufactured hats for many generations; they were wealthy, highly considered people, and extremely proud of their position in their own industry. I am sure that when an Englishman in the same trade and of the same standing gets married, the last thing that would be mentioned at his wedding would be hats. It would be considered in the highest degree indecorous. But the German is still guileless enough to be satisfied with his station in life when it is sufficiently honourable and prosperous, and for this wedding two little nieces had prepared this card of samples and composed a rhyme for each different colour--
”Wie ist doch der Onkel hoch begluckt Das Tantchen heute der 'Brautkranz' schmuckt”
went with ”myrtle green.”
”Liebe Gaste, mit Genuss, Wollet alle Euch erheben-- Hoch das Brautpaar-- Es soll leben!”
went with the ”champagne” straw at the end; and one accompanying the ”silver” straw contained an allusion to the ”silver” wedding twenty-five years hence, when the bride's golden hair would be silver-grey.
Here is the _menu_, mostly in French, to which all the _Tafel-Lieder_ were sung, and all the toasts drunk and congratulatory speeches made.
You will observe that it is none of your light cup, cake, and ice entertainments that you have subst.i.tuted for the solid old wedding breakfast in this country.
HOCHZEITS-TAFEL.
Caviar-Schnitten Potage Douglas Saumon-S^{ce} Bernaise Pommes Naturelles Selle de Chevreuil a la Chipolata Ris de Veau en demi Deuil Poularde Salade & Compote Asperges en Branches S^{ce} Mousseline Glace Napolitaine Patisserie Fruits & Dessert Fromage
Scharzberger Mousseux 1900er Caseler 1896er St. Emilion
1890er Schloss Johannisberg
Moet et Chandon White Star
And that no guest should depart hungry--
Kaltes Abendbrot Bier
Germans celebrate both silver and golden weddings with as much ceremony and rejoicing as the first wedding. The husband and wife receive presents from all their friends, and entertain them according to the best of their circ.u.mstances. Children will travel across the world and bring grandchildren with them to one of these anniversaries, and they are of course a great occasion for the topical poetry, theatricals, and tableaux that Germans enjoy. If the grandmother by good luck has saved a gown she wore as a girl, and the grandchild can put it on and act some little episode from the old lady's youth, everyone will applaud and enjoy and be stirred to smiles and tears.