Part 10 (1/2)
The Homeric custom of bringing valuable presents or of performing valiant deeds to win a maiden's hand had long pa.s.sed away, and, in the great days of Athens, the father had to provide a dowry consisting partly of cash, partly of clothes, jewelry, and slaves. Solon, who, as Plutarch tells us, wished to have marriages contracted from motives of pure love or kind affection, and to further the birth of children, rather than for mercenary considerations, decreed that no dowries should be given and that the bride should have only three changes of clothes; but this good custom had pa.s.sed away with the era of simple living. So distinctly was the dowry the indispensable condition of marriage, that poor girls were often endowed by generous relatives, or the State itself would provide a wedding portion for the daughters of men deserving well of their country. For example, when the Athenians heard that the granddaughter of Aristogiton, the Tyrannicide, was in needy circ.u.mstances in the isle of Lemnos, and was so poor that n.o.body would marry her, they brought her back to Athens, married her to a man of good birth, and gave her a farm at Potamos for a marriage portion. The dowry was generally secured to the wife by rigid restrictions; in most cases of separation, the dowry reverted to the wife's parents; and though the husband's fortune might be confiscated, the marriage portion of the wife was exempt.
Of the ceremonies and formalities of marriage, the solemn betrothal was the first and most important, as it established the legality of the union; and it was at this ceremony that the dowry was settled upon the bride. In the presence of the two families, the father of the maiden addressed the bridegroom in the following formula: ”That legitimate children may be born, I present you my daughter.” The betrothed then exchanged vows by clasping their right hands or by embracing each other, and the maiden received a gift from her affianced as a token of love.
The marriage usually followed close upon the betrothal.
The favorite month for the ceremony was named Gamelion, or the ”marriage month”; this included part of our January and part of February. On the eve of the wedding, the good will of the divinities protecting marriage, especially Zeus Teleios, Hera Teleia, and Artemis Eukleia, was invoked by prayer and sacrifices.
Strange to say, the wedding itself, though given a religious character by its attendant ceremonies, was neither a religious nor a legal act.
The legality of the marriage was established by the betrothal, while its religious aspect was found solely in the rites in honor of the marriage G.o.ds.
A second ceremony, universally observed, was the bridal bath, taken individually by both bride and bridegroom previously to their union. In Athens, from time immemorial, the water for this bath was taken from the sacred fountain, Callirrhoe, called since its enclosure by Pisistratus ”Enneacrunus,” or ”the Nine Spouts.” Authorities differ as to whether a boy or a girl served as water carrier on this occasion; but the latter supposition is supported by an archaic picture on a hydria, representing the holy fountain Callirrhoe flowing from the head of a lion under a Doric superstructure. A girl, holding in her hand branches of laurel or myrtle, looks musingly down on a hydria, which is being filled with the bridal water. Five other maidens are grouped about the fountain, some with empty pitchers awaiting their turn, others about to go home with their filled pitchers. No doubt it is in the month of marriage, and many maidens are preparing for the happy event.
On the wedding day, toward dark, a feast was held at the parental home, at which were gathered all the bridal party--for this was one of the few occasions in Athenian life when men and women dined together. Here the bride and groom appeared, clad in purple and crowned with flowers sacred to Aphrodite. The distinctive mark of the bride was the veil, which covered her head and partly concealed her face. All the guests wore wreaths in honor of the joyous event. With her own hand the bride plucked the poppies and sesame which were to crown her forehead, for it would have been an ill omen to wear a nuptial wreath that had been purchased.
Soon the banquet is concluded with libations and prayer, just as night begins to fall. Then the bride leaves the festively adorned parental home, and takes her place in a chariot, between the bridegroom and his best man, for the wedding journey to her new abode. The place of honor in the procession that follows is held by the bride's mother, who walks behind the chariot, carrying the wedding torches, which have been kindled at the family hearth, that the bride may have the sacred fire of her own home continued in her new dwelling. The festal company join in singing the wedding song to Hymenaeus to the sound of flutes as the chariot leads slowly toward the bridegroom's house. At the close of the _Birds_ of Aristophanes, when occurs the wedding of Pisthetaerus and Basileia, the chorus attends the wedded pair with the following lines:
”Jupiter, that G.o.d sublime, When the Fates in former time Matched him with the Queen of Heaven At a solemn banquet given, Such a feast was held above, And the charming G.o.d of Love Being present in command, As a bridegroom took his stand With the golden reins in hand, Hymen, Hymen, Ho!”
The new home, like that of the bride's father, is adorned with garlands of laurel and ivy--the laurel for the husband, as the symbol of victory, and the delicate and graceful ivy for the bride, embodying her attachment for her husband, as that of the ivy for the st.u.r.dy oak. At the door, the bridegroom's mother is awaiting the young couple, with the burning torches in her hand. As the spouses enter, a shower of sweetmeats is poured upon their heads, partly in jest, partly to symbolize the abundance and prosperity invoked upon them. To typify the bride's new duties as mistress of the house, a pestle used for bruising corn has been hung up near the bridal chamber; and in conformity to another custom, prevailing since the days of Solon, she is expected to eat a quince, which was considered to be a symbol of fruitfulness. Soon the bridegroom's mother attends the couple to the _thalamos_, or nuptial chamber, where, for the first time, the bride unveils herself to her husband. Meanwhile, before the door, the bride's attendants, crowned with hyacinth, join in the epithalamium, or marriage hymn, a characteristic specimen of which we possess in the bridal hymn to Helen, by Theocritus:
”Slumberest so soon, sweet bridegroom?
Art thou overfond of sleep?
Or hast thou leaden-weighted limbs?
Or hast thou drunk too deep When thou didst fling thee to thy lair?
Betimes thou shouldst have sped, If sleep were all thy purpose, Unto thy bachelor's bed, And left her in her mother's arms, To nestle and to play, A girl among her girlish mates, Till deep into the day:-- For not alone for this night, Nor for the next alone, But through the days and through the years Thou hast her for thine own.”
And it ends thus:
”Sleep on, and love and longing Breathe in each other's breast, But fail not when the morn returns To rouse you from your rest; With dawn shall we be stirring, When, lifting high his fair And feathered neck, the earliest bird To clarion to the dawn is heard.
O G.o.d of brides and bridals, Sing, 'Happy, happy pair!'”
A fragment of Anacreon has preserved for us an example of the morning nuptial chant, sung by the chorus to greet the bride and groom on their awakening:
”Aphrodite, queen of G.o.ddesses; Love, powerful conqueror; Hymen, source of life: it is of you that I sing in my verses. 'Tis of you I chant, Love, Hymen, and Aphrodite. Behold, young man, behold thy wife! Arise, O Straticlus, favored of Aphrodite, husband of Myrilla, admire thy bride!
Her freshness, her grace, her charms, make her s.h.i.+ne among all women.
The rose is queen of flowers; Myrilla is a rose midst her companions.
Mayst thou see grow in thy house a son like to thee!”
Then begins a second fete day for the bridal pair. Husband and wife receive visits and gifts from relatives and friends, and exchange presents with each other. The festivities are concluded with a banquet in the husband's home, at which the wife's position in the clan of her husband's family is recognized; and she may now appear without her veil, as the mistress of her new home.
Wedding scenes are frequently the subject of ill.u.s.tration in antique art. The most remarkable of these is the splendid wall painting known as the _Aldobrandini Wedding_, preserved in the Vatican. It represents, painted on one surface, three different scenes of the marriage ceremony.
The central picture represents a chamber of the _gynoe onitis_, where the bride, chastely veiled, reclines on a beautiful couch; ”Peitho, the G.o.ddess of persuasion, sits by her side, as appears from the crown on her head and from the many-folded peplus falling over her back. She pleads the bridegroom's cause, and seems to encourage the timorous maiden. A third female figure, to the left of the group, leaning on a piece of a column, seems to expect the girl's surrender; for she is pouring ointment from an alabastron into a vase made of sh.e.l.l, so as to have it ready for use after the bridal bath. Most likely she represents the second handmaiden of Aphrodite, Charis, who, according to the myth, bathed and anointed her mistress with ambrosial oil in the holy grove of Paphos. The pillar at the back of Charis indicates the part.i.tion wall between this chamber and the one next to it on the left. We here see a large basin filled with water, standing on a columnar base. The water is perhaps that of the well Callirrhoe, fetched by the young girl standing close by for the nuptial bath. The girl seems to look inquiringly at the matronly figure approaching the basin on the other side, and putting her fingers into the water as if to test its warmth. Her sublime form and priestly dress, together with the leaf-shaped instrument in her hand (probably the instrument used at l.u.s.trations), seem to portray her as Hera Teleia, the protecting G.o.ddess of marriage, in the act of examining and blessing the bridal bath. The third scene of the picture is placed at the entrance of the bride's house. The bridegroom, crowned with vine branches, is sitting on the threshold, as if listening impatiently for the close of the ceremony inside the house. In front of him is a group of three maidens, one of whom seems to be making an offering at a portable altar, while the other two begin the hymenaeus to the accompaniment of the cithara.”
With the completion of the marriage ceremonies, the maiden has pa.s.sed from the _gynaeconitis_ of her father to that of her husband; but, though still under masculine control, she is absolute mistress of her limited sphere; yet she is expected to refrain from manifesting interest in the public affairs of her husband and to confine her attention to her domestic duties.
”Good women must abide within the house; Those whom we meet abroad are nothing worth,”
writes the poet; and this couplet expresses the Athenian husband's idea of the wife's proper sphere of activity. His life is essentially an outdoor one. The market place, a the law courts, the numerous colonnades, are the centres of his activity, where he pa.s.ses his time in attending to business, in discussing politics, in telling or hearing some new thing. His recreations consist in visiting the _palaestrae_ or the _gymnasia_, the clubhouses of ancient Greece, and in partic.i.p.ating with his chosen friends in banquets at which beautiful flute players and cultivated hetaerae afford pastime and amus.e.m.e.nt. He pa.s.ses but little time at home.