The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage Part 9

A bridesmaid who lives at a distance must be asked to stay at the bride's home for a few days before the wedding.

The death of a near relation would necessitate the postponement of the wedding, and this would cancel all invitations. In cases of loss more remote from the young couple, the wedding takes place soon after the first date, "but quietly, owing to family bereavement." A notice to this effect is often put in the papers when a marriage has been publicly announced, but in a more private affair, notes would be sent to those who had been invited.

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CHAPTER XIII

_Wedding Presents--Choosing and Furnishing the House--What the Bridegroom Supplies--The Bride's Share in the Matter._

Wedding Presents.

With the increasing luxury and love of display that marks modern life the wedding-present tax, as I have heard it called, becomes a burden proportionately heavy to the social ambition of the giver. It seems a pity that there should be so much vulgarising advertis.e.m.e.nt about what are supposed to be private weddings. There is also too much routine in the choice of the gifts themselves. The perennial mustard-pots and salt-cellars are monotonous, and while comparative strangers may be driven to make a conventional offering, private friends might leave the groove and strike out a new line.

Cheques are only given by old friends or relations of the recipient.

They are always acceptable. The future position of the couple should be taken into account. Good silver is always a joy, except perhaps when you have to keep it clean. The young wife with only one servant will have to rub up her own silver backed brushes and sweetmeat dishes if she wants them to look nice. Of course it may be said that extra silver can be put by till circ.u.mstances improve, or that it might be useful in a financial emergency. This last idea is rather a gruesome one to take to a wedding, and it is in the early days of her housekeeping that the young wife likes to have her pretty things about her. Why an artistic chair or table should not be as suitable as an _entree dish_ I do not quite see, and if a place is to look homelike pictures are quite as necessary as silver pepper-pots.

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A Temptation.

Both bride and bridegroom receive presents, some for individual, others for mutual use. The bride must promptly and personally acknowledge all those that are sent to her, and the bridegroom does the same on his own account. Presents from mutual friends would be mutually acknowledged, especially if the gift were sent to both of them. When one does not feel very kindly disposed to the man or woman whom our dear friend is going to marry there is a great temptation--I don't know that it need be resisted--to send a gift that will be the property and pleasure of that friend, and not to give the mutual mustard-pot into which both will dip the spoon.

How to Send Them.

All wedding presents should be nicely and daintily packed up.

Sometimes they are better sent from the shop direct, but in that case the card or cards of the donors should accompany them. Many people tie their cards on with narrow white ribbon, and anything that adds to the daintiness of a present is to be commended. It is a very sensible plan for relations to let the young people choose their own sideboard or dinner service, instead of buying it for them. There is only one drawback to this arrangement. The thing that costs the most is so often the thing we want most, even before we know the price, and it would not be nice to feel we had trespa.s.sed on the generosity of the giver by inducing him to spend more than he intended. It is becoming the fashion for members of a family to club together and give a handsome piece of jewellery, instead of each one presenting a smaller trinket. This might well be done with more practical presents.

The Art of Giving.

Much of the pleasure afforded by a gift is contained in the way it is given. There is an exquisite art in giving. Many people choose a present just because they happen to like the thing themselves, whereas a gift should be selected entirely with a view to the pleasure or use it will afford to its future owner. A grand piano is no good to a girl who will not have {79} a room large enough to hold it and herself.

Costly china is only an enc.u.mbrance to a woman who is going to follow the fortunes of her soldier husband, and who will not have a settled home for years. There must be kindly sympathy in the choice of gifts as well as tact and courtesy in the offering of them.

The Selection of the House.

Whenever it is possible the young or newly married couple should start their life together in a home of their own. I would warn all brides to superintend the choice of that home. A man, certainly one of the nicest kind, has not what may be called a domestic eye. If he is artistic he will choose a dwelling for its picturesqueness, regardless of drains and dank ditches near the house. An inert man will value his home for its proximity to the station. Another considers the garden the most important feature. The stay-at-home will be influenced by the place which affords the most scope for the pursuit of his hobbies. Men cannot gauge the amount of work that may be made or saved by the build of a house and the arrangement of its rooms. The all-important question of cupboards and store-rooms, the aspect of the larder and condition of the kitchen range are things that do not appeal to the masculine mind, especially when that mind is in love. If the bride is young and inexperienced she will do well to visit the projected abode with some practised housewife. The expeditions taken by the engaged couple in search of their new home ought surely to be among their sweetest experiences, even taking into account the misleading tactics of the house agent.

Furnishing.

In olden days, when the daughters of Eve span, the bride provided all the household linen, most of which had taken shape under her own fair fingers. Now the intending bridegroom furnishes the house throughout.

If the bride's father were wealthy and generous enough to make them a present of the lining for the nest, I do not suppose the bridegroom or the bride would have any objection. One argument for not furnishing till after the wedding is that many of the presents in money and kind might be valuable adjuncts; {80} but then those presents would come from near relations who could tell the young people what to expect. A chest of plate or a box of linen, a piano or some such handsome item often comes from some one in the bride's family, but failing such gifts, the bridegroom must supply the new home with all needful articles.

The Bride's Share in the Matter.

As she is to be the mistress of the establishment, the bride should have a voice in all that concerns it. Many departments of house furnishing do not require the a.s.sistance of the male mind at all. They will both like to choose the actual household G.o.ds, to discuss schemes of colour and decoration together; but no woman need take a man to buy saucepans, or request his opinion on such soft matters as pillows and blankets. It will please his mother if the bride consults her about domestic details, and in any case she will profit by the advice of one who has been there.

Things to be Considered.

However small it is, the newly married pair should have their home to themselves, and it is as well not to settle immediately under the parental eye on either side. Like Kipling's ship, they have to "find themselves," and they will do it far better alone together. At the same time it is not good for a bride to be set down in an utterly strange neighbourhood, where she will not know a soul till the people are thoroughly satisfied as to her respectability. This, as we shall see later, may const.i.tute a grave danger.

The husband should think of his wife's daily round as well as of his own train service to town or the house's proximity to the golf links.

They should go to some place within easy reach of friends, or where they have good introductions to possible people. When preparing to start life together they should not be too ambitious. Because she has been brought up in a big house, he is doing her no kindness by saddling himself with a higher rent than he can really afford to pay.

She is quite willing to take him in exchange for the extra accommodation that she is giving up. That is, if she is the right sort of woman.

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CHAPTER XIV

_The Nature of the Ceremony--Religious or Civil--Banns or Licence--Legal Formalities--Settlements._

The Nature of the Ceremony.

In most foreign countries a civil contract has to precede any religious ceremony that may be desired. In England the marriage is either religious or civil, though in order to make the union valid certain legal formalities must be observed with every religious form of marriage.

The Religious Ceremony

will not lightly be set aside by those who regard marriage in its highest aspect; but the nature of the service will differ according to the views of the contracting parties. A valid marriage can only take place in a church or chapel duly licensed by the bishop for the solemnisation of such a ceremony.

Banns.

This word, which we now connect exclusively with the one idea, applied in former days to any public proclamation. Where marriage by banns is desired due notice must be given, so that they can be published on three Sundays, before the ceremony, in the parish or parishes where the intending bride and bridegroom live at the time. If the wedding is to take place elsewhere the clergyman who has published the banns signs a certificate to that effect, which must be given to the one in whose church the service is performed. If wrong names are wilfully given in, with intent to deceive, the {82} publication of banns is invalid, and the marriage will be null and void. If only one party be guilty of fraud in this respect the proceedings are legal. Unless the couple are married within three months of the publication of their banns they must be republished or a licence procured. One object of these restrictions is to check runaway matches, and to ascertain whether the parties are of legal age, or are marrying with proper consent from parents or guardians. A marriage may be performed in a church without banns on production of a registrar's certificate. I know of a runaway couple who were married in church as soon as their parents found out that they had been before the registrar.

Licences.

These are of two kinds, the common and the special. A common licence is given by the archbishop or bishop, and can be obtained in London at the Faculty Office, 23 Knightrider's Street, Doctors' Commons, E.C., or at the Vicar-General's Office, 3 Creed Lane, Ludgate Hill, E.C., between the hours of 10 A.M. and 4 P.M., on all week days, except Sat.u.r.day, when they close at 2 P.M. Licences from these two places are available for use in any part of England or Wales. They cost thirty shillings, with an extra twelve and sixpence for stamps. In order to prevent fraud, no licence can be given till one of the parties has made a declaration on oath that there is no legal impediment to the marriage, and that one of them has lived for fifteen days in the parish or district where the wedding is to take place. This last restriction is often evaded by the bridegroom's taking a bedroom in which he possibly sleeps one night, and where he is represented by a bag containing--stones, or a collar, if he likes.

Those licences obtained from the bishop's diocesan registry can only be used in the diocese where they are issued. They cost from 1, 15s.

to 2, 12s. 6d., according to the diocese. The vicar or rector of any parish will give full particulars as to how they are to be obtained in country places.