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The marriage

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

The ceremony.
At last the day had come and the young couple would be married. It had been a lot of work to fix everything. First of all the date. For us it is enough to check if this day is convenient for all the relatives, the caterers et cetera. Not so for the ancient Romans. Firs of all they had to check if the time proposed was “faustus” or “infaustus”. Then the astrologers had to examine if the day that had been picked was suitable for the two young people. What were their birthdays? Which stars dominated the nights during which they were born? Was the month one during which it was not advisable to marry? May was a bad one, for instance, instead the middle of June was just right And so on Everything was discussed and studied, but at last the day was fixed and the ceremony began.
The day before the marriage the young bride deposed her girlish dresses and with all her dolls and toys consecrated them to the family altar’s gods. After that she put on a special prenuptial dress and with this act she indicated that the marriage was in course. Then in the evening she went to bed with her hairs held tight by an orange colored bonnet.
The morning after her toilette began early. First of all the bride’s hairs were combed in the bridal traditional hairdressing which was called “sex crines”. With a spear, called “hasta caelibaris”, her hairs were divided in six locks which were tightly braided, brought on the top of her head and there rolled up one over the other to form a kind of cylinder which stood high and straight. On it the bride veil would be settled enhancing the young woman figure.
The division of the six locks was done, as we have just told, using a spear but not an ordinary one. The “hasta caelibaris” had to be a weapon with which a gladiator was killed. Some historians even declared that the gladiator had to be just slain and that fresh blood should drop from the point of the lance. Of course this is quite difficult to believe. Gladiators were very expensive and their managers (lanists) didn’t approve to have one of them killed for each marriage celebrated in Rome; moreover the gladiators knew very well how to sell their life dear and to defend themselves from people rushing at them with “hastae caelibares” in their hands. Thus also if I believe that in one of the Arena’s spectacle a gladiator must have been killed with this spear, that could have happened long time before the young couple marriage and not just when the girl was waiting to be correctly combed. I am sure that the only thing one could see on the “hasta caelibaris” point must have been a rusty spot of very dry and old blood.. However, also in this way, this head combing looks quite gory.
After this first part of the preparations, the girl put on the marriage dress which was the same for all the Roman brides. It was called “tunica recta”, a straight linen dress that was fastened at the waist by a belt (“cingulum”) tied in a special knot called “Hercule’s knot”. It was the bridegroom’s task to unfasten it at night.
At last the girl completed her attire covering herself with the “flammeum”, an orange colored veil. It was so clad that she left her rooms and attended to the marriage’s preliminaries. First of all the priests took the omens ad controlled if everything was right and if really the marriage was starting in a propitious moment. Then, if everything went well, the “tabulae nuptiales”, the marriage contract, was signed by ten witnesses chosen among the family best friends, and it was always in this occasion that the dowry was given to the bridegroom, a dowry which, in case of the marriage dissolution through no wrongful act from the young woman part, had to be given back to her father.
All this done, began the really ceremony. In the hall or in the atrium where it had to be celebrated. her parents, her bridegroom and the “Pronuba”, an important figure in the wedding, a lady of high moral standing who also was “Univira” and had had only one husband were congregated. Immediately the “Pronuba”, proceeded to join the couple’s right hands, an act called “Dexterarum Iunctio” symbolizing the union of the two, a scene often reproduced in bas relieves and also in the marriage rings. At this moment if the marriage was celebrated by the “Confarreatio” the couple had to offer to Iovis Faucus a spelt’s flat cake that was offered to the family’s altar pronouncing very ancient ritual formulas. If it was a “Coemptio” all was finished and they proceeded to partake the dinner (Cena Nuptialis). Immediately after this the wedding procession started. It began with a faked wrangle between the bridegroom and the young woman’s mother during which the bridegroom snatched his bride from her mother’s arms. Then everybody moved toward the bridegroom’s house. To the head of the procession walked the bride accompanied by three boys chosen among their friends’ children and whose parents had to be both alive. Two of them walked aside the young woman, while the third one preceded her wagging a hawthorn’s torch lighted at the family’s altar. The girl held in her hands the distaff and the spindle and was followed not only by her wedding procession but also by a mass of people who had decided to aggregate them to it and who, beside intoning nuptial hymns as the Greek poetic appeal to the marriage god Hymen joined also the Roman popular chant of “Talassio” in memory of the Sabines’ abduction when a man, charged by a certain Talassio, took by force a young Sabine and brought her in his arms yelling and explaining that she was only for him. All this people didn’t confine their vocal exhibition only to hymns and all along their walk they joined to their songs spicy jokes and cutting remarks usually very salacious. Nobody objected. It was the tradition.
Little by little the procession reached its end and, at the arrival of the bride, the garlands framed door of the bridegroom house opened widely. The girl immediately propitiated its threshold anointing it with pork’s lard and adorning it with woolen bands. The bridegroom waited for her right at the door and at this moment he asked her which was her name. At this the girl answered with the ancient formula “Ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia” that meant “Wherever you will be, Gaius, I Gaia will be”. Then the man took her in his arms and brought her into the house. It seems that this was done because the bride had still not be initiated to her husband’s cult. As each family had a cult of their own and as each were different from the others, had different prayers and different rites, the girl was brought in her husband arms because the tradition didn’t want that her foot could touch the threshold of a house to which she still didn’t belong.
But another reason given of why the bride was held in her husband’s arms was that it was done to avoid that she could stumble on the threshold which was interpreted as a very bad ill omen, This however didn’t explain why in case of a second marriage the woman had to enter on her own feet. Varro thought that this could be explained with the girl’s virginity. The belief was based on the fact that the house threshold was sacred to Vesta the most chaste of all the goddesses. Whichever was the reason of this, once in the house the bride was led by her husband to the family altar and here she accomplished the rite with which she partook her husband’s water and fire. It is amusing to note that the tradition of bringing the bride in her husband has became a modern usage without nobody knowing the reason for it.
After this rite the “Pronuba” led the girl to a special bed “Lectus genialis” that had been prepared in the house and where the bride sat in front of all the presents. After this the couple could retire in their room and be, at last, alone.