The Jewish bridegroom in this eighteenth-century Portuguese engraving (right) prepares to crush the glass from which the couple has ceremonially drunk wine, jews believe the act to be either a token of the bride’s imminent loss of virginity or a commemoration of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. The edifice on the fourteenth-century Jewish wedding ring below may also be a memento of that sacred place. Such rings were often owned by the community and lent to brides.
Leaving the church after the ceremony, a Bolivian bride and groom are showered with rice by family and friends (right).
Foodstuffs have been showered on newly married couples in many societies to encourage fertility: The Greeks threw pomegranate seeds, while the ancient Romans used nuts. In Scotland, an oatcake broken over the bride's head expresses the same wish for her fecundity.
Figures in a wedding party adorn this fifth-century-BC Greek vase, intended to carry water for a bridal couple's ritual baths. Similar purifications have been practiced by Arabs, Jews, Thais, and others into modern times.
Jeweled ornaments dangle from a wedding crown worn by a Norwegian bride in a 1905 drawing (above). To assuage male fears, a Japanese bride's headdress (above, righn is designed to hide the ho of willfulness and spite, which—it is believed— sprout from female heads.
To shield her from evil spirits, the Chinese bride in a nineteenth-century painting is conveyed to her new home in a closed sedan chair. The chair, like the unseen bridal veil, is red—the Chinese color of joy and good luck.
Good luck charms—such as a horseshoe and an old boot—adorn this three-tier Western wedding cake.
Custom decrees that the newlyweds make the first cut in the cake together to guarantee marital harmony in the years ahead.
World History
