With a Japanese marriage neither religion nor the Church has anything to do.  At the wedding no robed priest appears officially among the guests.  The marriage is simply a civil and social contract.  In place of our bans is the acceptance of the suitor’s presents by the family of the sought, the announced betrothal and intimation of the marriage to the police of the ward.  In place of our answer, “Yes,” is the sacramental drinking of wine.  We may say “wine,” because we are talking of high life, and must use high words. Sake, the universal spirituous beverage of Japan, is made from fermented rice, and hence is properly rice-beer.  It looks like pale sherry, and has a taste which is peculiarly its own.  Sweet sake is very delicious, and it may be bought in all the degrees of strength and of all flavors and prices.  As the Japanese always drink their wine hot, a copper kettle for heating sake is a necessity in every household.  On ceremonial occasions, such as marriages, the sake-kettles are of the costliest and handsomest kind, being beautifully lacquered.  Bride and groom being ready, the wine-kettles, cups and two bottles are handed down.  Two pretty servant-maids now bring in a hot kettle of wine and fill the bottles.  To one bottle is fastened by a silken cord a male butterfly, and to the other a female.  The two girls also are called “male” and “female” butterflies.  The girl having the female butterfly pours out some sake in the kettle, into which the girl with the male butterfly also pours the contents of her bottle, so that the wine from both bottles thus flows together.  Then the sake is poured again into another gilt-and-lacquered bottle of different shape.

Now the real ceremony begins.  On a little stand three cups, each slightly concave and having an under-rest or foot about half an inch high, are set one upon another, like a pagoda.  The stand with this three-storied arrangement is handed to the bride.  Holding it in both hands while the sake is poured into it by the male butterfly, the bride lifts the cup, sips from it three times, and the tower of cups is then passed to the bridegroom and refilled.  He likewise drinks three times, and puts the empty cup under the third.  The bride again sips thrice from the upper cup.  The groom does the same, and places the empty cup beneath the second.  Again the bride sips three times, and the bridegroom does the same, and they are man and wife:  they are married.  This ceremony is called san-san-ku-do, or “three times three are nine.”

Like a wedding at once auspicious and distingue, the nuptials of Kiku and Taro passed off without one misstep or incident of ill omen.  In the dressing-room and in the hall of ceremony Kiku’s self-possessed demeanor was admired by all.  After drinking the sacramental wine she lifted her silken hood, not too swiftly or nervously, and smiled blushingly on her lord.  The marriage ceremony over, both bride and groom retired to their respective dressing-rooms.