“This was not a payment in the shape of a dowry; for the woman was his property, if he thought fit to claim her, by virtue of the marriage already had; but it was a present supply of her necessary wants, by which he acknowledged her as his wife, and engaged to furnish her with alimony, not ample indeed, but suitable to the recluse life which he prescribed to her.”

And in allusion, in verse 3., to the words “Thou shall abide for me many days,” Dr. Pocock thus explains the context: 

    “That is, thou shalt stay sequestered, and as in a state of widowhood,
    till the time come that I shall be fully reconciled to thee, and shall
    see fit again to receive thee to the privileges of a wife.”

Both commentators are here evidently alluding to what occurs after a marriage has actually taken place.  Handfasting takes place before a marriage is consummated.

A chapter upon marriage contracts and ceremonies would form an important and amusing piece of history.  I have not Picart’s Religious Ceremonies at hand, but if I mistake not he refers to many.  In Marco Polo’s Travels, I find the following singular, and to a Christian mind disgusting, custom.  It is related in section l9.:—­

“These twenty days journey ended, having passed over the province of Thibet, we met with cities and many villages, in which, through the blindness of idolatry, a wicked custom is used; for no man there marrieth a wife that is a virgin; whereupon, when travellers and strangers, coming from other places, pass through this country and pitch their pavilions, the women of that place having marriageable daughters, bring them unto strangers, desiring them to take them and enjoy their company as long as they remain there.  Thus the handsomest are chosen, and the rest return home sorrowful, and when they depart, they are not suffered to carry any away with them, but faithfully restore them to their parents.  The maiden also requireth some toy or small present of him who hath deflowered her, which she may show as an argument and proof of her condition; and she that hath been loved and abused of most men, and shall have many such favours and toys to show to her wooers, is accounted more noble, and may on that account be advantageously married; and when she would appear most honourably dressed, she hangs all her lovers’ favours about her neck, and the more acceptable she was to many, so much the more honour she receives from her countrymen.  But when they are once married, they are no more suffered to converse with strange men, and men of this country are very cautious never to offend one another in this matter.”

J.M.G.

Worcester, Oct. 1850.

The curious subject brought forward by J.M.G. under this title, and enlarged upon by JARLTZBERG (Vol. ii., p. 282.), leads me to trouble you with this in addition.  Elizabeth Mure, according to the History and Descent of the House of Rowallane by Sir William Mure, was made choyce of, for her excellent beautie and rare virtues, by King Robert II., to be Queen of Scotland; and if their union may be considered to illustrate in any way the singular custom of Handfasting, it will be seen {343} from the following extract that they were also married by a priest:—­