chief magistrates presided; and the same tribunal received the complaints of wives who sought to be divorced from their husbands.

Among the peasantry in modern Greece marriage was contracted from mutual knowledge and attachment, but among the higher orders the match was generally made by the parents or friends without the parties either seeing each other or consenting. Often some matron, like the ancient medium in such cases, managed the courtship and concluded the treaty. Then the couple were at liberty to see and converse with each other; this, however, was not always the case, for sometimes the bride and bridegroom met on their wedding day for the first time.

The bride generally worked her wedding garments; and on the eve of the day appointed for her bridal she was conducted by her young female friends in procession to a bath. On the following morning, at an early hour, the bridegroom proceeded to the house of her parents, attended by a crowd of young men, who sang, and danced, and shouted out the perfections and virtues of the couple. The lady was led forth loaded with jewelry, and supported by her father and a brideman. As she proceeded, followed by her mother and the matrons, showers of nuts, cakes, and bouquets were poured out of the windows of her friends.

The nuptial ceremony was performed with many forms. and but little solemnity. On the heads of the bride and bridegroom were placed alternately by one of the priests chaplets of flowers, among which were, if obtainable, lilies and ears of corn, as emblems of purity and abundance. Two rings, one of gold, the other of silver, were interchanged several times between the parties, and the ceremony concluded by their both drinking wine out of one cup. The bride was then conducted to her husband's abode, and she was carefully lifted across the threshold by

her parents. If the husband entertained any suspicion of her honor, she was made to tread on a sieve covered with a skin, and should it not yield to her pressure she was deemed to be guilty.

Among the peasantry, the bride, accompanied by her bridesmaids and her husband's relations, went from house to house of her neighbors, and received from each male inhabitant a few coins. In the more remote parts of Greece it was customary to receive these presents before marriage; and early in the present century the village girls used to collect their portions and arrange them as ornaments for their hair. Their tresses were hung with coins nearly down to their feet; and under no circumstances would they use these ornamental moneys except for their marriage portions.

Dodswell, in his "Tour Through Greece," in 1801-6, says that the Albanian unmarried girls wore red skull-caps, which were covered more or less with money, according to the wealth of the persons. They sometimes wore their dowers upon their heads, consisting of Turkish paras, small silver coins, and piastres, which were perforated and strung round the cap, each overlapping the other like scales. In the front was sometimes a row of Venetian sequins; and if the lady was very rich, some larger pieces of gold coin attracted the eyes of her admirers. The Montenegrin damsels adopted a similar custom.

Dodswell also says that he saw at Athens the ceremonies of an Albanian marriage. The bride arrived from the country riding on horseback; a man walked before her, and a female on each side of her. She was covered with a long and transparent veil, through which she could see, while it concealed her features entirely. She was accompanied by a Papas, and a great crowd of both sexes, as well as by · drummers and fifers. The nuptial bed, brought from the

bride's village on horseback, formed a conspicuous feature in the procession. When the bride reached the bridegroom's house she was welcomed by women, who danced and sang nuptial songs. When she alighted her veil was taken off, and she was conducted into the presence of her husband. A feast followed, at which the pair were presented with pomegranates, as emblems of fertility. The same author says that near Athens was a rock of a few feet in height, on which newly-married women sat and slipped down, in order that they might be blessed with

numerous sons.

The faith of the Greek church is not now confined to Greece, but is spread extensively over Russia and Turkey. In the seventeenth century a rule among the people professing the religion of this church was that the bridegroom must be at least fourteen years of age, and the bride at least thirteen. A woman who married a Christian of the Western churches was excommunicated, and precluded from participating in any communion with her own religious body. In a Greek church marriage the parties often actually bought each other; the bride counted down her dowry, and the bridegroom his price, in the presence of themselves and of their relations and friends; the men sitting round a table, and the women on raised benches, to witness the ceremony. The bride was then placed on a seat in her apartment, with a gilt crown on her head, and there she received the presents of her guests. These ceremonies generally took place early in the day, and after partaking of some wine and sweetmeats the guests separated, but they returned at night to supper. On the next day, if it could be proved to the satisfaction of attendant women that the bride had been pure, a feast celebrated the event; but if otherwise, no rejoicings took place, and the bridegroom sent the bride back to her friends.

Often the mere money contract was the only form of a Greek marriage, and no proclamation in church was made, or intervention of a priest had. When, however, the rites were fully performed, they consisted of two parts, the betrothal and the actual marriage, and were as follows:— At the betrothal the priest, remaining in the sacrarium, delivered to the couple, who stood without the sacred doors, lighted candles. He then returned with them into the body of the church, and there two rings were produced, one of gold, the other of silver. These were placed upon the altar, and dedicated and consecrated. The priest gave the gold ring to the bridegroom, and the silver ring to the bride, repeating three times, "The servant of God (naming the husband) espouses the handmaid of God (naming the wife)." Then turning to the woman, he thrice repeated the same form, changed according to the circumstances. The rings were put on the right-hand finger of both of the parties, taken off, and interchanged by the bridegroom's man, in order, as it has been said, that the woman might not feel too deeply her inferiority, which the less costly material of her ring seemed to hint at, as also to confirm the mutual right and possession of property in common.

After the betrothal the marriage followed, and it was not allowed to be private. Crowns made of olive branches, surrounded with white threads interwoven with purple, were used at the marriage; hence a wedding was often called a crowning. The priest, putting one crown on the head of the man, said, "The servant of God (naming him) is crowned, that is, marries the handmaid of God (naming her)." He then crowned the woman with another chaplet, saying similar words. Then joining their right hands, he blessed them three times, and handed them a cup of wine to drink, as a token of unity and a pledge of community of possession.

Dallaway, in his "Constantinople," 1797, says that marriage in the Greek church was called "the matrimonial coronation, from the crowns of garlands with which the parties are decorated, and which they solemnly dissolve on the eighth day following."

A writer early in the present century says that at Greek marriages at that time tinsel crowns were placed on the couple's heads in the church, where also tapers were lighted, and rings were put on the fingers of both the bride and the bridegroom. After the wedding the husband scattered money at the door of his dwelling. A procession always accompanied the bride and bridegroom from the parental home of the former to the house of the latter at night. Consummation was deferred until the third day of the ceremonials, on which day the bride unloosed a mystic zone which hitherto she had worn.

By the Romans, as well as by the Jews and Greeks, marriage was considered to be an imperative duty; and parents were reprehended if they did not obtain husbands for their daughters by the time they had reached the age of twenty-five years. The Roman law recognized monogamy only, and polygamy was prohibited in the entire empire. Hence the former became practically the rule of all Christians, and was introduced into the canon law of the Eastern and Western churches.

The ceremonial parts of the marriage were of three kinds : 1. A woman who lived one year with a man without interruption became his wife by virtue of the cohabitation; but in order to avoid the legal effect of this usus it was necessary only for her to absent herself from the man for three nights during the year, which would be a sufficient legal interruption of the cohabitation. 2. The confarreatio, which was in the nature of a religious ceremony, and was so called from the use of a cake or loaf of bread on the oc