Marriage Customs & Traditions of the World

The Marriage Customs of the World if treated exhaustively, would fill a good many volumes, and the compilation of such a work might occupy the best part of life-time. The present writer’s object is to present to general readers a careful account of quaint and interesting customs derived from information scattered through innumerable volumes, not to discuss scientific questions connected with the origin of marriage and the human family, which have been dealt with by well-known writers like Sir John Lubbock, Professor Tylor, Professor Robertson Smith, Westermark and McLenan. The present age, with its marvellous facilities for travel and consequent bringing together of peoples and races, is not favourable to the preservation of old customs. In fact, they are fast dying out everywhere, and, era long, most of them will be as dead as the mammoth, or other extinct monsters. Hence, it is highly desirable that the old customs connected with betrothal and marriages should be brought together and presented to the public in some convenient and compact form.