Morning journal and courier., 1889-01-22
ORIGIN OF WEDDING TOURS.


 1t Was OrinigaIIy a Scheme to Deter mine Whether Marriage Is Perma- nent.
 From Once Week.
 The origin of the wedding trip is entirely unknown. As to it we can only be sure of one thing-the wedding trip originated among civilized or semi-civilized nations, and not among barbsrians.
 Custom now requires that 8 newly married pair should fly from their friends and seek the seclusion of cottage by the sea, or the more acute loneliness of a hotel crowded with strangers. Exception is sometimes
 made in behalf of husband and wife who are advanced in years, or who, by long con- tinued habit, have become accustomed to undergoing marriage, and look upon taking
 for the third or fourth time the VOWS of
 matrimony with the indifference with which a veteran traveller, landing in New York. swears his way through the custom house. But to young people no social mercy is shown. They must undergo their wedding trip. no matter how much or how justly they may dread it.
 Our barbarous ancestors regarded marriage
 as an affair either of bargain and sale or of
 robbery. In neither case did the successful
 
 Having bought an eligible wife, or having
 picked up cheap wife at bargain, he no
 more thought of carrying her off to some se- cluded place and concealiug himself and his purchase for month than the fortunate buy CT of fine picture or good table, bought for a song at an auction, thinks of hiding
 the evidence of his good fortune and dis-
 cernment. Neither did the cave dweller,
 who probably knocked down his beloved ob
 ject with club, and, throwing her over his
 shoulder, carried her to his private cave,
 think of flying with her to some large and
 fashionable seaside cave and spending three or four weeks with her in the darkness of the stuffy and stalagmite strewn bridal chamber. On the contrary he was proud of his prowess, and on the morning after his marriage exhibited his new wife with her head covered with sticking plaster, and cas- ually remarked to his friends that although he had married large number of wives, this particular one had the thickest skull he had ever cracked. Such is to this very day the custom in the best circles of native Australian society, and scientific persons are of the opinion that the Australians are the oldest race now on the planet.
 Concedipg then that the wedding trip has not come down to us from primitive and savage man, it must have been the invention of comparatively civilized people. What could have been the motive which gave birth to such a customa The answer must be sought by conjecture, but in this case con lecture may prove to be a trustworthy guide. Clearly the inventors of the wedding "trip were not human and sympathetic race. There is probably no time in the life of a ! man or woman when he or she has greater 1 need of human sympathy and encourage | ment than during the first few weeks of mar ried life. And yet this Is the very time ! when modern custom has decreed their iso- | lation. They are not merely thrust out of | reach of the sympathy of their friends, but | they are practically forbidden to make new | friends during the honeymoon. No newly I made husband dares to say: "My dear, I
 have met some very good fellows at the hos whist in the smoking room tonight" and | where is the bride who would venture to ! spend the evening in Mrs. So and Sos room | and leave the groom alone for an hour or | two! Nol the pair must be confined exclu- sively in the society of each other while the l wedding trip lasts, no matter how they may l long for the clasp of friendly hand, or 8 | word of kindness and encouragement. Thus we see that the people who invented 1 the wedding trip were not @ sympathetic race. Beyond doubt they were practical people who prized the useful above the pleasant. They inflicted wedding trips upon newly married people because they judged 1t best for the interests of the community.
 Now these sensible and dissgreeable peo- | ple may have had either one or two objects in view when they established the ordeal by wedding trip. Perhaps they regarded it as the swimmer regards the headlong plunge l into cold water, as the quickest way to acc
 custom one's self to an inevitable evil. They may have reasoned that as man and wife are
 to make the experiment of living together during the lifetime of one or the other, the
 sooner and the more thoroughly they try it
 the better. There is certainly good deal | of force in the reasoning, but it proceeds
 upon the assumption that marriage was al
 the period in question indissoluble, whereas
 we know that as 8 rule indissoluble marriage exists only in the highest state of civiliza'
 tion. and is comparatively modern idea 1 In sil probability such facilities for divorc,