Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-09-14
TO WED IN ARMENIA.
Olive Harper Describes the In-
 teresting Ceremony.
Tho Brides Dowry s100. 0.00o-Bride and Groom Stood One Hcnr with Foreheads TonclSng. While Four Priests
 Performed the Rites.
COPYRIGHT. 1895.

While the Armenians who live in European Turkey, and above all in Constantinople, have adopted foreign dress and modes of living, their reli- gious observances have never undergone any change and probably never will. Their weddings, their baptisms and their funerals, as well as their church services, are all to-day exactly the same as when the Armenian Catholic church was founded in the third cen tury by the Apostle Andrew.
 Those ancient customs fit in to-day with modern ideas very oddly, and for person of the end of the nineteenth century to find himself alone at one of these ceremonies is to feel as if he were dreaming of times long past. The writer of this was invited to an Armenian wedding in Constantinople not so very long ago.
 The bridegroom was clerk and was rather taller than is usual for an Armenian to be, as they are generally rather under than over the medium height. He was well built and had dark eyes and curling hair and good fresh color, and in fact was quite 8 good-loolzing young fellow. His name was Haskas He, like all the Greeks and Armenians, as well as the majority of Europeans, was quite willing to accept a fortune with his bride. In fact, suspect that the pros pective fortune was the prime factor in this marriage. A young man of those countries has but few chances of making money for him. self, and custom makes it appear quite proper for him to secure a for tune more or less great with his bride. Parents begin to lay aside their daugh- ter's dowry from the time girl is born, and according to the family and social providence of the young man are the demands of his friends. He is al= lowed no social intercourse with the unmarried ladies of any family, and therefore his affections cannot be said to be engaged.
 When an Armenian family has d young daughter to marry they look about until they find some young man who suits their ideas, and then mes senger is sent to this young mans near SSb Itldt1NSs5 bS1lln2 oI bhe aOiHlfdDle qualities of the girl and naming the sum of her dover. This is promptly refused if the young mans family think 1t is insufficient. The young mans parents want all they can get, and they haggle and bid back and forth until finally, thinking they can do no better, they accept. The preliminaries are arranged, either by the profes= sional match-makers or the relatives of bride and groom. The young man then makes formal demand for the hand of the young lady, through the nearest friend, the groom's mother, if she is living. The match-makers are old women, and they are paid by one family Or the other. Often two sets of match-malzers are employed, and they arrange everything, making the pro- posal and bearing the shy acceptance.
 In the case of the wedding of which l write an old woman from the brides family had gone down to the young mans office and made her proposal there. The offer was accepted on con dition that the dowry proved to be all that she said, viz, twenty thousand per-