Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-07-08
ORIGIN OF BEST MAN"
FROM SCOTCH BRIDEGROOM'S
DUTY IN OLDEN TIME.
he Gave the Bride Away and Passed
the Cake and
Cups.

From the London Globe.
1t may be a surprise to some people to
know that the phrase "best man''-the
bridegroom's nearest ATTENDANTS Of Scot
fish origin. In the north, also, the princi-
pal bridesmaid used to be called the best
maid Neither expression has much to
recommend 1t. 1t is a great pity, indeed
that best man." an inelegant and in itself
meaningless phrase, should have so COM
pletely ousted from our common everyday
speech the good old English name OF
"brideman'' or 'brideSman." Another old
name is "groomsman," and in days gone by
the bridegroom was attended, not by one
friend but by several, who were known as
the briCemen or grOomsmen.
Inc term best man came into USE pre-
sumably, to indicate the one of these who
TOOK the lead in performing their various
duties and was in closest attendance on
the bridegroom. In recent years the Gus
tom OF having grOomsmeh has been occa-
sionally revived, but 1t has not become gen.
eral. At fashionable wedding, four or
nve years ago. the bride was content with
five bridesmaids and two pages, whereas
the bridegroom was supported by no fewer
than nine groOmSmen.
But at the present time such an array has
by no means the same meaning nor are
those attendant friends of so much USE as
in days of old. The forerunner of the
brakeman was the brdeleader whose duty
1t was to bring the bride to the bridegroom
IN most countries where the real or pre-
tended capture of the bride was an essen
tai part of the ceremony, and wherever
traces of the very ancient custom of bride
capture existed, the friend or friends of the
bridegroom had the important office of cap
turing the lady and bringing her to her lord.
Dryden as Witness.
In one of Dryden's plays there is the
line: 'Betwixt her guards she seemed bv
bridemen led" and Brand tells us that at
many old English weddings the BRIDEGROOM;
was led to the church between two maids,
and the bride by two young men, holding
her by the arms as If unwilling This was
evidently survival of the idea of capture.
The same idea, somewhat more dis
guised. can be traced in the custom which
was not unknown at old-fashfoned we'd
dings less than century ago, In the north
Of England, and in the west of Scotland,
OF the bridegroom's "best man" escorting
the bride to the church 1t has been dis
puted. naturally, whether the groom 8
nearest friend was chosen as escort with
the idea Of protecting the lady from seiz-
ure by others, or whether he might be re-
garded as the leader in the act Of capture
But whichever idea lay at the back of
the practice, 1t was clearly a survival con-
nected with the custom of marriage by
capture. Later, the bridemen had vari-
GUS functions 10 perform which nave now
become obsolete. There was still a trace
of the capture idea in the old duty at one
time assigned to the brakeman Of giving
the bride away. He led her to the church
and then acted the part now filled by the
lady's father or other near male relative.
In the old seventeenth century ballad of
the Golden Glove" which used to be a
great favorite at rural gatherings in all
parts of the country in the old, unsophisti-
Gated days, before the melancholy mon
strosties of the modern music hall had
driven the genuine old English ballads and
songs out of use and memory-in this bal