The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1909-07-13
THE MODERN WEDDING
Some of It's Drawbacks, Presents and
Ideals Considered

Now that June is over, with its we'd
dings and its wedding gifts, it may be
good thing to consider for a moment
speech made some weeks ago by
Rev. w. II. Butler of Northampton,
says the Boston Herald. His address
was on the christian Ideal of Mar
riage," and in the course of it he said
or he was quoted as saying: Some
of our marriage customs are pagan.
- Marriages should be celebrated
in churches but there should be no en-
grayed invitations with their plumber
In the way of wedding gifts" Mr..
Butler never sees a band of well dress
ed hoodlums at a railroad station with
old boots, rice and tin pans galore
without thinking of the customs of
heather nations"
1t is true that some of the prevail
| ing marriage customs are pagan.
Some might say that marriage itself
| is a pagan institution. There have
never been more loving, devoted
wives than among the ancient Greeks
and Romans, from whom some of the
customs, modern and superstitiously
sentimental, are derived. We say
some, for we doubt whether old boots
were thrown after Brutus and Portia
on their wedding day. or whether tin
pans were beaten when Plutarch we'd
ded the woman to whom he afterward
addressed the most pathetic letter on
the death of child Mr.. Butler just
| ly protests against the vulgarity that
ATTENDS too public weddings, nor is
this vulgarity merely matter of horse
play at a railway station or coarse,
practical jokes. The weddings of
those described in the shops as 'our
best people are sometimes inherently
vulgar: vulgar in the announcements
vulgar in the church itself. vulgar in
the destinations display of the pres
ents.
Wedding presents are often given
gladly they are often useful, or
source of pleasure for a lifetime. On
the other hand they are often given
| by many grudgingly from a sense of
compulsion. When the accumulation
is displayed on tables and walls for
| the guests to cape at; when the sill
yer table equipage, the silver orna-
ments, the costly remembrances of all
sorts from a sumptoously bound first
edition TO huge Japanese lantern for
the summer home as yet unbuilt;
when the gold and silver and precious
stones and furniture and pictures and
books and silks and fine linen and en-
broideries and parental checks certi-
fed and uncertified, are all piled to-
gether under the eye of a detective,
one gushing guest will say TO another:
"Arabella has everything she can pos
sibly want in housekeeping. | don't
see what sac will do with all these
things"
And therein is the pity. The mar
ried lovers have nothing to do with
the building or the furnishing of their
nest. They do not know the joy of
obtaining something useful or beauti-
full after making little economies, af-
ter mutual questioning: Can we af-
ford to buy it" The girl who has
been surrounded with every luxury,
who has had every within and longing
gratified by thoughtless parents, mar
ries one of her kind. Everything has
been done for them. They have not
been trained to do anything for them
selves. Their only problem is one of
endeavoring to find new amusement
The extravaganza of the wedding gifts
is symbolical of their life, which is
first of all to be spectacular Even
when there is ness splurge, there is
solid assurance of the future, future
in which there will be no joyful sur
prise Sweet is the butter by our
own hands churned,' said the old
homely English rhymester. Too
many husbands and wives of the pre-
sent day do not know the pleasure of
anticipation in saving. Too many are
ignorant of the happiness that follows
the acquisition of some picture, a set
of books, some article of furniture.
after accomplishing self-denial.