Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/255

 The Lifting of the Bride. 239

in ? " ^ The common explanation here is, of course, that we have in this custom a survival of marriage by capture. But, as in the case of the Petting Stone rite, it is difficult to admit that this mode of gaining a bride affects marriage ritual. Further, the fact that in many cases the lifting of the bride is done by members of her own kindred who escort her to her new home, and the absence in most cases of even the pretence of force, throw doubt on this explana- tion of the practice. I venture to suggest that we must look in other directions than that of capture marriage for an explanation of the question which Plutarch proposes.

We are on safe ground when we assume that the threshold is a sacred place. " That the door or the threshold is the seat of a tutelary spirit or genius is a belief familiar enough in folklore; the door must not be banged, nor wood chopped on the threshold, for fear of disturbing him. He is apt to disappear, taking the luck of the house with him, if a cat is buried under the door-sill, or if human hair be so buried." ^ The temple threshold was naturally peculiarly sacred. The priests of Dagon dared not touch the threshold of his shrine; to leap over the threshold was a grievous form of insult : " and in that day 1 will punish all those that leap over the threshold, which fill their master's house with violence and deceit." ^ Why it is sacred is a question difficult to deter- mine, and need not detain us here. According to Dr. Trumbull its sanctity is connected with the hearth placed at the door of the hut of the savage or the tent of the nomad. It has also been regarded as marking the limit which separates the friendly house-spirits from the vagrant hostile ghosts, which flit about the outer darkness and beset the household. But when we find that it is specially the abiding place of the family genius or guardian spirit, we may guess that both the threshold and the foundation stone (both being

' Komane Questions, cap. 29. - Ibid., ed. Jevons, Intro., xcv. seq.

^ I Samuel v. 2 ; Zephaniah i. 9. Also compare the Passover rite, for which see Ejicyclopadia Biblica, iii., 3595-