Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/189

 Rh men's clothing all her life; but the act was performed before marriage to ensure the first child being, if possible, a boy. A similar explanation would account for the false beards worn by Argive brides when they slept with their husbands, and for the widespread custom, alluded to by Mr. J. G. Frazer, of men dressing as women and women as men at marriage, if it could be assumed that the older custom was for women alone to dress in that way, and when the meaning of the ceremony was forgotten that bridegrooms also dressed like women; a change which might arise from a growing spirit of buffoonery and frolic such as is never absent from rustic weddings.

John Abercromby.