Page:Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened.djvu/97

Rh with her or him a small sum of money or other provisions to meet the wedding expenses. In some places they do not use invitation cards, but send a messenger to each friend's house, or distribute pieces of candy with a message of "salutations." In many places on the marriage-feast day the gates are opened to the poor and strangers. The jewelry presented to the bride by the groom are pieces of gold coins of various value, as $1 to $15 apiece worn as a necklace. On the day after the marriage the friends bring gifts, such as rugs and copper vessels, and from a saucer to a wash-tub. A few days before and after the marriage the groom is called by the name of "King" and another young man will associate him as his "Prime Minister," and a little boy "the groom's brother." In many places the bride has to wear a veil for months or years after her departure from her father's home. The new bride, beginning from the engagement day, is not allowed to speak before her father-in-law, brothers-in-law and their nearest relatives for several months or years after the marriage. If they are obliged to tell something they either speak into the ears of a child of the family, who repeats it aloud, or they themselves express it by signs. In the interior, men and women do not eat together, especially when there is a stranger in the house.

The Armenian church ever allows divorce for any cause; only permits separation without re-marriage. A god-child can never marry his or her godfather's children. The common priests of the Armenian