Hows about unite/union?

And now a little wedding song:

Jamie, Harry, Friends There's just a few more hours.
That's all the time you've got. A few more hours
Before they tie the knot. Doolittle
There are drinks and girls all over London,
and I've gotta track 'em down in just a few more hours!
I'm getting married in the morning! Ding dong!
The bells are gonna chime. Pull out the stopper!
Let's have a whopper! But get me to the church on time!
I gotta be there in the mornin'
Spruced up and lookin' in me prime.
Girls, come and kiss me;
Show how you'll miss me.
But get me to the church on time!
If I am dancin' Roll up the floor.
If I am whistlin' Whewt me out the door!
For I'm gettin' married in the mornin'
Ding dong! the bells are gonna chime.
Kick up an rumpus But don't lost the compass;
And get me to the church, Get me to the church,
For Gawd's sake, get me to the church on time!
Doolittle and Everyone I'm getting married in the morning
Ding dong! the bells are gonna chime.
Doolittle Drug me or jail me, Stamp me and mail me.
All But get me to the church on time!
I gotta be there in the morning
Spruced up and lookin' in me prime.
Doolittle Some bloke who's able Lift up the table,
All And get em to the church on time!
Doolittle If I am flying Then shoot me down.
If I am wooin',
Get her out of town!
All For I'm getting married in the morning!
Ding dong! the bells are gonna chime.
Doolittle Feather and tar me;
Call out the Army; But get me to the church.
All Get me to the church...
Doolittle For Gawd's sake, get me to the church on time!
Harry and Everyone Starlight is reelin' home to bed now.
Mornin' is smearin' up the sky. London is wakin'.
Daylight is breakin'. Good luck, old chum,
Good health, goodbye.
Doolittle I'm gettin' married in the mornin'
Ding dong! the bells are gonna chime...
Hail and salute me Then haul off and boot me...
And get me to the church, Get me to the church...
For Gawd's sake, get me to the church on time!

http://stlyrics.com/lyrics/myfairlady/getmetothechurchontime.htm

Commit matrimony? Get hitched?
wed - O.E. weddian "to pledge, covenant to do something,
marry," from P.Gmc. *wadjojanan. Sense remained
"pledge" in other Gmc. languages (cf. Ger. Wette "bet,
wager"); development to "marry" is unique to Eng. Wedding
was O.E. weddung "state of being wed," but the O.E. word
for the ceremony was bridelope, lit. "bridal run," in
reference to conducting the bride to her new home.

re: Commit matrimony?

Dr Bill, for a man who professess to have been happily married for many years, you make matrimony sound like a crime! shouldn't it be 'commit to matrimony?'

curiously, matrimony finds it root in Matrimonium, (gen. matris:MOTHER)

in a Yankee Publication, Robb's Cabinet of Curiosites, there is quip about a gentleman whose wife delivered boy after six months of marriage, and he asked the physician the reason for this expedition. "Make yours self easy", explained the doctor, "this often happens in the case of the first child, but never afterwards."

i suppose the link between motherhood and marriage is never far apart.

One of only two songs my old man played on the piano.

Not a soul down on the corner
That's a pretty certain sign
That wedding bells are breaking up
That old gang of mine
All the boys are singing love songs
They forgot "Sweet Adeline"
Those wedding bells are breaking up
That old gang of mine.

From the Siegfield Follies of 1923

(ps - The other song was 'Every little breeze seems to whisper "Louise"')

Dear Musick: just to tease, is the Siegfield Follies a parody on Ziegfeld Follies
And for the possessor of a positive serology "every little breeze seems to whisper lues".

D'oh!!!

Stanley Holloway was a magnificent Alfred P Doolittle!

My community chorus does about four concerts a year, and the Spring one is not infrequently a reprise of Broadway hits, anywhere from the Gay Nineties forward. It was startling to me the first time I realized how many chorus members weren't even familiar with the old hits I had always considered universally-known classics - Oklahoma, South Pacific, Guys and Dolls, and, yes, My Fair Lady.

(Never assume anything, I concluded; there's a reason they are called "old." I just didn't think _I_ was.)

And these days there are so many who do not wait "bis sur le doigt se trouve la bague".
Lotsa words for that.

In reply to:

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Lotsa words for that.

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Yeah, like what?

Got the "trouve"...but not the bis and the bague...

From Faust, where poor Marguerite gets chided for not waiting "until the ring is on the finger".
bague is ring, doigt is finger

"bis sur le doigt se trouve la bague"

A little bit of early Europanto?

Marry! - an oath meaning "May Mary help me!"

I guess there's no connection...

If it's a happy marriage, then you could say they merried each other.

re: Commit matrimony? ... you make matrimony sound like a crime! shouldn't it be 'commit to matrimony?'

But if it isn't a crime, why do you get locked in wedlock?

I’m in a nice bit of trouble, I confess.

Somebody with me has had a game.

I should now be a proud and happy bride,

But I’ve still got to keep my single name.

I was proposed to by Obadiah Binks

In a very gentlemanly way,

Lent him some money

So that he could buy a home,

And punctually at twelve o’clock to-day -


There was I, waiting at the church,

Waiting at the church, waiting at the church,

When I found he’d left me in the lurch.

Lor, how it did upset me!

All at once, he sent me round a note.

Here’s the very note; this is what he wrote:

"Can’t get away to marry you today,

My wife won’t let me!"

incidentally, did y'all know that tie the knot comes from the grecian tradition of tying a girdle around the bride for the groom to undo after the wedding

In reply to:

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did y'all know that tie the knot comes from the grecian tradition of tying a girdle around the bride for the groom to undo after the wedding

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Glad the expression wasn't tying the girdle.

Not really on topic, I know... but I was at a wedding a couple of weekends ago, and the father of the bride played this song to his new son-in-law.

http://www.seanmorey.com/mansong.html

The whole crowd was in stitches, especially knowing the bride!!

"bis sur le doigt se trouve la bague"


My dear mother's expression to describe this phenomenon was, "they started their dinner before the gong sounded."

tie the knot comes from the grecian tradition of tying a girdle around the bride for the groom to undo after the wedding

Isn't there also that tradition where the bride and groom hold hands and the vicar/priest/whatever ties a wide (purple) ribbon around their joined hands and forearms?

Leads up to: "Those whom God has joined, let no man tear asunder"

I've definitely seen this happen, but can't remember where.

Mein Fischling, I haven't heard of the ribbon tradition.

Meanwhile, we here in the US of A have an expression: "jumping the broom." It's a slave tradition, but I don't know its derivation.

Here's hoping someone can elucidate one or both of the above.

re:Isn't there also that tradition where the bride and groom hold hands and the vicar/priest/whatever ties a wide (purple) ribbon around their joined hands and forearms?

its not a ribbon, but a strip of cloth, (don't know the color) and its part of a catholic wedding mass- and maybe others.

Jumping over the broom, i have heard comes for Ashanti customs. most slaves, where held not to be "real" people, so even if instructed in christian believes, they were exempted from (christian and or legal) marriage.

but since people everywhere mark marriage, they devised their own customs.

"jumping the broom"

Very seasonal.
Maybe it's hard to get them started after they've been sitting in a damp shed most of the year?

No thread concerning marriage terms can be complete without the following Groucho Marx quote:

"Why any man would marry a woman is a mystery. Why any man would marry two women is a bigamystery."

How perfect is that?!

Actually is an old misprint, and was originally a reference to over-eager brides jumping the groom.

are you sure that right, TEd? RE:Actually is an old misprint, and was originally a reference to over-eager brides jumping the groom.

i thought we went down that path last month, when we discussed riding broom sticks..
http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=announcements&Number=82694&

and i thought one of the ideas behind marriage was making the need for a broom obsolete?

but now we are acting like the customs of wedding nights, when guest would bang pots and pans, and make other noise to distract the bride and groom...and being all to bawdy..
surely we can do better with wedding words..

part of a catholic wedding mass

Maybe regional, Helen? Catholic all my life and been to many a wedding, but have never seen this done as part of the Mass. Or any other time, come to think about it.

I'm too idle to LIU at the moment, but most certainly the cutom of "jumping over the broomstick" is ancient british. Possibly an adaptation of druidic ceremonies? But definitely used by the lower classes and especially by sectors of the population who were not accepted within society - outlaws, gypsies and itinerant workers. It was a way of declaring to the rest of your social group that the two of you were "an item" and that it was unacceptable for other members of the group to pay any sort of addresses to either of the participants unless and until they had declared the arrangement to be over. Jumping the broomstick continued right into the C20 in some parts of Britain (and may still happen, for all I know!)

There were also a variety of "divorce" ceremonies, including that of auctioning your wife! This was often a pre-arranged thing, with only one bidder, although not always so. Usually (but not always) the wife was able to exercise some degree veto on whom she should end up with.

re:There were also a variety of "divorce" ceremonies, including that of auctioning your wife!

as in T Hardy's Mayor of Casterbridge?
(and WW, i know you love Hardy, but i can't stand anything he wrote. my daughter shares your believes, and thinks Tess and Jude to be wonderful books.)

as in T Hardy's Mayor of Casterbridge?

Sort of, Helen: mostly, the arrangement was totaly amicable, with both parties agreeing to the split. As I say, sometimes the woman had formed an attachment ot someone else, so the auction would be "fixed" - with the collusion of everyone present. It was more a ritual to formally announce that the arrangement between a pair of people had been renounced, and another arrangement sturck.

The husband would then, of course, be free to "jump the broomstick" with someone else.

Reminds me of the story of the fellow who came home from a poker game at 3 AM and shook his wife. "Wake up, wake up, you have to pack your bags."

"Why? asked his wife a tad groggily.

The fellow responded, "I lost you in a poker game!"

The wife was fully awake now. "How the hell did you do that?"

"It wasn't easy," the man replied, "I had to fold a full house."

I can't vouch for the vercity of this site (and certainly won't for the spelling [rimshot]), but here's a pertinent quote:
Broomsticks were long associated wth Witches because they figured in pagan rituals, marriages and births and the Mysteries of Woman. In Rome the broom was symbol of Hecate's priestess-mid-wife, who swept the threshold of a house after each birth to remove evil spirits that might harm the child. As Hecate was also the Triple Goddess presiding over marriage, her broomstick signifies sexual union.

Old Wedding customs included jumping the broomstick, possibly to represent impregnation. Gypsy weddings always included the same ritual, though gypsies now state they don't know what it means. Oddly enough, the same broom-jumping ritual marked churchless weddings of black slaves in the nineteenth-century America.

From:http://www.geocities.com/littlepurplewitch/broomstick.html