Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1893 — NO HOLY TIES IN ABYSSINIA. [ARTICLE]

NO HOLY TIES IN ABYSSINIA.

Carriages May Be Easily Dissolved—Cermonies Observed at Weddings. Abyssinia is a country where, if marriage is a failure, it can be easily lissolved. There is absolutely no egal or holy tie. When a man is delirous of marrying a 'girl he directly ipplies to her parents. The maidens, like those in many European countries, are seldom consulted on the juestion; the lover arranging with the father or. male, relatives regarding aer ddwer, which-geirerafty means a few beeves, sheep or pi&es of cloth, * md sometimes gold. On the marriage day, says a writer in the Century, the bridegroom presents himself with his best man at the house of liisfuture father-in-law. Much feasting joes on till the bride is carried off by her husband, generally on his shoulders, while the male relatives closely follow, making a canopy of their togas to keep off the rays of the sun, or perhaps the effects 1 of the evil eye. Behind come a crowd of young girls and boys, methodically lifting their arms above their beads and clapping their hands to the measured beating of tom-toms carried by men running along the flanks of the procession, who also blow long trumpets.

The happy couple that I saw married outstripped, their followers, with the exception of their best man, and at last reached the town green, where the groomsmen formed a screen with their cloaks round the happy pair, when the deferred courtship began. It custom for the supporters of the groom, generally six in number, to be present on this occasion, and for many days afterward to go round visiting the houses of the mutual friends of the married pair, extolling the beauties of the bride and the accom plishments of the groom, generally finishing up with a grotesque danpe, which is enjoyed by the enthusiastic neighbors crowding round the open doorway. Though this marriage can be annulled according to mutual agreement of bridej and groom, if, after years of happiness together, they wish to cement the tie more closely, the pair simply attend the holy communion together in church and the marriage is then looked upon as being indissoluble.