Chapter 9

"WHO PAYS FOR THE CARDS?"

We have received a number of letters from our correspondents asking whether the groom pays for the wedding cards. This question we have answered so often in the negative that we think it well to explain the philosophy of the etiquette of weddings, which is remotely founded on the early savage history of mankind, and which bears fruit in our later and more complex civilization, still reminding us of the past. In early and in savage days the man sought his bride heroically, and carried her off by force. The Tartar still does this, and the idea only was improved in patriarchal days by the purchase of the bride by the labor of her husband, or by his wealth in flocks and herds. It is still a theory that the bride is thus carried off. Always, therefore, the idea has been cherished that the bride is something carefully guarded, and the groom is looked upon as a sort of friendly enemy, who comes to take away the much-prized object from her loving and jealous family. Thus the long-cherished theory bears fruit in the English ceremonial, where the only carriage furnished by the groom is the one in which he drives the bride away to the spending of the honeymoon. Up to that time he has had no rights of proprietorship. Even this is not allowed in America among fashionable people, the bride's father sending them in his own carriage on the first stage of their journey. It is not etiquette for the groom to furnish anything for his own wedding but the ring and a bouquet for the bride, presents for the bridesmaids and the best man, and some token to the ushers. He pays the clergyman.

He should _not_ pay for the cards, the carriages, the entertainment, or anything connected with the wedding. This is decided in the high court of etiquette. That is the province of the family of the bride, and should be insisted upon. If they are not able to do this, there should be no wedding and no cards. It is better for a portionless girl to go to the altar in a travelling dress, and to send out no sort of invitations or wedding cards, than to allow the groom to pay for them. This is not to the disparagement of the rights of the groom. It is simply a proper and universal etiquette.

At the altar the groom, if he is a millionaire, makes his wife his equal by saying, "With all my worldly goods I thee endow;" but until he has uttered these words she has no claim on his purse for clothes, or cards, or household furnishing, or anything but those articles which come under the head of such gifts as it is a lover's province to give.

A very precise, old-time aristocrat of New York broke her daughter's engagement to a gentleman because he brought her a dress from Paris. She said, if he did not know enough _not_ to give her daughter clothes while she was under her roof, he should not have her. This is an exaggerated feeling, but the principle is a sound one. The position of a woman is so delicate, the relations of engaged people so uncertain, that it would bring about an awkwardness if the gentleman were to pay for the shoes, the gowns, the cards of his betrothed.

Suppose, as was the case twice last winter, that an engagement of marriage is broken after the cards are out. Who is to repay the bridegroom if _he_ has paid for the cards? Should the father of the bride send him a check? That would be very insulting, yet a family would feel nervous about being under pecuniary indebtedness to a discarded son-in-law. The lady can return her ring and the gifts her lover has made her; they have suffered no contact that will injure them. But she could not return shoes or gowns or bonnets.

It is therefore wisely ordered by etiquette that the lover be allowed to pay for nothing that could not be returned to him without loss, if the engagement were dissolved, even on the wedding morning.

Of course in primitive life the lover may pay for his lady-love, as we will say in the case of a pair of young people who come together in a humble station. Such marriages are common in America, and many of these pairs have mounted to the very highest social rank. But they must not attempt anything which is in imitation of the etiquette of fashionable life unless they can do it well and thoroughly.

Nothing is more honorable than a marriage celebrated in the presence only of father, mother, and priest. Two young people unwilling or unable to have splendid dresses, equipages, cards, and ceremony, can always be married this way, and go to the Senate or White House afterwards. They are not hampered by it hereafter. But the bride should never forget her dignity. She should never let the groom pay for cards, or for anything, unless it is the marriage license, wherever it is needful in this country, and the clergyman's fee. If she does, she puts herself in a false position.

A very sensible observer, writing of America and its young people, and the liberty allowed them, says "the liberty, or the license, of our youth will have to be curtailed. As our society becomes complex and artificial, like older societies in Europe, our children will be forced to approximate to them in status, and parents will have to waken to a sense of their responsibilities."

This is a remark which applies at once to that liberty permitted to engaged couples in rural neighborhoods, where the young girl is allowed to go on a journey at her lover's expense. A girl's natural protectors should know better than to allow this. They know that her purity is her chief attraction to man, and that a certain coyness and virginal freshness are the dowry she should bring her future husband. Suppose that this engagement is broken off. How will she be accepted by another lover after having enjoyed the hospitality of the first? Would it not always make a disagreeable feeling between the two men, although No. 2 might have perfect respect for the girl?

Etiquette may sometimes make blunders, but it is generally based on a right principle, and here it is undoubtedly founded in truth and justice. In other countries this truth is so fully realized that daughters are guarded by the vigilance of parents almost to the verge of absurdity. A young girl is never allowed to go out alone, and no man is permitted to enter the household until his character has undergone the closest scrutiny. Marriage is a unique contract, and all the various wrongs caused by hasty marriages, all the troubles before the courts, all the divorces, are multiplied by the carelessness of American parents, who, believing, and truly believing, in the almost universal purity of their daughters, are careless of the fold, not remembering the one black sheep.

This evil of excessive liberty and of the loose etiquette of our young people cannot be rooted out by laws. It must begin at the hearth-stone, Family life must be reformed; young ladies must be brought up with greater strictness. The bloom of innocence should not be brushed off by careless hands. If a mother leaves her daughter matronless, to receive attentions without her dignified presence, she opens the door to an unworthy man, who may mean marriage or not. He may be a most unsuitable husband even if he _does_ mean marriage. If he takes the young lady about, paying for her cab hire, her theatre tickets, and her journeyings, and then drops her, whom have they to thank but themselves that her bloom is brushed off, that her character suffers, that she is made ridiculous, and marries some one whom she does not love, for a home.

Men, as they look back on their own varied experience, are apt to remember with great respect the women who were cold and distant. They love the fruit which hung the highest, the flower which was guarded, and which did not grow under their feet in the highway. They look back with vague wonder that they were ever infatuated with a fast girl who matured into a vulgar woman.

And we must remember what a fatal effect upon marriage is the loosing of the ties of respect. Love without trust is without respect, and if a lover has not respected his _fianc‚e_, he will never respect his wife.

It is the privilege of the bride to name the wedding day, and of her father and mother to pay for her trousseau. After the wedding invitations are issued she does not appear in public.

The members of the bride's family go to the church before the bride; the bridegroom and his best man await them at the altar.

The bride comes last, with her father or brother, who is to give her away. She is joined at the altar step by her _fianc‚_, who takes her hand, and then she becomes his for life.

All these trifles mean much, as any one can learn who goes through with the painful details of a divorce suit.

Now when the circle of friends on both sides is very extensive, it has of late become customary to send invitations to some who are not called to the wedding breakfast to attend the ceremony in church. This sometimes takes the place of issuing cards. No one thinks of calling on the newly married who has not received either an invitation to the ceremony at church or cards after their establishment in their new home.

Now one of our correspondents writes to us, "Who pays for the _after_-cards?" In most cases these are ordered with the other cards, and the bride's mother pays for them. But if they are ordered after the marriage, the groom may pay for these as he would pay for his wife's ordinary expenses. Still, it is stricter etiquette that even these should be paid for by the bride's family.

People who are asked to the wedding send cards to the house if they cannot attend, and in any case send or leave cards within ten days after, unless they are in very deep mourning, when a dispensation is granted them.

The etiquette of a wedding at home does not differ at all from the etiquette of a wedding in church with regard to cards. A great confusion seems to exist in the minds of some of our correspondents as to whom they shall send their return cards on being invited to a wedding. Some ask: "Shall I send them to the bride, as I do not know her mother?" Certainly not; send them to whomsoever invites you. Afterwards call on the bride or send her cards, but the first and important card goes to the lady who gives the wedding.

The order of the religious part of the ceremony is fixed by the church in which it occurs. The groom must call on the rector or clergyman, see the organist, and make what arrangements the bride pleases, but, we repeat, all _expenses_, excepting the fee to the clergyman, are borne by the bride's family.

The sexton should see to it that the white ribbon is stretched across the aisle, that the awning and carpet are in place, and it would be well if the police regulations could extend to the group of idlers who crowd around the church door, to the great inconvenience of the guests.

A wedding invitation requires no answer, unless it be to a sit-down wedding breakfast. Cards left afterwards are all-sufficient. The separate cards of the bride and groom are no longer included in the invitation. Nothing black in the way of dress but the gentlemen's coats is admissible at a wedding.