Plutarch's Romane Questions · Plutarch
29.
_What should be the reason, that they would not permit the new wedded bride to passe of herselfe over the doore-sill or threshold, when she is brought home to her husband's house, but they that accompanie her, must lift her up betweene them from the ground, and so convey her in._ IS it in remembrance of those first wives whom they ravished perforce from the Sabines, who entred not into their houses of themselves with their good will, but were carried in by them, in this maner? Or is it perhaps, because they would be thought to goe against their willes into that place where they were to lose their maidenhead? Or haply it may be, that a wedded wife ought not to goe foorth of her doores, and abandon her house, but perforce, like as she went first into it by force. For in our countrey of _Bæotia_, the maner is, to burne before the doore where a new married wife is to dwell, the axel tree of that chariot or coatch in which she rode when she was brought to her husbands house. By which ceremonie, thus much she is given to understand, that will she nill she, there she must now tarrie, considering that it which brought her thither, is now gone quite and consumed.
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