신문왕의 婚禮儀

A Wedding Ceremony of King Shinmun

The Marriage ceremony consisted, so to speak, of three acts. The first took place before the hearth of the father, the third before the hearth of husand, the second was the passage from the one to the other. The young girl quits the paternal hearth. As she is not attached to this hearth by own right, but through father of the family, the authority of the father only can detach her from it. The tradition is, therefore, an indispensible ceremony. The young girl is conducted to the house of husband. She is veiled. She wears crown, and a nuptial torch precedes the cortege. Those about her sing an ancient religious hymn. The cortege stops before the palace gate. There the bride is presented with fire and water. The fire is emblem of the domestic divinity; the water is the lustral water, that serve the family for religious acts. The bride is then led before the hearth, where the Penates, and all the domestic gods, and the images of ancestors, are grouped around the sacred fire. She is sprinkled with the lustral water. She touches the sacred fire. Prayer are repeated. Finally, the husband and wife share between themselves a cake or a loaf. This sort of light meal, which commence and ends with a libation and prayer, this sharing of nourishment tin presence of the fire, puts the husband and wife in religious communion with each other, and in communion with the domestic gods.