LI
THE SHOW WEDDING
The Turks have passed a law prohibiting elaborate and costly marriage ceremonials, and forbidding the giving of expensive wedding presents. What a pity that we cannot have such an edict issued in this country! For there is no other one thing that would do more to allay heartburnings and jealousies, prevent nervous prostration and bankruptcy, and promote peace and thrift than to officially “can” the show wedding.
In all fairness, we must admit that the display wedding is a feminine vice. No man, probably, ever really yearned to make a public exhibition of himself as he was being led as a lamb to the slaughter. But by the time she is ten years old the average girl has begun planning her wedding and deciding whether she will have a big church affair, with ushers and flower girls and ring-bearers and maids and matrons of honor and bridesmaids and a white satin dress and a real lace veil, and all the other flubdubs, or whether she will be married at home under a floral canopy, with an admiring audience fenced off from her by white ribbons. And to realize this ten-minute splurge she is ready to ruthlessly ruin her family and half kill herself. If she doesn’t get it, she goes through life feeling that she has missed her big moment. It is from this silly, dopey daydream that women should be rescued by law, since few of them have the common sense and good taste to put it aside themselves.
To begin with, it would do away with the disgraceful, barefaced holdups that precede weddings. These are camouflaged under the appropriate name of “showers,” for they cause every friend of an engaged girl to shed salt and bitter tears at the realization of how much they will be mulcted for in silk-stocking showers, and handkerchief showers, and towel showers, and kitchen showers, and all the other showers that go to make up a bridal deluge. It would also prevent that sinking feeling at the pit of the stomach with which we are attacked at sight of a large, thick white envelope in the mail. We know that it means a “stand-and-deliver” present, which somehow always comes just at a time when the rent is overdue, or a doctor bill has to be paid, or we had saved up a little money by pinching economies to buy a new hat or suit.
It isn’t that we are stingy or mean, or that we begrudge a gift to a friend. It is only that we would like to give when we can do so freely, and enjoy the giving, instead of having to give at a time when it is actually dishonest to bestow a present. Why, I have known people who had to put off needed dental work or taking a sick child to the country when three or four wedding presents fell together. The wedding gift was a debt of honor. “They sent us a set of salad forks.” “She gave us a clock when we were married,” and it had to be returned in kind. The abolition of the show wedding would prolong the days of many a poor, old, hard-worked father, whose daughter’s trousseau is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
It is not because she needs them, or has any use for them, that Sally Ann, who is a poor girl marrying a poor young man, has to have piles of orchid chiffon undergarments, hand-embroidered and belaced and beribboned. It is because they are to be displayed to her catty friends, who will finger them, and appraise them, and criticize them, and then go home wondering how her father is ever going to pay for them. If her lingerie were not Exhibit A at the wedding Sally Ann would go along and provide herself with a reasonable amount of underwear that would stand wear and washing, and not run papa into debt.
But Sally Ann has to have her show wedding. She has to trail up the church aisle in her white satin and her tulle veil, and all the rest of it. And by the time father has paid for the church and the flowers, and the bridesmaid’s presents, and the reception, and the automobiles, he has had to borrow money at the bank and has saddled himself with a debt that bends his back a little more, and puts new lines in his face, and adds to his burden in work and worry, which was already more than he could bear. And it has all been for a few minutes’ flaunting of herself in the face of an audience of people who smiled and nudged each other, and said: “Did you ever see her look so homely? Brides always look their worst.” “Wonder what he ever saw in her to make him pick her out.” “Is that the bridegroom? Looks like a scared rabbit.” “How on earth do you suppose her father will ever pay for this? Everybody knows he can’t afford it,” and so on, and so on. Just what everybody says at a wedding.
Above all, the abolition of the show wedding and the saving of the foolish expenditure it involved would enable many a young couple to set up housekeeping out of debt; and, best of all, they would begin life simply and honestly, and with the admiration and gratitude of all who know them. Getting married is the crucial act in a man’s and woman’s life. It is the most awful and solemn thing they ever do. And why they want to have a thousand curious eyes peering at them when they take the step that is going to plunge them into hell or lift them into heaven passes comprehension. It would not be more incongruous to send out invitations to people to come and watch you die than it is to come and see you married.
Wise that young couple who simply slip around to the parson and make their vows at the altar, with no one but God to look on.