Note 25 — II.—BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND DEATH.
Reading edition
The custom of preventing the bride’s feet from touching the threshold of the bridegroom’s house obtains in China as in Europe. Usually the entrance is covered with red cloth for this purpose. “In some parts of the country she is lifted out of the sedan, over a pan of charcoal placed in the court and carried to her chamber.”25 Amongst the ancient Romans, “fire and water being placed on the threshold, the bride touched both; but starting back from the door she refused to enter, till she at length passed it, being careful to step over it without touching it.”26 (A wedding usage in Yorkshire, by the way, is to pour a kettle full of boiling water over the door-step just after the bride has left her old home. Without their having any apparent connection the coincidence of usages is curious.) The ancient superstition mentioned in Popular Antiquities was that the bride was not to step over the threshold on entering the bridegroom’s house, but was to be lifted over by her nearest relations.27