Note 349.2 — Chapter XIV · MARRIAGE RITES.

Going eastward we may note a few out of many other instances. The loving cup is part of the Jewish and Armenian ceremonies.349.2 Among the Mohammedan Yusufzais of Afghanistan it is the bride’s father and the bridegroom that drink out of the same vessel;349.3 obviously a change of the earlier practice to suit the faith of Islam. In Singbhúm, among the Hos and other tribes, the young couple are given beer, which they proceed to mix, the bridegroom pouring some of his into the bride’s cup, and she in turn pouring from her cup into his. They then drink, “and thus become of the same kili, or clan.”349.4 Rice is sprinkled over the heads of a Lepcha pair; they eat together and drink maruá beer out of the same cup.350.1 Among the Tipperahs of the Chittagong Hill districts, “the girl’s mother pours out a glass of liquor and gives it to her daughter, who goes and sits on her lover’s knee, drinks half and gives him the other half; they afterwards crook together their little fingers.”350.2 The Annamite youth and maiden being placed on either side of the ancestors’ altar, they help one another to drink, exchanging cups and then putting them back one on the other. This is said to be the relic of a very ancient rite which consisted in fitting together the two halves of a calabash, used no doubt for the drink.350.3 It was the ancient custom in China for bride and bridegroom to eat together of the same sacrificed animal, and to drink out of cups made of the two halves of the same melon, the bride drinking from the bridegroom’s half and he from hers: thus showing, as we are expressly told in the Lî Kî, “that they now formed one body, were of equal rank and pledged to mutual affection.”350.4 At present, about Foochow, and possibly in other parts of the empire, the ceremonial drink is sometimes taken by bride and bridegroom out of the same goblet; where two are used they are often tied together with red cord.350.5 In Korea the lady hands a gourd-bottle of rice-wine, adorned with red and blue thread to her spouse, and they drink together out of one little cup several times filled by the bridesmaids who stand beside them.350.6 And in general we may say that, as the eating from one vessel, so the drinking together, is found all over the East Indies, on the islands as well as on the continent, and as far to the south as Fiji, save where in the East Indian islands it is replaced by the parallel custom of chewing a quid of betel together.351.1 Whatever shapes the practice takes, they all resolve themselves into the thought presented on another side to us by the tale, said to be of Oriental origin, that on the first day Allah took an apple and cut it in two, giving one half to Adam and the other to Eve, and directing each at the same time to seek for the missing half. That is why one half of humanity has ever since been seeking its corresponding half.351.2