# Wedding

The wedding, and the great body of customs related to it, are most enthusiastically described by amateur folklore collectors and are generally well known. Although the details of courting which are governed by certain unwritten conventions shall not be described, wedding customs must be conceived as a virtually theatrical custom including the ritual of proposing. Suitors appear at the house of the marriageable girl, where they are already expected, although the hosts do not in any way show this. After much banter and jokes the marriageable girl finally turns up. If the suit was not well received, they let him know about that too. The saying “they put his szűr out”, meaning the proposal was rejected, came about because at some places this was a way to indicate that the suitor’s request was not well received. The young man, who found his frieze coat (szűr), which he had purposely left behind, put out under the eaves, could go somewhere else in search of a wife.

If the proposal is a kind of theatre, the wedding is even more so. It is a composition starting with the march to church, then putting the bride’s belongings on a cart, the wedding feast, the bridal dance, and so on, to knotting the bride’s hair in the fashion of young wives. The director and master of ceremonies for these theatricals is the first best man (első vőfély) who makes the audience laugh or cry with his serious or humorous verses, and who, in the tradition of dell’arte, memorably improvises jokes suited for the occasion, within the framework provided by the centuries. It is like a primitive yet eternal human comedy with constantly changing characters, which, though it makes fun of the institution of marriage, is yet very much for it. For example, a comic best man’s saying claims that:

Marriage is a pillory,
Out of it you’d better be!

Still, according to the villagers, spinsterhood and bachelorhood are shameful and a condition not in accord with village laws.

The great majority of marriages in the Hungarian linguistic region are endogamous; that is to say, the young man generally chooses a mate for himself from his own village, and even from his part of the village. The ones who tried to break this order were often forced to observe it by bloody fights. Less frequently, in certain smaller groups of villages, intermarrying was considered permissible. The earlier order began to {613.} disintegrate at the end of the 19th century as young men moved on to other areas to work or as soldiers.

The main “characters” and directors of Hungarian weddings are by and large the same over the entire linguistic region. The bride and the groom both have a násznagy (witness, or more precisely, master of ceremonies), who, though they are most respected elderly married men, still have to put up with a whole series of jokes. They play an active role at the time of proposing for the girl, when she is handed over, and at meals. The organizer and director of the whole wedding is the első vőfély (the first best man), who must possess outstanding abilities. Thus, he is a first-rate organizer who staves off difficulties and quarrels, who knows the entire process of the wedding and all the verses and appropriate songs. He deals with the music and makes sure that everybody is supplied with food and drink. He leads the wedding procession and performs a personal dance through the street. Only a few such organizers can be found in each village, and they are constantly called upon to arrange big events. At both the house of the bride’s family and that of the groom, there are several kis vőfélys (young best men), who conduct the invitations and serve up the food. The szakácsasszony (woman cook) is a person who directs, with the help of the hosting family, the large scale cooking and baking, which requires a great deal of circumspection.

281. Seeing off the bride
Buják, Nógrád County

The Hungarian words for wedding teach us an interesting lesson. The word menyegző (wedding, nuptials), today very much relegated to the background, appears to be the oldest. It has been known from the end of {614.} the 14th century and originates from a word of the Uralic period, meny (daughter-in-law). The word házasság (marriage), the existence of which is known from the first half of the 15th century, connects the concept of wedding to the ház (house), just as in Bulgarian, Ottoman Turkish, and other languages. Lakodalom (wedding), the word most frequently used in the present, originates from the verb lakik (to dwell), and has been used since the beginning of the 16th century and earlier, meaning every kind of feasting, banquets. This latest name demonstrates without doubt what an important role eating and the drinking connected with it have played on festive occasions.

282. Carrying the bride’s bed
Balavásár, former Szolnok-Doboka County

The folk poetry of the wedding is extraordinarily rich. Among this, we must first mention the vőfélyvers (best man’s verses), the bulk of which is the product of rural choir-masters. These were distributed in both handwritten and printed form and thus produced similarities among certain areas. They were recited by the first best man or, less frequently, by one of the witnesses. A few taps of a stick accompanied by a flourish played by the gypsy called everybody’s attention before the {615.} verses were begun. Today these verses are in all cases without melody, but we know about sung versions a few centuries ago. These verses follow the programme of the wedding, and the books which publish them also follow in this sequence.

The wedding songs include virtually every layer of Hugarian folksong. Thus during the meal almost every genre can be performed: wine songs, toasts as well as entertaining and humorous songs, or even biblical or moralizing songs. Most of them are closely tied to the ceremonies of the wedding. Many among them are sung only at weddings, and these must be brought forth no matter what.

The customs, dramatic traditions, lyrics and narrative folklore of Hungarian wedding customs is uncommonly rich and diverse, and we can also vouch for strong regional variations. Precisely for this reason we shall introduce here only a general framework, common to weddings everywhere, the varieties of which can be found in different parts of the linguistic region almost to this day.

Once the proposal is -over, the betrothal (eljegyzés, kézfogó) takes place. Gardezi, a Persian historian, wrote about the Magyars in about the middle of the 11th century, that they “buy” girls for furs and stock. Perhaps as a memory of this, it is said even today about girls of 16 to 18 years of age that they have grown into “girls for sale” (eladólány). During the betrothal the groom-elect gave a gold or silver coin, either stuck in an apple or wrapped in decorated paper, to the bride-elect. Beginning in the second half of the last century, this custom was more and more generally replaced by a golden wedding ring. In many places, the young man received a bouquet for his hat, which he wore up to his wedding day. At the end of the festivity the witness of the groom (kikérő násznagy) blessed the engaged couple, and then both he and the witness for the bride received a richly embroidered scarf from the bride-elect. Thanks was expressed for this in Cigánd (former Zemplén County) in the following way:

She who’s made these kerchiefs, weaving ’em and spinnin’
’Tween her gentle fingers, twistin’ yarn on bobbin,
Sewin’ ’em keepin’ ’em but for us, no others,
May God give her blessin’!
May the hemp of women grow as tall as ever,
May the hailstorm spare it, and its stalks not sever!
May God speed its needs in any thing whatever:
Standín’ up, unlaid, it other winters weather.

After all this, preparations were begun, an important stage in which was reached when the engaged couple, accompanied by the násznagy and an older woman relative, went to the clergyman to register. Their names were read out on the following three Sundays, and it was proper that the engaged couple should listen to this on at least one occasion. After the last reading, the time was right for the wedding. Although the day varied according to time and place, it generally was held on Wednesday, or more often on Saturday. Most weddings were held in the early winter {616.} period of the year or after Shrovetide, because in this way they did not interfere with work.

The preparation of food began a day or two before the wedding. The women made a pastry in the shape of spirals (csiga) which was served in the soup at the wedding, but only in the region of the Great Plain. The cabbage rolls were also made ahead, and the chickens and hens were plucked. The women who participated in this afterwards organized a smaller dancing gathering, also attended by the best men and the masters of ceremony, or witnesses.

The younger best men (kis vőfély) were responsible for inviting the guests, primarily from among the family, relatives up to third, fourth, and in some places, fifth cousins. (Cf. p. 67.) Naturally, neighbours and village leaders were never left out of the invitation. The two young men delivered the invitation in the name of the bride’s or the groom’s family, with regionally varying rhymes:

We have brought you goodwill as we are here treading,
Asking all this household to a modest wedding.
Just as our forebears about to be united
Every brother, neighbour, duly they invited.
’Tis an ancient custom, hardly needs explaining:
Magyar folks are fond of guests and entertaining.
……………………………………………………
We expect you kindly, come without one failing,
None of you should stay home, not even the ailing!
So to make your word good, give a sign you mean it:
Put your hand, good brother, into my mine this minute!
That you should come all and should not fail the wedding–
May God give this household all his gracious blessing!
Great Plain

One way of accepting the invitation was for the guests to carry their presents, consisting of useful commodities and various kinds of food, to the wedding house a day before the wedding. In most places wedding cakes have become widely used as gifts since half a century ago. They are always offered by those who baked them at the conclusion of dinner.

On the afternoon preceding the wedding-day, the bride’s hope chest, perhaps other pieces of furniture, and her bedding and clothes were taken by cart to the house of the groom, where the couple were going to live. They chose the longest possible route so that the entire village could see what the bride was taking with her. During the trip songs, varying by regions, were sung under the leadership of the best man:

With the bed of girl to marry
Off the bridegroom’s peace they carry.
Off the bridegroom’s peace they carry.
Wish the Lord their bed would bless
Year hence with a lovely lass!
Year hence with a lovely lass!
Geszte (former Nyitra County)

283. Carrying the bride’s dowry
Vista, former Kolozs County

284. Carrying the bride’s bed
Vista, former Kolozs County

285. Going off to church
Szentistván, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County

{618.} The parade would not be easily allowed to depart from the bride’s house with all her belongings, and had to endure even more banter until they got inside the groom’s house. At this time they danced around the feather bed placed in the yard, then rolled a boy on the bedding so the first child should be a boy.

On the morning of the wedding, the two wedding parties, gathered at the house of the bride and at that of the groom. The groom put on the wedding shirt he had received from the bride, then his first best man would bid him goodbye in the name of his unmarried male friends and they would start off on foot or on carts for the house of the bride. However, they would not be able to get in there immediately because the gate would be blocked against them, and only after lengthy bargaining between the best man of the groom and the best man of the bride, would the gate be opened. Meanwhile the bridesmaids would be dressing the bride and combing her hair. Most brides in the last century still wore dark clothes in Hungary, and the generally prevailing white bride’s robe of today came into fashion only at the turn of the century.

{619.} The kikérő násznagy who asks for the bride in the name of the groom would keep on demanding her from the family so that the parade could start off for church. First he would be shown an old hunch-backed woman, then one of the bridesmaids or a boy dressed up as a girl, and only after he had refused to accept these, would the real bride be presented. At this point the first best man would start saying the farewell of the bride to her family:

Hush the fiddles playing, hush the voices singing,
And I ask the dancers cease the spurs from ringing,
For my speech of godspeed right now is beginning,
Listen to my speech, please, till the very ending.
Now the bride says farewell to her father, mother
And to her beloved sister and good brother.
She would speak herself, but oh! her heart is sinking,
Let me say then for her what her mind is thinking.
{620.} Gathering of guests I ask for your forebearance,
Children at the back, please, be awhile in silence!
Great Plain

286. Wedding cakes and pastries
Méra, former Kolozs County

287. Wedding
Szentistván, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County

The first best man always said the farewell verse in first person, in the name of the bride who was herself sobbing. When the ceremony was over, the procession would parade out of the yard. Regionally divergent forms are known, but generally the wedding party of the groom walked in front, followed by the wedding party of the bride; the bride was either surrounded by the bridesmaids or led by one of her best men (cf. Plate LI). As they turned out of the gate they would begin a particular song:

Look out, mother, through your window,
See me last with bitter sorrow
As they lead me, lead the gate through;
Will you see me, shall I see you?
{621.} Of my mother’s blooming rose-tree,
Last I blossomed in her posy.
Wish she had not ever bore me,
Had I stayed a-budding only!
Sweetest mother’s blooming rose-tree,
For her finest shoot she growed me,
But a lad came for to take it,
In his arms I withered, faded!
Szögliget (former Abaúj County)

288. Wedding feast
Püspökhatvan, Pest County

The násznagy, or witness, kept order at the end of the procession, and on the way they treated the onlookers with wine from bottles and flasks. The two wedding parties would stop once more and dance in front of the church. Then the religious wedding ceremony followed in the church, during which the bride would secretly try to step on the {622.} groom’s foot to assure her domination in the future. The best man thanked the clergyman for celebrating the wedding and in thanks handed him a bottle of wine, a milk loaf, and a homespun kerchief. The two wedding parties–still unmixed–then marched out of the church.

Fig. 219. Pastries baked for a wedding, called prémes.
Former Udvarhely County. 1920s

At this time the two witnesses would argue about what was to happen to the bride, and they generally agreed that for the time being she was to go back to her parents’ house. After this the two wedding parties parted and, if possible, each went back, by a different route, to their own hosts, where they were to be served lunch. After lunch one emissary after the other came to the bride’s house demanding that she be handed over. Finally, in the afternoon the groom would set forth with his entire wedding party and go himself to redeem his bride. Naturally, this did not happen either without jokes and shamming games. The groom would have to pick out his bride from among three veiled figures. Finally, the two wedding parties set off to the house of the groom and arrived there with a song, like this example from Transylvania:

Nice we are and nicely tread
But the bride is nicer yet;
Nice her fame and nice her name too,
Nice the maiden’s dress and hairdo.
Come my rose to Enyed town,
All the world revolves it round,
There they sell the rose of spring,
Lillyflower, blooming pink. O-ho!
Bridegroom’s mom you come out quick
To the gate and open it!
Such a good help we have brought you
And a good wife for your son, too.
Szépkenyerüszentmárton (former Szolnok-Doboka County)

Here too, the gate would be opened only after lengthy goading, after much banter among the best men. The bride was either carried in, or a chair put to the cart and she stepped down on it. They led her around the porch and fireplace, and thus she would become a member of the family. After this, the first best man, acting as the master of ceremonies, would again ask for attention and recite the following verse:

Ladies and gentlemen! All dear guests and neighbours,
Not in vain have been my troubles, pains and labours:
We have got the groom a comely bride so ruddy,
They are one another’s, one in soul and body.
Let’s rejoice then at their luck and life in clover,
Also that the rites of marriage are now over.
What’s to follow is a family feast and banquet;
Sit down at the table for a little junket!
More, I say, strike up, get your fiddle playing,
Look at all the folks how merry they are making!
Sepsibesenyő (former Háromszék County)

Fig. 220. Seating order at the wedding table.
Nemespátró, Somogy County. 1930s.
1. Bridegroom. 2. Bride. 3. The witness who made the proposal (kérő násznagy). 4. Best man (vőfély). 5. The father of the bridegroom. 6. The mother of the bridegroom. 7. The father of the bride. 8. The mother of the bride. 9. Bride’s maid (nyoszolyó lány). 10. Married woman called nyoszolyó asszony. 11. Relative of the bridegroom. 12. Relative of the bride.

{623.} The young people would spend the afternoon with games, the older people with conversation and singing. The gypsies would play the so-called sad songs (hallgató). Meanwhile the women, under the direction of the cook, were preparing dinner. All the furniture would have been moved out of the house, so that only the tables, chairs, and benches would be left inside. If the weather was pleasant, a tent was pulled up in the backyard and the dinner was served out there.

289. Wedding feast
Homokmégy, Bács-Kiskun County

In some areas the order of sitting at the dinner was fixed, but this practice varies according to regions. In some places the witnesses sat in the centre and the young couple next to them, while in other places it was just the opposite, where the young couple sat next to each other and the witnesses one on each side. The relatives followed them according to their position in the extended family. A place of honour was provided for the invited office holders of the village. In most places the young couple ate out of one plate and drank out of one cup, to show in this way that they belonged together. Serving was the job of the best men, while the first best man, after everyone had settled down, announced each course with the appropriate rhyme:

Good luck and good evening, everyone I’m greeting,
All the wedding crowd, guests in this house a-meeting;
I have brought some dainty from my goodman neighbour,
Which he sends to thank you for your kindly labour;
’Tis good chicken soup with pastry I deliver,
Boiled in it are heart and lungs, and legs and liver.
Each of you come forward, for himself to see it,
{624.} Make good cheer my wish is, with keen relish eat it,
But I put it down now, here, receive it bestman,
Don’t turn up your noses, that’s how says my goodman.
Tetétlen (former Hajdú County)

The courses came one after the other: paprikash meat, cabbage rolls, roast meat–all, including the wine, offered with the appropriate rhyme. In the Great Plain, where they were called “Cumanian captains”, merry young people sat across from the násznagy. They tried to make a joke out of everything, and for that reason the first best man (nagyvőfély) would especially offer them wine:

Hi, Cumanian captains, welcome and good even’!
Take this flask of wine and share between you even!
Come on, eat and drink you, everyone make merry,
Says the host you should now cares and woes all bury.
Tetétlen (former Hajdú County)

Then they served up the traditional mush, which later on was replaced by pastries and cakes. However, in spite of this, the cook still appeared after dinner and the first best man announced in the following way the great mishap that had befallen her:

Marred by a misfortune, our feast is saddened,
In the hustle-bustle something awful’s happened:
As the cook with laddle portioned out the corn-mash,
She did have a blob o’t on her hand and arm splashed,
And she got her arm all scalded in the mischief;
Now that ugly burn she’s bandaged in a kerchief.
Poor soul, she is crying, watching it is torment,
Someone from the chemist’s ought to bring some ointment.
But to purchase medicine, money, sure, is needed,
I appeal for help then, asking you to heed it:
Every man jack fork up, just as much as each can,
So we may thus speed the healing of the cook’s hand.
Great Plain

So everybody would put money on the plate, at the same time lifting the cloth on the cook’s hand and even her skirt, while she would whack good and hard at the pesterers with the wooden spoon she held in her other hand.

Meanwhile, the onlookers had gained admittance, dressed up in mummery. Others performed a parody of a burial, in which a young man dressed as a clergyman holds a farewell sermon–interwoven with coarse jokes–over the fake dead, covered with a white sheet. The mummers got food and drink for this and also could participate in the dance. The gypsies would be playing through dinner, the men would order songs for money, the women for nothing. When dinner was over the gypsies began to eat, while the best men carried the chairs and tables out so that the dance could start. The older folks withdrew into the smaller room to drink and to talk.

We shall in the following introduce three episodes of the wedding {625.} which, although they are known in a large part of the linguistic region, vary in regard to their order by regions or often by villages.

Time came for the fektetés (bedding down) after dancing, when the best man again would bid farewell to the family and girlfriends of the new wife in her name, and lead her out of the house. Here the woman attendants of the bride took her over and led her and her husband to the attic or pantry, when they prepared the wedding bed for them. Then the young wife took off her bridal garland, which the best man pinned on his staff and took back among the dancers and revellers.

The felkontyolás (putting up of the hair) is the actual acknowledgement that the girl had become a woman and that this state must also be given expression in her attire. They usually put up the hair in the sleeping quarters of the young people, and during this time only women and girls could be present, except for the husband. While they knotted the young wife’s hair, she kept crying, as was required by propriety. In the meantime they sang appropriate songs:

I shall lead a life all happy
Till my ribbon goes flip-flappy.
Ribbons are but light apparel,
In the wind they flipper-flapper.
But the clothes are clumsy wearing,
Ever fraught with woes, despairing.
Oh, the clothes are clumsy wearing,
Fraught till death with woes, despairing.
Hertelendyfalva (former Torontál County)

When they were done putting up her hair, they again handed the new wife over to the best man for some kind of a ransom, and he led her back among the wedding party with the following words:

I can see no maiden but a married woman,
And a coil of hair, where used to be a ribbon.
Wear in good health your tresses gathered in a topknot,
Go through life happy, may you thrive and lack not!
May the Lord God bless you with your loving helpmate,
May you live contented, never part or sep’rate;
Satisfied and happy, always merry, joyous,
Live a life becoming, God-fearing and pious.
Kovácsvágás (former Abaúj County)

The menyasszonytánc (bride’s dance) or, as it is also called, the menyecsketánc (young wife’s dance), was one of the closing elements of the wedding. At this time the first best man introduced the new wife with the following words:

Lo! behold the sweet bride, here before us standin’,
First time since she’s married, she is on the randan;
To each guest that asks her, she a dance is grantin’
For to buy her shoes with gifts that you must hand in.
{626.} Come on folks and ask her for a round of dancin’;
Look out for her shoe-caps as you are advancin’!
Not for nothing were those pretty little shoes made!
Then when you have finished, see to it your due’s paid.
There’s an empty plate lies in the table’s middle;
I shall have the first dance, you can wait a little.
Meanwhile go get money, banknotes or else metal.
Long live the new couple!–gypsy, play your fiddle!
Bodroghalász (former Zemplén County)

They also place a bottle of wine and a glass next to the plate, and with this gesture the dance really begins. When the first best man has finished, he shouts “the bride is for sale”, and then the best men and the relatives throw money on a plate or into a box and take a few turns with the young wife. As they hand her over to the next one, they drink a toast to her health. When everybody–even the older children–had danced with the bride, then the new husband throws a larger sum on the plate and the two finish the dance together. Meanwhile, the first best man counts up the money, which eases the young couple’s start in life. This motif of the wedding not only has survived but is again in vogue even in the cities.

In the past, weddings lasted for two or three days among the more prosperous, and contained details that vared according to numerous ethnic and regional groups. At the end they served up “push-out mush” (kitoló kása) to those who were reluctant to leave, and the best man, the first best man, let them know that the wedding was over:

Had enough of merry making,
Time it is your leaves were taking.
Stir your legs, host, harness horses,
Put your guests on homeward courses.
Hertelendyfalva (former Torontál County)

Afterwards only those gather together who had helped carry out the wedding. At this time they eat the cooking of the new wife and praise it with the following good wish:

Tattered though the wedding cap be,
May the young wife live long, happy!

This extremely sketchy survey will serve to draw several conclusions. First, it shows what a close unit customs, beliefs, domestic traditions, and folkloristic creations are. It also shows what a complicated system developed out of all this. Historical research has demonstrated that marriage customs have shifted significantly in the direction of eating, drinking and revelling, so that in many cases it has become lakodalom in the original meaning of the word. This at the same time also means that to organize a very expensive wedding was possible only for the well-to-do peasants, even if a lot of the expenses were recovered from the presents and the bridal dance. The poorer people, if they held a big wedding, often groaned under the consequences of bearing heavy debts through half their lives.