Hutchinson H.V. Marriage Customs in Many Lands

New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1897. — 348 p.The Marriage Customs of the World, if treated exhaustively, would fill a good many volumes, and the compilation of such a work might occupy the best part of a lifetime. The present writer's object is to present to general readers a careful account of quaint and interesting customs derived from information scattered through innumerable volumes, not to discuss scientific questions connected with the origin of marriage and the human family, which have been dealt with by well-known writers like Sir John Lubbock, Professor Tylor, Professor Robertson Smith, Westermark, and McLenan. The present age, with its marvellous facilities for travel and consequent bringing together of peoples and races, is not favourable to the preservation of old customs. In fact, they are fast dying out everywhere, and, ere long, most of them will be as dead as the mammoth, or other extinct monsters. Hence, it is highly desirable that the old customs connected with betrothal and marriage should be brought together and presented to the public in some convenient and compact form.