sympathy might be full, not only of the
families who that year beheld the alliance of their children, and prayed
for them in one crowd, weeping before the altar, but of all the families
of the state, who saw, in the day which brought happiness to others, the
anniversary of their own. Imagine the strong bond of brotherhood thus
sanctified among them, and consider also the effect on the minds of the
youth of the state; the greater deliberation and openness necessarily
given to the contemplation of marriage, to which all the people were
solemnly to bear testimony; the more lofty and unselfish tone which it
would give to all their thoughts. It was the exact contrary of stolen
marriage. It was marriage to which God and man were taken for witnesses,
and every eye was invoked for its glance, and every tongue for its
prayers.[31]

Sec. VIII. Later historians have delighted themselves in dwelling on the
pageantry of the marriage day itself, but I do not find that they have
authority for the splendor of their descriptions. I cannot find a word
in the older Chronicles about the jewels or dress of the brides, and I
believe the ceremony to have been more quiet and homely than is usually
supposed. The only sentence which gives color to the usual accounts of
it is one of Sansovino's, in which he says that the magnificent dress of
the brides in his day was founded "on ancient custom."[32] However this
may have been, the circumstances of the rite were otherwise very simple.
Each maiden brought her dowry with her in a small "cassetta," or chest;
they went first to the cathedral, and waited for the youths, who having
come, they heard mass together, and the bishop preached to them and
blessed them: and so each bridegroom took his bride and her dowry and
bore her home.

Sec. IX. It seems that the alarm given by the attack of the pirates put
an end to the custom of fixing one day for all marriages: but the main
objects of the institution were still attained by the perfect publicity
given to the marriages of all the noble families; the bridegroom
standing in the Court of the Ducal Palace to receive congratulations on
his betrothal, and the whole body of the nobility attending the
nuptials, and rejoicing, "as at some personal good fortune; since, by
the constitution of the state, they are for ever incorporated together,
as if of one and the same family."[33] But the festival of the 2nd of
February, after the year 943, seems to have been obser