rely send out cards with the
names of the pair printed on each one, and further announcements
appear in the papers.

In Switzerland

there is not much romance in either wooing or wedding. The Swiss may
not marry till the youth is eighteen and the girl sixteen, and up to
the age of twenty the consent of parents or guardians is necessary.
When the time draws near for the wedding, the pair must go together to
a civil officer, and must each present him with a certificate of
birth, and tell him their ages, names, professions, and where they and
where their parents live. He then writes a deed containing their
promise of marriage, which must be made public for at least a
fortnight in the places where they were born, where they are living at
the time, and where they wish to be married. If nobody makes an
objection the ceremony can take place. May-Day is sacred to lovers in
Lucerne. He plants a small decorated pine-tree before her house at
dawn, and if he is accepted a right royal feast is prepared for him.
The little tree is {69} treasured till the first baby appears. A Swiss
peasant girl is often compelled to take the lover who lives nearest to
her home, as the introduction of an outsider is resented by the men of
the place.

The Hungarian

likes to linger over his wooing, and he is a past master in the art.
The lovers have absolute freedom of intercourse, and secure privacy in
the family circle by making a tent of his large, graceful cloak, under
which they sit and make love undisturbed. All the actual formalities
go through a third person, and much ceremony is observed in the
negotiations. The first stage of courtship is marked by the "Loving
Cup" feast, and the binding betrothal is known as the "Kissing
Feast."

In Norway

courtship is of necessity a very long process among the peasant folk,
for money is not easily earned, and no man may marry till he is a
householder, while houses may only be built in certain places and
under fixed regulations. Seven years is quite an average time for an
engagement, during which they do their love-making in a simple,
unaffected manner. No man ever jilts a woman, and broken engagements
are almost unknown.

In _Greece_ parents pay a man to marry their daughter, and no man may
marry till all his own sisters are provided with _trousseaux_ and
dowers.

The girl who _accepts_ an offer of marriage in _Greenland_ is for ever
disgraced. Her father may give her away or her husband