I Do ... With a Difference

If you’ve quite made up your mind to get married, be grateful you’re not in living in Persia in days gone by. Your exchange of vows would not have been something as simple as exchanging rings and saying “I do”. Or cutting a cake and being toasted with champagne. Back in those bad old days when folks hadn’t heard of the worldwide web nor rock n’roll, they did things a little differently. Perhaps the word you have to watch out for is not “different”. It’s “little”. The difference is actually not that little. I was just preparing you for the jolt.

Imagine standing with your intended life partner before your family, your guests and the officiating priest. Then imagine the latter asking you to roll up your sleeves while he whips out a mean-looking razor which gleams in the lamplight like a prognostication of doom. You wonder for a moment whether he’s going to pare his nails, but he’s not. Instead, he asks both of you to roll up your sleeves.

While everyone watches in breathless, morbid anticipation, he slits your forearms and catches your blood in a chalice held in readiness for that purpose. Then he asks both of you to drink the sanguine refreshment in the chalice. Every last drop of it. It doesn’t make the least difference to the ghoul that you tell him you’re not related to Dracula or Nosferatu, and that imbibing human life-force is not on your daily agenda. You still have to drink each other’s blood to pledge your troth. It is the custom. Disobey, and the gods will curse your union. More likely, there’ll be no union and both of you will be condemned to celibacy. If, however, your folks insist that the marriage proceeds, compulsion will be applied to make you drink. Your jaws will be pried apart and the amber liquid poured down your throats.

The above is just ONE weird marriage custom which was found acceptable in times gone by. Read about the others and feel your hairs stand on end.