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Show SHOE TOKEN OF SUBJECTION Ancient Significance of Custom Which Is Now Looked Upon as Merely a Joke. As specially applied to weddings, there is a suspicion that the throwing of old shoes or new slippers, for all that had at first a significance which would surely be most objectionable to twentieth-century brides. It seems to have been a token of the complete subjection of the bride to her lord and master. In the East a shoe or a slipper was publicly borne at the head of the bridal procession in indication of the bride's subjection, and at some Jewish weddings the bridegroom used to strike the bride a blow writh his shoe as a sign that she was thereafter to be submissive to his will. Among the Nestorians it was the custom for the bridegroom to kick the bride, and for her to remove from his foot the shoe with which he had kicked her. To this day there is a common custom cus-tom in Russia for the bridegroom on his wedding night to require the bride to pull off his boots. In one of them is a whip, and in the other a gift. If she pulls off first the one containing the whip, she gets a stroke from the lash, and is to expect floggings thereafter, there-after, but if the gift is first disclosed her married life will be happy. It is related of Martin Luther that once, after . performing the wedding ceremony cere-mony for a couple, he took off the bridegroom's shoe and placed it upon the bride's pillow, as a sign that she should in all things and at all times be subservient to her husband. |