s that of the class called _arie_--in the
country, _canzoni_. The three songs above cited are those which are
heard on such occasions.

Song, dance and music alternate, and are prolonged for hours, until the
guests are tired out and prepare to leave the bride and groom, who are
already sleepy.

Let the reader accompany the pair to their abode. The door is open, the
room lighted, the bed prepared: some sighs and laments are heard among
the bystanders. It is the mother, the married sisters (young girls do
not accompany to her home the sister who marries), who are grieved at
seeing their sister leave her home and become another's, uncertain of
the lot that will be hers in the future. An old custom requires the
bride to be undressed and put to bed by her mother-in-law. In lack of
the mother-in-law the right belongs to the oldest sister-in-law. Woe to
whoever dares to transgress this custom! Grave quarrels would arise, and
even worse. I have myself been present when a family having wished to do
as they pleased and not adhere to custom, blows and wounds followed, and
the bride and groom were obliged to spend the night in jail.

The first visits paid to the newly-married pair are by their mothers,
who hasten to congratulate them. These are followed later by friends,
who go to make the _bon lirata_.

The bride remains at home a week to receive the visits of relatives,
friends and acquaintances who either did or did not share in the
wedding-festivities. After this time she leaves the house solemnly for
the first time to go and hear mass, high mass being ordinarily
preferred. The white dress which in some localities constitutes the
wedding-dress, in others is the one worn on the first occasion of
leaving the house and in returning the visits of the guests.

The last act of this drama or comedy of life is a journey on which the
husband must take his wife within a year after their marriage. In the
marriage-contract, written or verbal, there is a clause by which the
husband assumes the obligation of taking his wife within the year to
such and such a festival of some town more or less remote--the farther
away the more important to the contracting parties and their relatives.
Where no contract is made the custom is enough, the "word"--which, as
the proverb says, "is more than the contract"--is sufficient. In Piana
dei Greci, an Albanian colony of Sicily, the husband obliges himself to
take his wife a journey in honor of St. Rosal