An Authentically Slavic Drama: Polish Weddings of Yore

czepiny_polona.jpg, default, An Authentically Slavic Drama: Polish Weddings of Yore, Wedding rituals of the Silesian people: 'Czepiny', after 1906, photo: National Library / Polona, center, #000000

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Marrying for love? You must be kidding. In old Poland, matchmaking sooner resembled the negotiation of an economic pact. Nonetheless, the entire process was accompanied by many colourful elements, almost theatrical in character.

'A strangely beautiful and authentically Slavic drama from the life of the Polish family' – that is what the ethnographer and folklorist Zygmunt Gloger wrote about old Polish weddings in his magnum opus, the Encyklopedia Staropolska, which he complied in the years 1900-1903. And indeed, many of the customs once practised in Poland do seem – especially when viewed from today's entirely modern perspective – at the very least peculiar. But are they beautiful? Certainly even observers who are not researchers might find in them some captivating traces of the old ways.

Marriage based on reason

Thumbnail — 'The Wedding Party On Its Way' by Wincenty Wodzinowski, postcard, 1905-1916, Wieliczka, photo: National Library / Polona

Since the union of a woman and man was once not exclusively a matter for the two, but rather an institution viewed as the union of two families, the couple's freedom to choose a mate was seriously restricted; in fact, it effectively didn't exist.

The matching of a couple resembled a business or trade negotiation leading ultimately to a contract. The final decision as to whom a woman married was made by her parents, not by herself. It often occurred that the young couple did not even know one another when the matchmaking process began. Although the profession of matchmaker (swat in Polish) has faded into oblivion, the verb swatać ('to set someone up') remains in use. It comes from the Old Polish swaćby, meaning a wedding. In some regions, the matchmaker was known as a rajek and matchmaking was known as rajby – from the verb raić, to recommend someone or to make matches. The most evocative term for such a person, however, was dziewosłąb, a word combining dziewka (a young woman) and the act of snębienie, giving young women away in marriage. There were occasions, though fewer, when the matchmaking was done by a woman. Today, we might call such people 'wedding planners'. That role was not limited to acquainting the couple with one another. Until marriages in Poland became church affairs, the matchmaker might also take on the role of conducting the wedding ceremony and of general manager of the entire enterprise. Sometimes, the couple would be introduced by a professional matchmaker; other times, it would be the father of the intended groom who would make the arrangements. Oskar Kolberg wrote the following about this practice:

The young man's father […], taking with him a container of vodka, a loaf of bread under his arm and a glass in his pocket, heads off to make a match, most often without even asking the young man to which young lady he should be going; so he'd go instead to whomever the young man's father himself wanted to go.

A cow, not love

So the union began not on an emotional basis, but rather with rhetoric which might otherwise characterise carefully conducted trade negotiations. Critical to them was, of course, the size of the dowry which the bride would be bringing to the newly formed household. 'Sometimes the lack of a single cow would be of such consequence that the matchmaker would consider it a dealbreaker and the intended marriage would not be concluded,' observed Henryk Biegeleisen, ethnographer and historian and author of the study Weddings: Rites and Customs, published in Lviv in 1928. A wedding and its accompanying festivities were thus not a love fest, but rather a form of social theatre in which the entire family played roles. Biegeleisen wrote unsparingly about matchmaking:

The custom of matchmaking is evidence of poorly developed individual initiative amongst village youth of both genders and its origins lie in the patriarchal epoch.

In villages, it used to be possible to recognise the homes in which an eligible daughter lived. The walls might be marked with spots or the window frames painted blue. Sometimes designs made of sand were placed in front of the house or wreaths were hung on the front fence.

Vodka brings people together

Successful negotiations were crowned with a vodka toast in the home of the bride-to-be. The matchmaker would place a bottle of liquor on the table and the young lady would be asked for a cup (providing the cup constituted her initial agreement to the arrangement). This is where the theatricality of the wedding customs made itself evident: The young woman would play the role of one who consents unwillingly, acting reticent and shy. She provides the vodka glass backhandedly while facing the stove.

The toasting of the engagement agreement testifies to the consideration of the agreement as one of many formal pacts; in old Poland, every concluded negotiation was marked by a toast, even just a simple transaction between a buyer and seller. Marriage was thus treated almost like any other piece of business. In Biegeleisen's Weddings, we even read that this toast seems to be a remnant of a proto-Slavic custom of drinking blood to confirm the conclusion of an agreement.

Engagement was the next act confirming the intent of entering a marital union – but it had the character of guaranteeing to the other side (i.e. the entire other family) that the intention would be followed through on, rather than being the sort of intimate set of vows it is today. The matchmaker would on this occasion bind the couple's right hands together, often over a loaf of bread, symbolising the wish to create a home together and presaging a successful union. Wincenty Pol describes how their hands would be bound together with two white kerchiefs – the couple would keep the kerchiefs until the day of their deaths when the kerchiefs would be placed beneath their heads in their coffins.

The bride wore black

After the engagement, preparations began for the main portion of the wedding celebrations: the wedding reception. The bride would inform the guests of the plans. The preparations would usually go on for about four weeks. The wedding itself, that is the final sealing of the marital union, was not the most important part of this rite of passage. Until the time of the Council of Trent, weddings in Poland had a secular character, but even earlier there were times that, for the sake of formality, the non-religious event would be complemented by a wedding ceremony presided over by a priest.

On the day before the wedding, people would bombard the house in which the wedding was to take place with a barrage of bottles and other glass objects – this was supposed to bring good fortune to the newlyweds. The eternal union of the couple was symbolised – as it is today – with wedding rings. These rings were thought to have healing powers: for example, they were placed on eyes to cure styes. While a bride's white dress seems to be a fashion sine qua non today, that hasn't always been the case. A future wife in black? Nowadays, that's almost unthinkable, but we should consider the custom of the Lubawa region (bordering on Masovia, Masuria and Pomerania) where, before the First World War, most women appeared for their wedding vows in one-piece garments of black, grey or dark blue, crafted by local tailors.

The bun & the rooster

Lessons in baking the traditional ritual cake – korowaj – and the teaching of korowaj songs and traditional dances.

If we want to approach the wedding from a culinary perspective, the most important element of the wedding was the korowaj (in western Poland also called kołacz or, as we read in the official list of traditional products of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 'a yeast-based bun upon which decorative elements are formed, such as ears of corn, birds, flowers or braids, with a diameter of 21-25 cm'). The preparation of this extraordinary baked product was always a strictly female responsibility: on the day before the wedding, a group of so-called korowajnice would gather and prepare and then bake dough while singing special songs for the occasion. It was important that a joyous atmosphere be maintained throughout: that joy was supposed to magically ensure that the dough would rise especially high which, in turn, bode well for the young couple.

The korowaj was considered so important that, if it rose too high, the bakers would sooner dismantle the oven than risk harming the bread itself while extricating it from the oven. Once ready, the bread would be shared with all the guests at the wedding (the first bites were reserved for the bride and groom). This ritual is reflected in today's wedding cake.

Another culinary element of the weddings of yore was the kapłon, a specially bred rooster. At the appropriate moment, the rooster was castrated and fattened, which was supposed to ensure its ideal flavour and plumpness. The kapłon was an important feature of the old Polish culinary arts – not only for weddings, but also for other festive occasions. We find various ways of preparing it in, among other sources, what is considered the very first Polish cookbook, Stanisław Czerniecki's Compendium Fercurolum or a Collection of Dishes.

The runaway bride

In the past, as today, were there bachelor and bachelorette parties to say farewell to the single life? Yes. This custom was observed, first and foremost, among women. Sources reveal little about men's bachelor parties; most probably, there was just a celebratory evening of libations in a circle of men. The women, by contrast, parted with their 'former lives' in a melancholy fashion. The bride's last virginal night was spent in the company of other single women with whom she would sing sad songs. Their mournful voices accompanied their weaving of wreaths and wedding rods. The bride and her coterie wove the wreaths out of pine branches and decorated them with flowers, ribbons and feathers. The wedding rod, a symbol of the bride's single life, had to be purchased by the groom-to-be. During the wedding, the wedding rod had to be displayed prominently and, after the wedding, it would be burnt or put away. The wedding wreath, on the other hand, became the bride's last virginal head covering – the bride would part with it only during the ritual of oczepiny, the culmination point of the old Polish wedding ritual.

Oczepiny – consisting of the bride's removing her wreath from her head and donning the married woman's bonnet – would take place at midnight as her coterie sang the oldest known wedding song, Oj Chmielu, Chmielu (some sources add that this is the oldest known song in the Polish language!). And this moment would be accompanied by a theatrical convention: the bride-to-be would pretend to put up a fight against losing her maiden status. She would cry and throw the bonnet off her head, that is, she played the role of a person leaving her erstwhile status with great regret. Another farewell to the single life was the ritual of loosing the braid – the groom or the groomsman cut off the bride's maiden braid: It was forbidden for a married woman to wear a braid. Unlike today's custom, weddings and their surrounding observances used to be sad occasions – this was partly a staged sadness, but it is not hard to imagine that leaving one's family home to become the wife of a man whom one barely knew was neither a pleasant nor an easy experience.

A wedding night with witnesses

A shocking old custom was the so-called pokładziny, the ritual consummation of the marriage in the presence of witnesses. This ritual usually involved some of the guests guiding the newlyweds to their bedroom and witnessing the couple's first sexual intercourse. Afterwards, the groom would display the bride's bloodied underwear to the assembled as evidence of her virginity. In some sources, we read plainly that the old Slavic customs involved having sex in front of the wedding guests who would celebrate the event with dance, song and sometimes with the playing of instruments. In the event that the 'virginity test' was not passed, the festivities would cease and the guests would trash the bride's home, smashing dishes, puncturing pots, and demolishing the premises. This was a horrible custom, particularly because it is a biological fact that not every woman bleeds upon losing her virginity.

There used to be a custom of the 'sugar dinner', which was a decidedly more humanitarian and socially acceptable remnant of the earlier pokładziny. In this practice, a special feast was laid out in the nuptial bedroom in the presence of select wedding guests (only married men and women could take part and they danced a polonaise as they accompanied the newlyweds to their bedroom); the 'feast' was made up exclusively of sweet foods and beverages, such as marzipan, mead and Muscatel wine. The 'sugar dinner' customarily took place immediately after the braid cutting.

Another custom which might shock our sensibilities today was the so-called 'divine wedding' which would take place when the bride or groom-to-be died before the wedding could take place. In that situation, the wake would be held in a wedding mode: with a lavish festive table and even with dancing for hours into the night. The would-be bride would lay in her casket dressed as if she were to be married, with a decorative beribboned wreath upon her head. Similar rites were practiced in the case of prematurely deceased grooms: their bodies would be decorated with flowers.

Marriage was a social and cultural must in old Poland. In some regions of the country, failing to marry was a punishable offence! Young men and women who remained single after Carnival, for the offence of 'refusing to take on the yoke of marriage', had sticks, eggshells, goose feathers or chicken feet tied to their feet or to the hems of their skirts. 'Death and a wife are assigned to each man by God,' says an old Polish proverb.

Less & less wine

In olden times, weddings were not a one-day event; rather, they lasted several or even many days. They would usually begin at the bride's house and would eventually move on to the groom's house. Weddings were often held at inns. Over time, weddings became shorter and shorter until they arrived at today's standard of a reception lasting one evening and night. Biegeleisen cites the observation of 'a citizen of Podgórze' in 1828, bemoaning the gradual diminution of wedding festivities:

Great-great-grandfather's wedding lasted a week and consumed ten barrels of wine, great-grandfather's five days and seven barrels of wine, grandfather's three days and one barrel of wine, father's 24 hours and 100 bottles of wine, my son's one evening and Champagne only at the 'sugar dinner', and most recently an incognito marriage with ten cups of tea!

As a rule, the matchmaker would go to the home of an eligible woman only late at night under the cover of darkness, in this way unnoticed and avoiding any evil eye that might be cast by someone who opposed the intended nuptials. The good fortune of the couple was also considered subject to the phases of the moon: apparently, it was thought beneficial for matchmaking and weddings to be conducted under a waxing moon – that is, after the New Moon – as the moon tends toward fullness. This was supposed to enhance the good welfare of the couple. But astrological superstitions were not consistent: there also existed an opposing belief that called for weddings to be held under a full moon. 'The state of the moon and its phases had a great impact on the life of our peasant', Biegeleisen emphasised.

The final stage of old-time weddings was the leading of the bride to the home of her new husband. It's worth recalling a few of the superstitions associated with wedding rituals. In former times, there was no shortage of them. The performance of marriages was avoided in the month of May, as such a wedding was thought to portend the early death of the spouse. It was also considered risky to marry in June. A bride given in marriage in June was once known as a 'czercówka' (June bride) and it was believed that she would be consumed by worms or maggots. The untimely death of a bride or groom could also be brought on, it was believed, by the imprudent trying-on of wedding clothes prior to the actual event. Care was also taken to ensure that there were no deceased people in the village on the day of the wedding – the presence of a corpse was considered a bad omen. So... beware!

Originally written in Polish, July 2020, translated by Yale Reisner, March 2021. Hover mouse here for sources.

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