Home life in Hellas, Greece and the Greeks - eBooks4Greeks.gr

192 HOME LIFE IN HELLASbedaubed with gross paint that it is not easy todetermine whether she be flesh and blood, or astatue made of plaster." She walked so slowlythat she could hardly be said to move at all.'Wheler remarks further : ' Wives go little abroad,and daughters never, as I could learn, till they goto church to be married." The Athenian brideof to-day is better off than her ancestress intheserespects. That scarcely perceptible progression,which may be taken to signify modest reluctance,is still customary in some Greek villages ofTurkey. It is universal in Egypt, where thebride walks beneath a closed canopy hidden frombut among the Christians of thethe public gaze ;Lebanon the bride is to be seen, paint and all.Greeks, Albanians, and Vlachs marry each theirown folk. Mixed marriages are very rare. Therural population hold the marriage tie and allfamily relationships in great reverence. They arevery chaste and divorce is unknown among them,though by no means rare among the richer classesof Athens. 1All who have lived in Greek lands,in or out ofGreece, know the peculiar wailing chant whichheralds the approach of a funeral.First comes thebearer of the coffin-lid, held upright, swathed inpurple gauze and decked with flowers and tinsel.A boy can carry it with ease, for it is made of thelightest substance, purposely destructible. It is1Divorce is granted by the ecclesiastical authorities, not by acivil court,