The right time and age to get married in Sicily
Woman eighteen and the man twenty eight…!
Twenty eight him, eigthteen her. That ‘s the good wedding!
This is one of the many proverbs which accompanied the lives of young people in Eighteen Hundred!
We must have had a conversation with our granparents or great grandparents and beeing lost and fascinated by the many old tales and believes, sometimes dreaming or not, probably shaking our heads when listening.
Let’s go back into the past…
Tradition estabilishes that mother would take always the first steps about marriage strategies, deciding who was the appropriate husband or bride following a social or economic convenience. This step was disregarding the true feelings which explains why we shake our head listening to these old romance stories.
Luckily, it was not always the same way it goes by…A young man, in love for a woman could also show off his feelings placing a log of prickley pear by the door of the girl and richly decorate it with golden pendants, embroidered napkins and red ribbons.
The day after the father used to go to the main square holding the log and looking for the pretender.
When young people were already well together in love and it was evident publicly, it was said “i ficu si cunsaru” (the figs are ripe) which meant that the time was the right one like ripe figs to be collected. In more recent times and still today, this expression is whispered when you can see two people start to show a kind of love complicity.
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