The more astute mothers used that wealth to increase the dowries of their own daughters, thus augmenting their eligibility. By the late fourteenth century, in fact, there was a phenomenon in Venice known as “dowry inflation”; the expenses, and the rewards, of a marriage were so great that only one girl in the family could be exchanged and only one male in the family could reap the rich harvest. As a result there was in the city a huge store of unmarried men and women; the men lived with their families, and the women characteristically were consigned to convents.
Herodotus wrote in the fifth century BC that the tribes of the Veneti were accustomed to sell their daughters at an open auction to the highest bidder. As late as the tenth century AD there are reports of annual matrimonial fairs in Venice itself, conducted on the feast day of Saint Mark (April 25) at S. Pietro di Castello, where the young girls came holding their dowries. It is an example of a persistent Venetian tradition, continued by other means. In a city of markets, unmarried women were the ultimate commodity. The merchandise of female flesh and money was exchanged for increase in nobility or political power. It was essentially a transfer from visible to invisible assets. When the newly married bride went in procession to her marital home, it was a way of making the exchange public and accountable. It represented the free circulation of capital through the body politic. Since the goods could be easily damaged, young girls were often placed in convents for a time; the nunneries were a kind of warehouse.
On the day for the signing of the marriage contract, in the families of the patricians, the bridegroom repaired to the house of his prospective father-in-law; when the groom and his friends were all gathered, the young girl, dressed according to convention in white gown and brilliant jewels, was paraded twice in a circle to the sound of fifes and trumpets. Then she proceeded into the courtyard, was greeted by all her female kin, and by means of a gondola was transported to all the convents where her relations were immured. The bride’s gondoliers were obliged to wear scarlet stockings. Behind the walls of the convents the young girl was shown to the nuns, who may have had mixed feelings about the matter. On the dawn of the marriage day a small orchestra would play outside the bride’s house as she prepared herself for the procession to the parish church. After the marriage ceremony itself there was a public feast, to which all the guests brought presents.
In the marriages of the other classes, there were customs no less rigorous. The aspiring groom would wear velvet or broadcloth; he would wear a dagger on his girdle, and he would be elaborately coiffed and perfumed. He first declared his love by singing under the window of the beloved. At a later date he would relay a formal request to the family. If he was judged suitable the two families would meet at dinner, and the two parties would exchange gifts of handkerchiefs and almond cakes. There was then a sequence of gifts, carefully regulated according to convention and superstition. At Christmas the man gave to the woman a
The marriage day was always a Sunday, the other days deemed for a variety of reasons unfortunate. The bride’s family was supposed to furnish the bedroom of the newly married couple; according to custom it had to contain a bed of walnut wood, six chairs, two chests of drawers and a looking glass. Walnut was the only permissible wood. It is an example of the stolid conservatism of the people. No race had a smaller propensity for social or political revolution. In this city, therefore, married life was not necessarily a pleasure; it was a solemn social and familial duty. Perhaps that is the source of the Venetian proverb that marriage comes from love in the way that vinegar comes from wine.
