Love: A history of Welsh Courtship and Marriage
This exhibition at Carmarthenshire Museum looked at some particularly Welsh aspects of courtship and marriage.
Love tokens
People have always given tokens of love as a sign of their affection. However, what and what how it was given has changed over time depending on the local traditions of romantic courtship.
Giving a love token was not a binding commitment on either side but a way to start and build a relationship. As affection grew the level of devotion could be shown in the time it took to hand craft a gift. This can be seen in the intricate details carved into love spoons, suitors would use initials and symbols to signify the depths of their devotion.
What gift would you choose to show someone you cared?
Horse Wedding
Racing to the church on horse-back was a tradition that everyone attending the wedding could take part in. It echoed a much more ancient custom of capturing or chasing the bride. These races could be extremely dangerous and sometimes people were injured or even killed! Below Herbert M Vaughan reminisces about possibly the last Priodas ceffylau in Abergwili in 1876:
"With our nurses we had all been taken to a steep field above the high road from Carmarthen to Llandilo, whence we could get a good view of the coming “Horse-Wedding” from a place of safety. I clearly recollect seeing the mounted wedding guests tearing down the road at full speed towards Abergwilly Church, the bride (who wore a crinoline!) leading the procession…"
The Bidding
‘A great many can help one, but one cannot help a great many’
In times of need the communities of South Wales came together to help each other out. To set up a newly married couple, the ancient custom of Bidding, was an effective way to collect money and gifts.
The bride and the groom might hold several biddings, so that many hundreds of contributions could be made. A clerk usually kept a record of the pwython (marriage dues) from each donor in an accounts book. These dues were a form of loan and could be legally binding, transferred or inherited. If money wasn’t available, gifts such as tea, sugar and bread were offered instead. Vast amounts of money could be collected in this way and was often enough to stock a farm and start a new home.
On the wedding day
‘Love’ tells many stories of courtship and marriage customs in Carmarthenshire. But there are many other customs that we couldn’t include. Here are two that happened on the wedding day, which we thought would make you smile.
Customs
Cwinten
In Carmarthenshire, the cwinten (or quintain) was a playful tradition designed to delay the bride getting to church. Straw ropes were held across the road, to prevent the bridegroom’s men - the shigowts or ‘seek-outs’, from fetching the bride from home. The practice was still observed until at least the 1990’s, when ordinary ropes were used to hold up wedding guests who paid a small sum of money to pass.
Pwnco
When the shigowts/seek-outs had made it through the rope barriers, there was yet another hurdle to overcome – the ritual entry into the bride’s house. This was a mock poetic contest (pwnco) between those inside vs those outside. Sometimes, a local bard was employed by both parties, and the contest might last for hours!