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Courtship rituals have evolved a lot over the last few thousand years and in that time, some pretty unusual traditions have been invented.
In an age without the Internet and before free online dating sites, lusty young singles invented some pretty weird customs for wooing their love interests.
Nordic tribes in the 19th century used a rather suggestive way of making their intentions known. All the single ladies looking for a man wore an empty knife sheath and hoped a dashing young gent would fill it with his puukko knife. If she kept the knife in place, then his offer was accepted and marriage was on the horizon. However if she discarded the knife, his advances were rejected and the courtship was over.
You might be surprised to hear that the phrase ‘let’s just snuggle’ isn’t a modern dating phenomenon. In 16th and 17th century Europe and America courting couples were allowed to share a bed so they might get to know each other better within the warmth and safety of the girl’s house. The girl’s chastity was preserved with the help of a custom known as bundling, which involved the fully clothed courting couple being separated by a bundling board and / or a cover being tied around the girl’s legs.
Victorian gentlemen would send the object of their affections a pair of gloves. If she arrived at church on a Sunday morning wearing them, then the match was on, if not, his advances had been spurned.
17th century Welshmen expressed their love in the form of spoons. The ornate lovespoons were carved from a single piece of wood by the potential suitor and decorated with carvings, each of which symbolised something different. An anchor signified the man was ready to settle down and start a family, while a vine meant ‘love grows’.
In some regions of Europe in the 1700s, there was a tradition of breaking a loaf of bread over a bride’s head as she left the church. The unmarried guests scrambled to pick up the pieces, which they would put under the pillows to bring about dreams of their future spouses.
Until the 1930s, the Taiwanese Atayal tribe expressed their desires with gifts of severed heads. Warriors returned from battle with the severed heads of their enemies as tokens of affection for the women they coveted. The women gratefully accepted these unusual gifts and proudly displayed them for all to see, like a beautiful bunch of roses.
In 19th century Austria, ladies looking for love would tuck a slice of apple into their armpit, then perform a special dance ceremony to work up a good sweat. When the dancing was done, the apple slice, now deliciously infused with her salty bodily fluids was offered up to the menfolk. Eating this nutritious snack was an indication that the man returned the woman’s affections and they were to live appley ever after. If you thought running out of things to say was awkward, imagine the horror of having your sweaty apple slice refused by the man of your dreams!
So the next time you are fretting over a modern dating dilemma, like when to announce your relationship on Facebook, or deciding who was paying for dinner, consider yourself lucky that you don’t have a room full of severed heads to display, an empty knife sheath dangling from your girdle, or a wooden board separating you from your date.