Wedding bells at Zurrieq

The Maltese seem to have a love-hate relationship with marriage, if one were to go by the earthly wisdom of age-old proverbs.

Take for instance, Iz-zwieg dulliegha - marriage is like a watermelon - meaning that marriage can either turn out to be as sweet as a sorbet or as dull as a dinosaur.

Other sayings include L-ahjar zwieg mill-kelma sat-tieg, that is the best marriage lasts from the engagement to the wedding day and Iz-zwieg rabta bl-ilsien li ma tinhallx bis-snien: Marriage is a knot made orally but which cannot be untied by biting.

To take us back to how weddings were conducted in the mid-16th century, the culture committee of the St Catherine Band Club of Zurrieq will tomorrow be re-enacting such a ceremony at 10 a.m., starting at Pjazza Repubblika, the main open space in the village.

The bride and the groom under a canopy held by four men, will walk along the narrow winding streets accompanied by the haddara, the well-wishers.

Guzè Cassar Pullicino, in his book Il-Bennejja tal-Folklore Malti (University of Malta, 1964), underlines rites of passage as recorded by several authors.

Count Ciantar (1696-1778) notes, that the canopy under which the bride used to walk from her home to the church, was banned by Bishop Luca Bueno in 1668. This ban continued under Bishop Cocco Palmier who also stopped the tradition of presenting a bottle of wine as a gift to the parish priest. Until 1668, however, it was still permissible to present the parish priest with a flat loaf, ftira, or qarcilla, on top of which were placed two figurines representing the couple.

Also until 1598, it was still fashionable for violinists and guitarists to walk in front of the bride, stopping to sing the couple's praises.

During Count Ciantar's days, it was no longer customary to ask the bride to masticate a mixture of herbs and honey called zib. The idea was for the bride to do this for a couple of hours so that, when she meets her groom for the first time, she would look, and smell, more appealing.

It was also traditional for the bride to give a fish to his sweetheart as a lucky charm. Count Ciantar says the custom knows its origin to the Phoenicians who used to adore the god of fortune.

Gan Frangisk Agius de Soldanis (1712-1770) recounts how on September 8 of each year, marking the victory of the Knights of St John over the Turks in 1565, the Grand Master donated money to five girls to help them get married by having a decent dowry.

Tarcisio Zarb, in his book Folklore Of An Island: Maltese Threshold Customs (PEG, 1998), writes that, especially in villages, marriage was contracted by means of a broker known as huttab. This way of contracting marriages made it hard for the couple to have frequent meetings. In any case, tongues would start wagging if a woman was to talk to a man in the street when on her own.

Mikiel Anton Vassalli (1764-1829) records that, after giving their word to each other, the bride left her house only to attend the wedding ceremony. After the wedding, she returned to her parents' home where she stayed for eight days away from her husband.

On the eighth day, the husband would organise a sumptuous meal at his home to match the one held in his wife's house on the wedding day.

Annalisa Schembri, from the St Catherine Band Club's cultural committee, said that apart from the main re-enactors, tomorrow's ceremony will include over 100 male and female "peasants" while some females will wear the ghonnella.

The marriage ceremony will be held at St Andrew's chapel close to the Xarolla windmill, which will be open to paying visitors. There will be guided tours in English and Maltese.

Tickets for the guided tour and the exhibition inside the windmill cost Lm5 and Lm3 entitling holders to traditional Maltese food and a glass of wine with the newlyweds. Those who do not want to partake of the food can watch the wedding for free.

From Valletta, take bus no 32 or 34. For more details call 9987 4711. Ticket hotline: 7925 3580.

culturescbc@gmail.com