Marriage broker. Map 11 depicts the use of a marriage broker and wedding master, spokesman for pro-posal and wedding, and the changes that took place in the role of the spokesman. In the Karelian area of kinship weddings, marriage negotiations were conducted by the parents and kin of the young couple. The boy’s father and mother, accompanied by the most high-ranking relations, up to around ten people, went off to propose. The boy’s parents acted as the principal spokesmen, but a relative with rite skills was also included in the proposal delegation [kosioväki], even an external sorcerer, who would later act as the master of the wedding. When the proposal party had arrived in a house, the most influential relatives on the girl’s side were called. In the area from eastern Ingria via the Isthmus to Olonets, the mother and fa-ther may have been replaced by the boy’s christening fafa-ther and mofa-ther or godparents, like with peoples of northern Russia. In Karelia, the proposal was the first public negotiation between the kinship groups, which the villagers would come to watch (map 13).
The use of a proposal spokesman was preserved in Savo and almost the whole western area of vil-lage weddings, but the marriage negotiations were no longer public, nor did the groom’s parents or other relations come along. Gradually, entering marriage became private, and the groom set off to propose ac-companied by a trusted friend, neighbor or professional marriage broker (see diagram). In the area of peasant kinship weddings reaching from southeastern Finland to Häme, there were two spokesmen.
In the landed peasantry culture area of Varsinais-Suomi, Satakunta, Häme and Uusimaa, the role of the spokesman became professional. A parish may have had one or two marriage brokers; they were often impoverished gentlefolk or itinerant professionals, both men and women. They arranged marriage deals of the landed peasantry and were paid a fee for the work, often depending on the prosperity of the house. Professional brokers knew the houses of their parish and the suitable groom and bride candi-dates, they might even cover several parishes. Semi-professional spokesmen were also found in Savo, but the core area of professional marriage brokers is southwestern Finland. Both in Finland and in Kare-lia, a woman may also act as marriage broker or proposal spokesperson. There is no information on spokesmen from northern Kainuu or southern Lapland.
On the map, the size of the pie chart and the percentage figure below indicate the proportion of re-cords mentioning the use of a spokesman out of all wedding descriptions from the area. Proposal by spokesman has been most closely associated with the formula of Karelian kinship weddings, with 70-80% of wedding descriptions in the base material mentioning a spokesman. In western Finland, the
young began to agree marriages between themselves, and although a spokesman was still traditionally employed, by the end of the 19th century the nature of the proposal occasion had changed. The proposal was the formal culmination of a young couple’s courtship, and the spokesman’s role was to introduce the boy when he was seeking the approval of the girl’s parents for the marriage.
Roles of wedding spokesman. In Finland the spokesman has been both the marriage broker and di-rector of wedding ceremonies. In Karelia, the role of the wedding didi-rector or wedding spokesman be-came differentiated very early; in the 1800s it was common for the groom’s parents not to go to the girl’s home with the collecting party [noutoväki] at all. The wedding spokesman was the representative of the groom’s kin, leading the groom’s folk during the journey to collect the bride, but at the same time he di-rected the entire wedding drama, both at the leaving ceremony and arrival. In Dvina and Olonets, the master of wedding ceremonies had to keep up with the ever-increasing wedding rites. He had to escort the betrothed antilas safely to the groom’s home, to repel the forces threatening the happiness of the young couple, the evil eye and the jealousy of outsiders. In the kinship culture areas, the sorcerer-spokesman was preferably from one’s own kin, but professional wedding sorcerers, in Dvina patvaska, were the only external role players in addition to the professional lamenter women present at kinship weddings.
In the western village wedding area, the spokesman’s duties became defined, while the other external role players – the priest, head waiter [edeskäyvä] and fiddlers – took care of their part in directing the wedding ceremonies. In some parishes, the spokesman became the master of ceremonies and leader of social intercourse, like in Scandinavia. The spokesman may have made a speech of thanks on behalf of the groom’s family at the wedding feast table, and represented his kin in general. He headed the proces-sion of guests from the groom’s house to the wedding house, and usually also the wedding procesproces-sion and the bridal escort.(1
As the master of ceremonies, the spokesman in some places escorted the bride or the bridal couple to the altar and finally to the wedding bed. In the distribution area of the wedding passport, the spokesman acted as the passport reader (map 18) or appeared in other dramas designed to entertain the wedding guests. Generally, the spokesman acted as the compere at the wedding, announcing wedding toasts and what everyone gave as wedding presents (map 21). After the old group dances became popular, the spokesman was the leader of dance turns, and later in the time of paired dances, the spokesman opened the wedding dance by taking the bride to the floor in the first waltz; however, the parish rector or other guests of honour have taken the place of the spokesman as the opener of the wedding dance or leader of processions.
In southwestern Finland, the professional spokesman might have been a paid assistant who guided the young couple through all the stages of the marriage ceremony: acted as marriage broker, witness or
’stranger man’ at the betrothal (map 14), drove the bride at aid-collecting (map 12), and even accompa-nied the couple to the market to purchase the betrothal gifts (map 18). As masters of ceremonies, spokesmen as well as other specialized role players made the wedding a communal drama that was in-teresting for the villagers. Maintaining the traditions was important for professional spokesmen, and thanks to them, many old wedding customs evidently survived longer than might have been the case.
1. Cf. Espeland 1981.