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Jumping the broom is a phrase and custom relating to a wedding ceremony where the couple jumps over a broom. The custom is based on an 18th-century idiomatic expression for "sham marriage", "marriage of doubtful validity"; it was popularized in the context of the introduction of civil marriage in Britain with the Marriage Act 1836. There have been suggestions that the expression may derive from an actual custom of jumping over a "broomstick" (where "broom" refers to the ''common broom'' rather than the household implement) associated with the Romani people of the United Kingdom.〔Dundes, Alan: "Jumping the Broom: On the Origin and Meaning of an African American Wedding Custom" page 327. ''The Journal of American Folklore'', 1996 http://www.jstor.org/stable/541535〕〔"evidence showing the wedding custom was practised by gypsies in England, Scotland" Donald F. Joyce "Rooted in the chants of slaves, Blacks in the humanities, 1985-1997: a selected annotated bibliography" Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999 p56〕 especially those in Wales.〔Thompson, T. W. "British Gipsy Marriage and Divorce Rites", quoted in ''The Times'', Issue 54004, 21 September 1928; p.11. A paper read at the 1928 jubilee congress of the Folk Lore Society in London refers to this: "In Wales there was preserved until recently a marriage ritual of which the central feature was the jumping of the bride and bridegroom over a branch of flowering broom or over a besom made of broom."〕 The custom of a marrying couple literally jumping over a broom is now most widespread among African Americans, popularized in the 1970s by the novel and miniseries ''Roots'' but originating in the mid 19th century as a practice in antebellum slavery in the United States.〔Norman Kolpas, Katie Kolpas "Practically Useless Information on Weddings" Thomas Nelson Inc, 2005 p30〕 ==As an expression for "irregular marriage"== References to "broomstick marriages" emerged in England in the mid-to-late 18th century, always to describe a wedding ceremony of doubtful validity. The earliest use of the phrase is in the 1764 English edition of a French work: the French text, describing an elopement, refers to the runaway couple hastily making ''un mariage sur la croix de l'épée'' (literally ‘marriage on the cross of the sword’), an expression the English translator freely renders as ‘performed the marriage ceremony by leaping over a broomstick’.〔Probert, R. ''Marriage Law and Practice in the Long Eighteenth Century: A Reassessment'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)〕 A 1774 usage in the ''Westminster Magazine'' also describes an elopement. A man who had taken his under-age bride off to France discovered it was as hard to arrange a legal marriage there as in England, but declined a suggestion that a French sexton might simply read the marriage service through before the couple as "He had no inclination for a Broomstick-marriage".〔(1774) 2 ''Westminster Magazine'', p. 16〕 In 1789 the rumoured clandestine marriage between the Prince Regent and Maria Fitzherbert is similarly referred to in a satirical song in ''The Times'': "Their way to consummation was by hopping o’er a broom, sir".〔The Times, Tuesday, 8 September 1789; pg. 4; Issue 1251; col A〕 Despite these allusions, research by the legal historian Professor R. Probert of Warwick University has failed to find any proof of an actual contemporary practice of jumping over a broomstick as a sign of informal union. Probert also points out that the word ''broomstick'' was used in the mid-18th century in several contexts to mean ‘something ersatz, or lacking the authority its true equivalent might possess.’ She therefore argues that because the expression ''broomstick marriage'', meaning 'sham marriage', was in circulation, folk etymology led to a belief that people must actually have once signified irregular marriage by jumping over a broom.〔 There are later examples of the term ''broomstick marriage'' being used in Britain, always with a similar implication that the ceremony so performed did not create a legally binding union. This meaning survived into the early nineteenth century: during a case heard in London in 1824 regarding the legal validity of a marriage ceremony consisting of nothing more than the groom placing a ring on the bride's finger before witnesses, a court official commented that the ceremony "amounted to nothing more than a broomstick marriage, which the parties had it in their power to dissolve at will."〔''The Times'', 13 August 1824, p.3〕 A decade later, the Marriage Act 1836, which introduced civil marriage, was contemptuously referred to as the ‘Broomstick Marriage Act’ by those who felt that a marriage outside the Anglican church did not deserve legal recognition.〔''Jackson’s Oxford Journal'' 12 September 1840, p. 1; ''Saint Valentine: or, Thoughts on the evil of Love in Mercantile Community: The Galanti Show'' (1843) 13 ''Bentley’s Miscellany'' 151〕 Some also began to use the phrase to refer to non-marital unions: a man interviewed in Mayhew's ''London Labour and the London Poor'' admitted: "I never had a wife, but I have had two or three broomstick matches, though they never turned out happy."〔Volume I, Pg. 389-91. Quoted in Thomas, Donald, ''The Victorian Underworld'' John Murray, 1998. Pg. 62〕 Tinkers were said to have a similar custom of marriage called "jumping the budget", with the bride and groom jumping over a string or other symbolic obstacle.〔Chesney, Kellow. ''The Victorian Underworld'' Penguin, 1970. Pg. 92〕 Charles Dickens' novel, ''Great Expectations'' (first published in serial form in the publication ''All the Year Round'' from 1 December 1860 to August 1861), contains a reference in chapter 48 to a couple having been married "over the broomstick." The ceremony is not portrayed, but the reference indicates that the readers would have recognized this as referring to an informal, not a legally valid, agreement.〔"They both led tramping lives, and this woman in Gerrard-street here, had been married very young, over the broomstick (as we say), to a tramping man,..." DICKENS, C. ''Great Expectations'' (1860-1861), Chap. 48〕 It has often been assumed that, in England, jumping over the broom (or sometimes walking over a broom), always indicated an irregular or non-church union (as in the expressions "Married over the besom", "living over the brush"),〔Dundes, Alan: ""Jumping the Broom": On the Origin and Meaning of an African American Wedding Custom" page 327. ''The Journal of American Folklore'', 1996〕 but there are examples of the phrase being used in the context of legal weddings, both religious and civil.〔See Dudley Heath, ‘In Coster-Land’ (1894) 125 ''English Illustrated Magazine'' 517, referring to ‘a newly-made and happy couple on their way from Bethnal Green, where, at the Red Church, they have for the sum of seven-pence halfpenny gone through the ceremony of "jumping the broomstick"’〕 Other sources have stepping over a broom as a test of chastity, while putting out a broom was also said to be a sign "that the housewife’s place is vacant" and a way, therefore, of advertising for a wife.〔J.G. Whitehead, M. Terry, B. Aitken, ‘Scraps of English Folklore, XII’ (1926) 37 ''Folklore'' 76; Sheila Stewart, ''Lifting the Latch: A Life on the Land'' (Charlbury: Day Books, 2003)〕 In America the phrase could be used as slang describing the act of getting married legally, rather than as specifying an informal union not recognised by church or state.〔In a short story published in 1896 a character remarks of two lovers who are keen to wed, "Young ‘n’ old has be’n lookin’ constant fer these two ter jump the broomstick ‘n’ give ‘em weddin’ cake, ‘n’ chicken pie." 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「jumping the broom」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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