Feel free to include a broom
in your handfasting!
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The custom of "jumping the broom" is often associated with the African-American community, because when slavery was still a legal institution, slaves were not legally allowed to marry one another. Instead, a ceremony was held where the couple would jump over a broom in front of witnesses, either together or separately. However, there's some evidence that it may have taken place in European countries as well, both in Wales, and in the Rom culture: Jumping the Broom - Besom Weddings
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I am a history buff and from some of my research, there is an indication that the “jumping of the broom” may have been fairly prevalent among the serfs of Europe. Mostly among the countries with a background in Keltic and Anglo or Saxon cultures. During most of the feudal system the villages of the serfs (read slaves as they were bound to the land and unable to travel outside the lands owned by the lord) did not have a local priest. Thus a more pagan type ceremony which sometimes included the broom jumping was used for couples who wished to marry. When one of the itinerant priests would finally arrive at the village (sometimes this could take up to a year or more), the couple, and any others who had done the same, would them formalize the marriage with a religious ceremony. The serfs retained a lot more of their pagan religion because of this arrangement. It took quite a while for the dominant religion to reach all of the small hamlets and villages of the feudal system and get churches built and priests installed.
My husband and I included a broom jumping in our ceremony. We made the broom ourselves and decorated it with ribbons, and such. We jumped over it after the ceremony, and it fit in with the ceremony just fine!