It is customary for the bridesmaids to be dressed alike, and they often wear some ornament which has been presented to them by the bridegroom. It may be that this is a survival like many other wedding customs of the old marriage by capture, for in some countries the girl friends of the bride will not allow her to be approached by the bridegroom until he has given them presents, or in reality bribed them. Now, like tipping, it is merely a custom that must be followed, but originally no doubt the bridegroom and his accomplice, the best man, might have found that what they could not do by force they might encompass by bribery. The expression "to tie the nuptial knot" takes its origin from the fact that, among the Babylonians, the priest who conducted the wedding used to take a thread from the garment of the bride and another from that of the bridegroom. These he tied together into a knot and presented to the bride as a symbol of the binding nature of the union between her and her husband. There is an article of dress which often plays a part at weddings, for old shoes are usually thrown after the newly-married pair, while boots, with a hole in them, filled with rice, are hung from the backs of carriages, and satin slippers have on occasion been fastened to the carriage door handle of the railway train which speeds the pair on their honeymoon. We all know that the throwing of old slippers is intended to bring luck to the bride and bridegroom, but it is not apparent what particular form it is intended that the blessing should take, and the origin of the custom is difficult to determine. Mr. James E. Crombie,[24] after carefully considering the various superstitions connected with weddings and shoes, has come to the conclusion that the intention is to ensure that the young couple shall be blessed with children, and that old shoes are thrown because of the idea that the essence or life of the individual that wore them remains in them, and makes them powerful talismans. In this connection it may be well to consider the importance which shoes have assumed at various times in connection with weddings and otherwise. So long ago as the year 1291, a law in Hamburg ordered that the bridegroom should give his bride a pair of shoes, and it is still a custom in Transylvania for the bridegroom to make a similar present on his wedding morning. In Greece the best man puts a new pair of boots, supplied by the bridegroom, on to the feet of the bride when she leaves her father's house. In Bulgaria, a money present which the bridegroom makes to the relatives of the bride is called shoe money, and with it the father of the family buys shoes for it. This money is said to be a relic of the price that was paid to the clan from which a wife was taken.