Box of treasure and a bride

Medeans enacted an old-fashioned wedding during the cultural fair. It still happens, women in the crowd told us. A woman would be swathed and hidden in beautiful cloth and ridden to her husband, a man she'd never seen and certainly not spoken to, by a contingent of male relatives, well-armed, and bearing her dowry.

The arrival of the photograph was a god-send to women entering arranged marriages. They could at least recognize the groom the day of the wedding. Of course, if she didn't like what she saw in the photo, there was nothing she could do.