Editing Sparta (section)

===Marriage===
Plutarch reports the peculiar customs associated with the Spartan wedding night:

<blockquote>The custom was to capture women for marriage... The so-called 'bridesmaid' took charge of the captured girl.  She first shaved her head to the scalp, then dressed her in a man's cloak and sandals, and laid her down alone on a mattress in the dark.  The bridegroom – who was not drunk and thus not impotent, but was sober as always – first had dinner in the messes, then would slip in, undo her belt, lift her and carry her to the bed.<ref>Plutarch, ''The Life of Lycurgus''</ref></blockquote>

The husband continued to visit his wife in secret for some time after the marriage.  These customs, unique to the Spartans, have been interpreted in various ways.  One of them decidedly supports the need to disguise the bride as a man in order to help the bridegroom consummate the marriage, so unaccustomed were men to women's looks at the time of their first intercourse. The "abduction" may have served to ward off the [[evil eye]], and the cutting of the wife's hair was perhaps part of a rite of passage that signaled her entrance into a new life.{{sfn|Pomeroy|2002|p=42}}