May Marriages Unlucky
It is a common notion that May marriages are unlucky, and the superstition is as old as the time of Ovid. An old saw says, “The girls are all stark naught that wed in May;” and another saying was
“From the marriages in May
All the bairns die and decay.”
An ancient proverb, cited by Ray, says, “Who marries between the sickle and the scythe, will never thrive.”
In the rural districts of France a marriage contracted in May or August is unlucky. In the “Almanach des Laboureurs,” it stated that a woman marrying in these months will put her husband under a yoke. The superstition of the month of May being unlucky for marriages still prevailed in Italy in 1750.