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Umassaguan Tåtten Potta
To be Married behind the Door
Before the war, if parents discovered that their unmarried daughter was with child, they often looked for the father of the child. Both sets of parents would talk. As with many cultures, the two families felt that they had to "make things right" between the boy and girl, and for the baby on its way.
Since all of this was a huge embarrassment to both families, the priest usually agreed to marry the two of them in a quiet way, avoiding the use of the main church. Since bride and groom can marry without Mass, the priest often took the bride and groom "behind the door," that is, inside his sacristy (the priest's dressing room behind the sanctuary) or sometimes inside his rectory (office) and performed the exchange of vows there.
The newlyweds would live under the same roof now, be seen publicly as husband and wife and, hopefully, no one would notice that the mother gave birth a little less than nine months after the quiet wedding.
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