The provisions of the contract were precise, not vague, and recognized that no marriage was perfect. Term after endless term was delineated. Every detail was considered; nothing was too intimate to be mentioned. If Hest sired a child outside of the marital bed, such a child would be ineligible to inherit anything, and Alise could, if she chose, terminate their marriage agreement immediately, while claiming 15 percent of Hest’s current estate. If Alise were found to have committed an infidelity, Hest could not only turn her out of his home but could dispute the parentage of any child born after the date of the transgression; such children became the financial responsibility of Alise’s father.
It went on and on. There were provisions by which they could mutually end their agreement, and stipulations on transgressions that rendered the contract null and void. Each had to be read aloud and formally signed by both of them. It was not unusual for the process to take hours. But Hest was having none of that. With each phrase he read, he increased the tempo of his reading, plainly anxious to be done with this part of the ceremony. Alise found herself caught up in play, and matched the speed of her words to his. Some of the guests seemed affronted at first. Then, as they noticed Alise’s pink cheeks and the sly smile that wafted across Hest’s face periodically, they, too, began to smile.
In a remarkably short time, they reached the end of the table. Alise was out of breath as she babbled through the last stipulation from her family. She spoke the final proviso aloud, the standard one. “I will keep myself, my body and my affections, my heart and my loyalty, solely to you.” As he repeated it, it seemed a redundancy to her, after all they had already promised to each other. They signed. The quills were handed back to their attendants. Finally freed of such tedious formality, they joined hands and stepped to where the table no longer divided them. Together they turned to face their waiting parents. Hest’s hands were as warm as Alise’s were cold; he held her fingers gently, as if afraid he might harm her with a firmer grip. She closed her hands on his; let him know now that all her hesitations were gone. She was his, and she gave her well-being into his hands.
First their mothers and then their fathers joined in blessing the couple. Hest’s parents spoke a much longer blessing than Alise’s did, imploring Sa for prosperity, many children, a happy home, longevity with health for both of them, healthy dutiful children—the list went on and on. Alise felt her smile grow fixed.