In Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, it is reported that the woman who is eventually revealed to be Estella's mother was married "over the broomstick (as we say), to a tramping man." Dickens offers no explanation for "over the broomstick," apparently assuming that it was a concept with which his readers were familiar. There is in fact a long tradition of 'jumping the broom" to certify informally a marriage sanctioned neither by state or church. It was practiced in west Africa where it symbolized the sweeping away of the old life and of a leap into the new world of fertility and increase. "Jumping the broom" was also a frequent practice in southern American slave culture where legal marriage was prohibited. The custom was a feature of ancient Celtic societies, especially among the Welsh and the Picts. As practiced by the Picts, broom jumping neither predicted nor solicited fertility.
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