Oath
While some versions are quite long—one source depicts a ceremony with six stanzas—the best-known points are:
"You must not eat brown bread while you can get white, except you like the brown the best. You must not drink small beer while you can get strong, except you like the small the best. You must not kiss the maid while you can kiss the mistress, except you like the maid the best, but sooner than lose a good chance you may kiss them both."The exception clauses make clear that the oath is not an oath at all; one may do as one pleases. Other parts of the oath include pledges to be kind to one's wife, to remember that the man is the head of his household, and to bring new initiates on one's next visit.
Read more about this topic: Swearing On The Horns
Famous quotes containing the word oath:
“The oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a
tapster; they are both the confirmer of false reckonings.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“On principle I dislike an oath which requires a man to swear he has not done wrong. It rejects the Christian principle of forgiveness on terms of repentance. I think it is enough if the man does no wrong hereafter.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Whoever has had the experience of the moral sentiment cannot choose but believe in unlimited power. Each pulse from that heart is an oath from the Most High. I know not what the word sublime means, if it be not the intimations, in this infant, of a terrific force.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)