Latin prowess

My husband and I have a unique relationship. I’m sure most couples think that, and can probably also relate to my early problem: I was shy, and thus reserved. It was an odd mix of showing a ‘highlight reel’ and of dulling myself: to not be too smart, to not try and be funny.

Men don’t like those things, I’d gleaned, and so I mitigated the inevitable wreckage of my personality.

Over the past decade, it’s resulted in very very funny exchanges, now that he can’t do anything about it.

He’s a movie buff, where I am not. I enjoy movies, but not like he does, nor have I seen the same breadth of content. One night, he was describing Braveheart to me, and driving me up the wall. I hate this, when I’ve already agreed and yet he continues to tell me everything about the plot simply because he’s over-excited. It’s a marital cross to bear (for both of us).

If you haven’t seen it, which you probably have, the initial inciting incident of William Wallace’s motivation for the entire movie is an English tradition with a Scottish marriage (in that period of time, a highly contentious and antagonistic time between the two countries) called Prima Nocta.

My husband asked if I knew what it meant. I could only infer that he wouldn’t have, so I needed to be informed.

So, I said, “… first night? And it’s obviously something awful, because he goes to war over it, so… they probably violate the bride on her wedding night, because they have the right to do that, under English law at the time?”

He stared at me, blank, until finally, I said, “Prima… nocta? First… night…?”

“DO YOU SPEAK LATIN?”

Nope. No, I do not.

He shook his head and said, “Three hundred years ago, they’d have burned you as a witch.”

This is probably true.