Jumping the Broom History

This is a ceremony dating back to the 1600s and derived from Africa. Dating back to slave days, jumping the broom together has been part of weddings for couples who want to honor that tradition. Some couples choose to incorporate it into traditional and non-traditional ceremonies.

The “jumping the broom” is a ceremony in which the bride and groom, either at the ceremony or at the reception, signify their entrance into a new life and their creation of a new family by symbolically “sweeping away” their former single lives, former problems and concerns, and jumping over the broom to enter upon a new adventure as wife and husband.

The broom has both symbolic and spiritual importance in the African culture. The ritual itself was created by our ancestors during slavery. Because slaves could not legally marry, they created their own rituals to honor their unions.

More Folklore

An old English Saying: “Buy a broom in May, and you will sweep your friends away.”

In Sicily, on Midsummer’s Eve, a broom is placed outside the home to ward off any wickedness that might come knocking.

Never bring old brooms into new houses as a broom becomes attached to a home, so leave the old one behind therefore a new broom brings good luck and harmony to a new home.

In Welsh Tradition among Gypsies, there was an old custom of the broomstick wedding. The couple solemnized their rites before witnesses by jumping over a broom placed in a doorway, without dislodging it. To dissolve the marriage, they had to reverse the process, jumping backwards out of the house, over the broom, before the same witnesses.

An old Yorkshire belief: should a young girl inadvertently step over a broom handle she will become, a mother before she becomes a wife.