Tobias night
(təʊˈbaɪəs naɪt)
[tr. G. Tobiasnacht, which alludes to Tobit viii. 1–3.]
(See quots.) Cf. Toby-night s.v. toby n.1 6.
| 1960 C. Winick Dict. Anthropol. 539/1 Tobias nights, in the Catholic church, postponing the consummation of a marriage for several nights. 1975 Amer. Speech 1973 XLVIII. 73 One need not go all the way back to Semitic antiquity..nor to the derivative nineteenth-century Swiss and German custom of the ‘Tobiasnächte’, the ‘Tobias nights’, in which the next of kin slept between the newlyweds for the first three nights of marriage to protect them at a time when their resistance to evil would be at its lowest ebb. |