"prothalamion"

Today's MAotW is brought to you by Jon, who apparently encountered this term while reading about the Carpenters. (Wait, was I not supposed to post that publicly?)

prothalamion

At last, all that Ancient Greek comes in handy -- this term is clearly very Greek, as it parses into pro+thalamion, pro meaning "in front of" and thalamion being the word referring to the "woman's chamber" of a house. Nevermind that in the ancient world, women were "kept" on the second floor of the house, with a ladder that their husband could remove once he was sure that his wife was in bed...

But anyway: yes, this is a marriage song. It can also be referred to as epithalamion, which means essentially the same thing. It can also refer to a poem celebrating marriage. And now, an example, brought to you by our friend Purcell.