"Jumping the Broom"

In Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, it is reported that the woman who is eventually revealed to be Estella's mother was married "over the broomstick (as we say), to a tramping man." Dickens offers no explanation for "over the broomstick," apparently assuming that it was a concept with which his readers were familiar. There is in fact a long tradition of 'jumping the broom" to certify informally a marriage sanctioned neither by state or church. It was practiced in west Africa where it symbolized the sweeping away of the old life and of a leap into the new world of fertility and increase. "Jumping the broom" was also a frequent practice in southern American slave culture where legal marriage was prohibited. The custom was a feature of ancient Celtic societies, especially among the Welsh and the Picts. As practiced by the Picts, broom jumping neither predicted nor solicited fertility.