Hymenaios

In Greek mythology, Hymenaios (also Hymenaeus, Hymenaues, or Hymen; Ancient Greek: ) was a god of marriage ceremonies, inspiring feasts and song. A hymenaios is also a genre of Greek lyric poetry sung during the procession of the bride to the groom's house in which the god is addressed, in contrast to the Epithalamium, which was sung at the nuptial threshold.

Function
Hymenaios was supposed to attend every wedding. If he didn't, then the marriage would supposedly prove disastrous, so the Greeks would run about calling his name aloud. He presided over many of the weddings in Greek mythology, for all the deities and their children.

Hymenaios was celebrated in the ancient marriage song of unknown origin Hymen o Hymenae, Hymen delivered by G. Valerius Catullus. Both the term hymn and hymen are derived from this celebration.

Representation
At least since the Italian Renaissance, Hymenaios was generally represented in art as a young man wearing a garland of flowers and holding a burning torch in one hand.

Later story of origin
According to a later Romance, Hymenaios was an Athenian youth of great beauty but low birth who fell in love with the daughter of one of the city's wealthiest men. Since he couldn't speak to her or court her, due to his social standing, he instead followed her wherever she went.

Hymenaios disguised himself as a woman in order to join one of these processions, a religious rite at Eleusis where only women went. The assemblage was captured by pirates, Hymenaios included. He encouraged the women and plotted strategy with them, and together they killed their captors. He then agreed with the women to go back to Athens and win their freedom, if he were allowed to marry one of them. He thus succeeded in both the mission and the marriage, and his marriage was so happy that Athenians instituted festivals in his honour and he came to be associated with marriage.