On the night of the wedding, the bride would have her hair cut short and be dressed in a man’s cloak and sandals. The bride appeared dressed like a man or a young boy to be perceived as less threatening to her husband.
In Sparta the cropping of the bride’s hair and transvestism likely aimed to transform her temporarily into an adolescent Spartan boy – a less threatening figure to the groom, who probably had made his own transition to adulthood via a close emotional and sexual relationship with an older male and was now in the position to sexually initiate other boys into Spartan society.
The bride was then left alone in a darkened room, where she would be visited and ritually captured by her new husband. Men were expected to visit their new wives at night and in secret.