Ruth 3:9 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman. Spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; because thou art a near kinsman. She had already drawn part of the mantle over her; and she asked him now to do it, that the act might become his own. To spread a skirt over one is, in the East, a symbolical action denoting protection. To this day in many parts of the East to say of any one that be put his skirt over a woman is synonymous with saying that he married her; and at all the marriages of the modern Jews and Hindus one part of the ceremony is for the bridegroom to put a silken or cotton cloak around his bride (see Roberts' 'Oriental Customs,' on this passage, where it is shown that the same practice obtains among the Hindus).