jump = copulate with?

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:07 PM -0600 11/17/05, Mullins, Bill wrote:
>  >This suggestion sounds doubtful to me:  there seems to be an ancient  custom
>>of a couple performing their wedding by jumping over an object  together.
>>Then, if "to jump" means "to wed", further sexual meanings are  not
>>impossible.
>>
>>I have heard of this custom exactly twice, both times in science fiction
>>novels.  One was Heinlein's _Glory Road_ and the other was Bujold's _The
>>Hallowed Hunt_.  In the first case the object jumped over was a
>>sword and  in the
>>second a flagstaff---both being obvious phallic symbols for those to  whom
>>phallic symbols are obvious.
>
>I don't know about Bujold's book, but in Heinlein, they jumped over
>a sword in lieu of a broom.  "Jump the broom" is a moderately common
>expression (thousands of googits), and was the title of a Brenda Lee
>song.
>
...as opposed to the modern custom of jumping the shark (hundreds of
thousands of googits, and not a fun thing for a couple to do
together, although I suppose a case could be made for phallicity)

Larry