Chinese Marriage
Chinese Marriage
In ancient China, a man could have as many concubines as
possible after the first wife. It was possible that the youngest
concubine would be a teenager while the husband could be an
ancient old man. Poor families sold their young daughters to
rich families just because they could get some money from the
rich family and also get rid of a useless female in the family.
Since 1950, the Chinese government has promulgated a law which
stated that one man can only get married with one woman. It
offends the law for anyone who has more than one wife.
In the past, parents arranged marriages were very common.
Usually young people would have their spouse decided by their
parents. Sometimes young people could only have the first look
of their spouse at their wedding. It was also common that
sometimes an arranged marriage could be organized even before
the child was born as long as parents from both families agreed.
In modern days, things have changed quite a lot. Free love
prevails and lovers can choose to get married with whoever they
love. Of course, in order to show their respect to their
parents, formal agreement has still to be obtained prior to any
proper marriage procedure.
Even more modern, matchmakers businesses are all thriving just
because sometimes people find it a bit hard to find their true
love.
Before getting married Before getting married, young people have
to pay a formal visit to each other's parents. When visiting the
girl's parents, the boy has to bring with him the betrothal
gifts in order to show sincerity. When the gifts are received,
then both the boy and the girl are engaged. When the girl visits
the boy's parents, the parents have to prepare a formal gift for
the future daughter-in-law.
In China, usually the newly wedded couple will move to live with
the boy's family. Sometimes it is not surprising to see that
they will live with the girl's family. However, in these modern
days, young couples would prefer to live alone without the
parents if they can afford to pay for a new flat or house.
One of the wedding procedure is that the bride has to prepare a
dowry to be brought to the bridegroom's family on the wedding
day. A dowry is things bought by the bride's family, which
includes blackest, clothes, accessories, daily necessities and
etc.
What comes next is to choose a good day to hold the wedding. It
is very important in the Chinese culture. A wedding, being such
an important day in a person's life, has to be held on a day
which symbolizes goodness. People will choose the best day based
on the Chinese Lunar calendar, or on any festival days.
The wedding ceremony A formal Chinese wedding requires the
bridegroom to pick up the bride at the bride's home after
respectfully greeted the parents-in-law to be. The couple-to-be
will then go to the bridegroom's home, where the bride will
greet her parents-in-law to be, or to the banquet location. If
they choose to go to the bridegroom's home, the young couple
will have to greet the parents-in-law to be with a cup of tea
each and the parents will return the daughter-in-law to be with
a red packet of money inside. Similar to the western culture,
the bride and bridegroom will be accompanied by bridesmaids and
best men and they are usually still non-married.
One very important procedure is the banquet. All relatives and
friends will be invited and they will wish the new couple with
all the best. At the banquet, the newly wed has to drink half
glass of wine for a pair of glasses linked by a ribbon. After
that the newly wed has to cross-hand and drink the other half of
the wine. It is believed that after this ceremony the newly wed
will love each other more dearly.
In some parts of China, the fish served in the banquet should
not be eaten totally. The head, tail and the whole skeleton of
the fish should be left untouched so as to symbolize a good
start and end of a marriage.
After the banquet, friends of the new couple will usually
continue the night by deliberately disturbing the new couple
with a few games. Games will include different quests for some
difficult performances or questions. Unfortunately to the newly
wed that these games usually last till very late in the night!
However in the modern days, many young people try to skip most
of these rituals or ceremonies. They do that either because they
think that new generations should not be confined by these old
traditions, or some do so just because of economical reasons of
trying not to spend as much money as possible.