Chinese marriage: Encyclopedia - Chinese marriage

Chinese marriage

This article is in need of attention.

You can help Wikipedia by editing it into a better article.
Please also consider changing this notice to be more specific.

Please remove this notice after the article has been expanded. Details are on this talk page or at Wikipedia:Requests for expansion.

Traditionally marriage in ethnic Chinese societies (婚姻, pinyin: hūn yīn) has been an arrangement between families. Originally Chinese culture allowed for romantic love and monogamy was the norm.

Chinese marriage - Introduction

Ideographically, 婚 (pinyin: hūn) is identical to 昏 (pinyin: hūn, literally meaning "evening" or "dusk"). In more ancient writings, though the former has the radical 女 (pinyin: nǔ, which literally means "a female"). This implies that courting couples met in the evening. Similarly, 姻 (pinyin: yīn) is the same as 因 (pinyin: yīn). According to Zhang Yi's (張揖) Guangya Shigu (廣雅•釋詁), a dictionary of ancient Chinese characters, 因 (pinyin: yīn) means "friendliness", "love" and "harmony", indicating that correct way of living for a married couple.

Chinese marriage - Marriage in a Confucian Context

In Confucian thought, marriage is of grave significance both to families and to society. Traditionally incest has been defined as marriage between people with the same surname. From the perspective of a Confucian family, marriage brings together families of different surnames and so continues the family line of the paternal clan. This is generally why having a boy is more preferred than a girl when giving birth. Therefore, the benefits and demerits of any marriage are important to the entire family, not just the individual couples. Socially, the married couple is thought to be the basic unit of society. In Chinese history there have been many times when marriages have affected the country’s political stablity and international relations. From the Han dynasty the rulers of certain powerful foreign tribes such as the Mongolians, the Manchus, the Xiongnu, and the Turks demanded women from the Imperial family. Many periods of Chinese history were dominated by the families of the wife or mother of the ruling Emperor. Thus marriage can be related to politics.

Chinese marriage - Prehistoric Chinese marriages

Chinese marriage - Marriages in Early Societies

In traditional Chinese thinking people in "primitive" societies did not marry, but had sexual relationships with one and other indiscriminately. Such people were thought to live like other animals, and they did not have the precise concept of motherhood, fatherhood, sibling, husband and wife, and gender, not to mention match-making and marriage ceremony. Part of the Confucian "civilizing mission" was to define what it meant to be a Father or a Husband, and to teach people to respect the proper relationship between family members and regulate sexual behavior.

Chinese marriage - Sibling marriages

Sibling marriage, although forbidden in Chinese culture, was reported to a minor extent in very early Chinese mythology. There was a story about the marriage of Nüwa and Fu Xi, who were once sister and brother respectively. At that time the world was unpopulated. The siblings wanted to get married but, at the same time, they felt ashamed. So they went up to Kunlun Shan and prayed to Heaven. They asked for Heaven's permission for their marriage and said, “if You allow us to marry, please make the mist surround us.” Heaven gave permission to the couple, and promptly the peak was covered in mist. It is said that in order to hide her shyness, Nüwa covered her blushing face with a fan. Nowadays in some villages in China, the brides still follow the custom and use a fan to shield their faces.

Chinese marriage - Inter-clan marriage and antithetic marriage

In Chinese society males should not marry females of the same surname (this have been largely disregarded in recent era as the Chinese population expanded to such an extent that people who hold the same surname might have little or no relation with each other at all). This is seen as incest and it is thought there is a risk that abnormal births might result. Marriage of a son to close relatives of his mother, however, is not seen as incest. Different clans might have more than one surname. Historically, there were numerous important clans living along the Yellow River in the ancient China, like the tribe of Huang Di with the common surname Ji and that of Yan Di with the surname Jiang. Because marriage to one's maternal relatives was not thought of as incest these families sometimes intermarried from one generation to another.

Over time Chinese people became more geographically mobile. Couples were married in what is called an extra-clan marriage, or better known as antithetic marriage. This occurred in the midst of the New Stone Age, i.e. around 5000 BC. According to modern Chinese scholars of a Marxist persuasion Matriarchy prevailed in society at that time, therefore husbands needed to move to, and live with, their wives’ families. Yet individuals remained members of their biological families. When a couple died, the husband and the wife were buried separately in the respective clan’s graveyard. Offspring would be buried with their mother. Antithetic marriage still happens in modern China. In Yunnan, males and females in the minority group known as Nakhi form temporary couples, and they call each other “Ahchu” rather than “husband and wife”. The male “Ahchu”s live and work in the home of the female “Ahchu”s.

Chinese marriage - Maternal marriage and Monogamy

In a maternal marriage, a male would become a son-in-law who lived in the wife’s home. The husband would also need to change his surname into his wife’s one. This happed in the transformation of antithetic marriage into monogamy, which signifying that the decline of matriarchy and the growing dominance of patriarchy in the ancient China.

Chinese marriage - Traditional Marriage Rituals

Chinese marriage became a custom between 402-221 B.C. Despite China's long history and many different geographical areas, there are basically six rituals.

• Proposal: When an unmarried boy's parents find a potential daughter-in-law. They then located a matchmaker whose job was to assuage the conflict of interests and general embarrassments on the part of two families largely unknown to each other when discussing the possiblity of marriage.

• Birthday Matching: If the potential daughter-in-law's family did not object to the proposal the matchmaker would then compare the couples birthdates. If according to Chinese astrology the couple is compatible they would then procede to the next step.

• Betrothal Gifts: At this point the bridegroom's family arranges for the matchmaker to present betrothal gifts, including the betrothal letter, to the bride's family.

• Presenting Wedding Gifts: Wedding gifts would vary widely depending on local customs and family wealth. Food and other delicacies were typical gifts.

• Picking the Wedding Day: The chinese calendar is consulted for an auspicious day.

• Wedding Ceremony: The final ritual is the actual wedding ceremony where bride and groom become a married couple.

Chinese marriage - Reference

• "Amazing Facts of The Chinese Ancient Culture" by Ma Ching-kei and Chow Lei-ying, Pilot Publish Company Limited. ISBN 962-397-717-4

See also

• Marriage
• Chinese culture
• Confucian view of marriage
• Chinese wedding album
• Red envelope

Categories: Pages needing attention | Articles to be expanded | Family | Chinese culture | Marriage

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Chinese marriage", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki