A Study on Marriage Customs of Han Nationality in Late Qing Dynasty

1. The old ceremony prevailed in the late Qing Dynasty, and the wedding of officials and gentry was conducted in accordance with the official wedding system. After the same light, Western-style weddings gradually have an impact, resulting in a new and complicated situation, showing complicated characteristics. On the old-fashioned marriage, the matchmaker comes first, and the auspicious day comes later. Put on auspicious clothes, sacrifice to heaven and earth, suppress ancestors, and all kinds of ceremonies have strict rules. Marriage customs are also very particular. On the wedding day, put some saddles at the door so that my husband can pass by. There are incense tables, millet buckets, bows and arrows, bronze mirrors and balance beams in the courtyard, which are enshrined inside and south. From the bride to the door of the room, there was a man singing a happy song, with a basket of walnuts, copper coins and broken grass in his hand, scattering it around and calling for the next kiss; Some brides come to the door, and the bride shoots arrows to kill the gods; Some eat jiaozi, jiaozi is not cooked, and they don't explain when they are cooked. Life, take out the meaning of the world; Some nights, the window where the bride and groom take flowers must be at the lower part of the window. The lower the window, the earlier the baby is born, and so on. Tsui Hark: The fifth book, 1990. Marriages all over the world pay attention to family hierarchy, arranged by parents, complicated weddings with many superstitious colors and so on. Roughly the same. As for the folk weddings of the Han nationality in the late Qing Dynasty, there is a tendency of simplification in this period. Revised during the reign of Guangxu from 0755 to 79000: In the past, it was a custom to get married, dressing up on the first day, getting married the next day and meeting on the third day. Dress up in the morning, get married in the morning and get married in the afternoon. Volume 18. 2. Marry a matchmaker and choose relatives for money. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the matchmaker said that folk men and women were better. So the matchmaker became the most important guest at the wedding. In Pingxiang, Jiangxi, on the day of kissing, as a media person, I was proud of myself. I'm well dressed and I'm proud of myself. The host must set up a square table outside the gate, with some fruits and wine on it, and two or three drinkers will stand in front of him. When the media arrive, congratulate them, force them to drink, and then welcome them to church. They will be honored as important guests. Juan: Records of Shuntian Prefecture. The main purpose of the social matchmaker of the Han nationality in Qing Dynasty is not the beauty of adult marriage, but to earn others, which is a kind of wealth full of drawbacks. As someone said in the late Qing Dynasty, the husband's matchmaker was compared to a pigeon by the ancients and regarded as a matchmaker by later generations. Those who died were matchmakers, most of whom were followers and good people. He doesn't I don't care about his intentions, either to get a large reward or to make friends with famous families or money. So, if you make it short, you are colluding with others. Success will be rewarded; Failure is painful, and the mind is like a fox. Chen: Records of Shuntian Prefecture and Records of China Ethnic Customs? Jiangxi Pingxiang Volume 1, Volume 2, Sanlian Bookstore, 1978, p. 856. Therefore, according to the purpose of parents, the marriage established by the matchmaker is actually an arranged marriage and a buying and selling marriage. In the late Qing dynasty, the concept of family status in economically developed areas was impacted, and the phenomenon of choosing relatives to discuss wealth appeared. At the same time, scholars in Xi 'an and Xi 'an think that bad customs have little influence, and they all take township teachers as the object of transfer. Although his son is thick, he has never been associated with Tongqing. After Daoguang, as soon as the scholar entered the first subject, he chose a rich family in his village and sent Zhu Juanguang to marry him regardless of his background. Shen Shouzhi: On the Disadvantages of Wedding, quoted from Zhu Chen's Selected Works of the Ten Years before the Revolution of 1911, Volume 2, World Press, 1935, p. 297. It is a sign of social and economic development and the improvement of businessmen's quality, and it is also a reflection of the change of social atmosphere. 3. Doll marriage, empty wife marriage and concubinage doll marriage refer to the marriage forms in which the man is under marriageable age, his parents are engaged or married for him, and he is formally married after adulthood. For example, in the year of Borrowing Nest Notes, I was a child in Huang Po, Hubei Province.

After marriage, some brides will never see their husbands, and some will be old when they do. When the bride marries the groom, she must obey the family rules. She is not allowed to get close to outsiders or have sex with other men. Otherwise, she will be severely punished by her people. In the late Qing Dynasty, due to the accumulation of wealth and political corruption, aristocratic bureaucrats and the rich were extravagant and concubinage prevailed. In this regard, China's cultural history reveals that there are 2,000 yuan concubines, 6,000 yuan concubines and 20,000 yuan concubines in Tianjin's official cities this year. As a result, a strange advertisement appeared in the Tianjin market, and Big Ben prohibited concubinage.

1July 30, 909. After the Opium War, profound changes were taking place in all aspects of late Qing society, and marriage laws and regulations were no exception. Especially in the bourgeois reform and revolutionary movement after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the reformists and revolutionaries put forward the slogan of women, and launched a fierce attack on the feudal marriage system after liberation. Kang Youwei shouted to eliminate the harm to women for thousands of years in the year of Chinese national customs; Liang Qichao is clearing money? Ta Kung Pao published a discussion on marriage, which profoundly exposed the disadvantages caused by the feudal marriage system. Tan Sitong boldly denied husband and wife in Ta Kung Pao, and advocated that the combination of men and women should be consensual. After the Reformists, the revolutionaries criticized the feudal marriage system more deeply. Datong Daily published an article signed by Chen Ren, entitled Xinmin Congbao, which listed six disadvantages of feudal marriage, namely, absence of men and women, arranged marriage by parents, matchmaker's words, early engagement in bride price, early marriage and red tape. The author shouted loudly: I want to make a big wish, make great efforts, make great efforts, based on independent separation, and aim at free marriage, sweep all kinds of social situations, eliminate the evil forces between families, make national marriage glow with the same glory, create a new world for compatriots and men, destroy the dependence between men and women, overthrow the bad style of autocracy, stop the words of matchmakers and behead people. 1 Volume 2 Sanlian Bookstore, pages 858 and 978. Breathe out women's liberation and marriage revolution. The reformists and revolutionaries strongly advocated civilized marriage and put it into practice while impacting the old marriage relationship, which had a great influence on the feudal marriage system in the late Qing Dynasty. In the process of preparing for constitutionalism, the Qing government made some changes to the old marriage system when amending the law, such as abolishing taboos such as marriage with the same surname, marriage between good and bad, marriage between Manchu and Han, and stipulating that parents must allow them to get engaged, but for men over 30 and women over 25, it needs 055-7900 volumes, with 2888 pages. Compared with the old proposal to ban early marriage, it has made a lot of progress. However, the Qing government still adhered to the principle of amending laws and regulations, and all matters such as relatives, marriage and inheritance. Except for some amendments that are contrary to the Constitution, they are either based on the existing legal system, various classics and principles, or involve morality, so as to safeguard the people's just order for thousands of years. The volume of Benevolence, page 9 13. This will inevitably have a negative impact on the reform of the marriage system in the late Qing Dynasty. 19 from the 1950s to the 1960s, there were not a few literati who had close contact with foreigners, and there was a phenomenon of marrying the West. Anyone who witnessed this scene has such a record: the day before yesterday was Chunfu's wedding day. Legally, the priest stood in front of him, his clothes pointed at him, and made several, several engagements. The bride was standing in the south, and the priest asked what was in the treaty. The best man will take care of it Then look up at the sky, pay homage, then make new friends, and leave after the ceremony, which is extremely brief. , page 259. It is worth noting that the western rituals here have actually changed. First of all, the bride and groom didn't answer the priest's questions themselves, but the bridesmaids answered them. Second, unlike western weddings, couples kiss each other but look up to heaven and worship, and newlyweds say goodbye to each other. It can be seen that those imported western customs

This practice is very different from the traditional marriage custom of the Han nationality, that is, couples don't get married until the wedding day, which shows the new characteristics of the progress of marriage custom. In addition to folk marriage customs, intellectuals or revolutionaries who received modern education in the late Qing Dynasty were free to fall in love and get married independently. Although it is not universal, it represents the correct direction of the change of marriage customs in the late Qing Dynasty. On this basis, the civilized wedding in the late Qing Dynasty came into being. 5. Civilized wedding There is a civilized wedding, but the wedding place is not in the church, and there is no need for a priest to preside over the wedding outside the marriage. Many manners are roughly transplanted from western manners. Although some of China's contents are mixed with American traditional ceremonies, the spirit and form are basically westernized. Xu Kejue-min said: There is no need for welcoming ceremony recently. At the turn of the light and the public, civilized marriage prevails. Advocated in metropolises and commercial ports, it is gradually adopted in the mainland. The certificate prepared in the public gallery is read by the witness. The introducer, the witness and the male and female guests all have eulogies. The host reads the sermon and the guests sing civilized wedding songs. There are three lengths of civilized wedding. One is to supervise freedom by parents' orders, matchmakers' words and men's and women's identities. The order of handling the case is that Chen Man volunteered for his parents and the parents agreed, that is, the introducer petitioned the woman and the parents agreed. Then the introducer made an appointment to invite men and women to meet, and the men and women agreed, and the engagement was settled. Second, after the engagement, men and women enter into a contract, taking self-reliance as an oath first. Third, the wedding should be frugal, save the extravagant wind and avoid the obstacles of economic life. On the wedding day, both parents exchange gold rings and put on dresses. There is no fixed pattern for a civilized wedding system. At that time, the practitioners in society were like this: first, playing music. Second, the master of ceremonies sits in his seat, facing north. The male guest is sitting facing north. Fourth, the female guests are seated, facing north. Fifth, male wedding guests are seated, facing south. 6. The female guests attending the wedding face south. Seven, everyone sit facing west. Eight, all women sit down and face the east. Nine. The witness sat facing south. 10. The introducer should be seated and face south. Eleven, the posture is correct, facing the north. The bridesmaid led the bride and groom to the dining table, facing north. Thirteen, the best man sits well and faces north. Fourteen. The bridesmaids sat at the table, facing north. Fifteen. Play music. Sixteen years old. Witness reading certificate. Seventeen. Witness seal. Eighteen. Seal of witness. X. Seal of the bride and groom. The witness exchanged decorations for the bride and groom. 21. The bride and groom get married and bow face to face. Twenty-two, playing music twenty-three, wedding ceremony. 24. Personal certificate. 25. The bride and groom thanked the witness and bowed three times. 26. The bride and groom thanked the introducer and bowed three times. Twenty-seven, male and female guests on behalf of the eulogy, flowers, double bow. Twenty-eight, playing music. Twenty-nine, the bride and groom thanked and bowed. 30. Female guests sing civilized wedding songs. 3 1, witness the quotation back. Thirty-two, the male guest is back. 33. The female guest is back. The bride and groom meet the wedding guests of men and women, and all the ceremonies of men and women's families. 35. Play music. Thirty-six, male and female wedding guests and elders face south and bow three times. Thirty-seven, men and women face west, men and women face east, double bow. Thirty-eight, men and women welcome, object to object, bow. 39. Bridesmaid The bridesmaid came back with the bride and groom. Forty, two married men and women and all retired men and women. Forty-one, those who correct their mistakes, the master of ceremonies will retire. Forty-two, refreshments. Forty-three banquets.