Traditional Rites and Customs

During the Spring and Autumn Period, the vassal married the daughter of a country as his wife (the first wife), and the female party married with her nephew di (sister), in addition, there are two other countries with the same family name as the female party to send their daughters to accompany the marriage, and they also follow with their nephews and di, which is collectively known as the "bridesidesmaid". The first wife is the main wife, but the concubine is not the main wife. The status of a concubine was different from that of a concubine. A concubine was considered a lowly concubine and a favorite, while the status of a concubine was still more honorable. There was no concubine system in the Warring States period.

Anciently, when a woman left her home, she was said to be "returning". The Shuowen said, "Return, the woman is also married." Poetry - Zhounan - Tao Yao: "the son of the return, appropriate for his family." It can be seen that a married woman takes a man's family as her home. Bai Hu Tong said: "The one who marries is also a family." This shows that the word "marry" itself means "to have a family". The Baihu Tong also says: "Marrying is also taking." The Shuowen also says, "To marry is to take a woman." The Zhou Yi and the Book of Songs write "take," which means that a man takes a daughter from another family and brings her into his home. The custom that men are superior to women is evidenced by the words "to marry" and "to wed". Marriage for the woman is passive, the ancient only say "marrying daughter" or "marrying sister", do not say "marrying husband", can be seen to marry the right to manipulate in the hands of the father and brother. Marriage, for men is the initiative, so the ancient often said "marry wife" "married woman".

The Book of Songs sings twice, "How do you take a wife? I can't take a wife without a matchmaker." The role of the matchmaker in the ancient marriage is very large, how many young men and women's fate in the hands of the matchmaker. According to recent studies, young men and women in clan society must participate in the "Chengding ceremony" after reaching maturity in order to become a full member of the clan community, in order to enjoy their due rights and fulfill their due relics. The crown ceremony of the Zhou Dynasty was a variation of this "rite of passage".

When a man of the nobility in the Zhou Dynasty was twenty years old, his father officiated at his coronation in the ancestral temple. The ceremony was preceded by divination of the day (to choose the date of crowning) and divination of the guest (to choose the guest to be crowned). During the ceremony, the guest of honor crowned him three times: first, with a black cloth crown, which indicated the privilege of ruling people; secondly, with a leather crown, which indicated that he would have to serve in the military from now on; and lastly, with a crown crown, which indicated that he would have the right to participate in the rituals from now on. (The Velvet Cloth Crown is a crown made of black linen; the Leather Bent is made of white buckskin; and the Duke's Bent is a reddish-black, flat-topped hat, worn during sacrifices.) After entering the wine, the guest went to see his mother, and then the guest took the "word", and then went to see his brothers and aunts, and finally wore a hat and a dress and brought gifts to see the king, the ministers, and the townspeople. After the host toasts and gives gifts to the guests, the ceremony is completed. The six formalities and etiquette of marriage in ancient China, namely, the Na Cai, asking for the name, Na Ji, Na Zheng, the invitation period, and the kiss.

Ancient marriages were said to go through six formalities, called the six rites. The first is Nacai, the male family to the female family to send a small gift (a goose), said the meaning of marriage; the second is to ask the name, the male family asked the woman's family name, in order to go home to divine the fortune; the third is to Naji, in the ancestral temple divined after the auspicious omen, to the female family to report the good news in the ask the name of Naji at that time to send a gift; the fourth is to Naji which is the same as declaring the betrothal, so you have to send the more heavy bride-price, that is, to the delivery of coins and silk; the fifth is the invitation period, this is the The fifth is the invitation, which is to choose an auspicious date for the marriage and ask the woman's family for permission; and the sixth is the welcome, which is to welcome the bride.

Among the six rites, the bride-price and the wedding ceremony are the most important. In the book of poetry, Daya - Da Ming, "Wen Ding is auspicious, and he welcomes us in person." The old saying is that King Wen of the Zhou Dynasty, after getting an auspicious omen of marriage, personally welcomed Taisi at the Weibin. In later times, the term "wending" was used as a synonym for betrothal. In the Book of Rites, the Fusion of the Fm radio, it is said that after the wedding, the bride and groom "ate with their fm radio" (a gourd divided into two scoops). (A gourd divided into two ladles is called fm radio, the bride and groom each hold a ladle and fm radio, and rinse their mouths with wine. In later times, the fm radio was changed into the fm radio, and the bride and groom swapped cups and drank from each other's cups.) The name "fm radio" came from here.

The six rituals mentioned above are of course only prescribed for the aristocrats and scholars, and are often streamlined and combined by the common people. When a person was about to die, it was called "floss" (属纩)（《礼记-丧大记》）. Genus means to place, and floss is new floss. New floss is very light. It is said that the ancients put the new floss over the mouth and nose of the dying person to see if the breath was broken. This was not necessarily a custom, but at most a custom in some places, but "floss" became a synonym for death.

The first death of the ancients, the living should be on the house facing the north for the dead soul, which is called the restoration, meaning that the soul of the deceased back to the body. The restoration is not awakened, and then the funeral is handled.

Soul invocation is a folk custom, all over the world are prevalent, our country is no exception. Zhouyi" in the return of the soul trigrams, "Chu Shi" recorded in the "invocation of the soul" chapter, it can be seen that people at that time generally believe that the soul can be returned.

The soul can be returned, but can not return, so the need to recruit, "Chu Rhetoric - Recruitment of Souls" has the work of wishing to recruit the king, is under the recruitment of said, it can be known that the "Recruitment of Souls", "Da Recruitment" and so on, that is, the Chuji circulating used to recruit the soul of the witch, and then by Qu Yuan, Song Yu and others touched up and become the text of the text. Changsha Mawangdui tomb unearthed silk painting, hanging on the curtain Valley Bik Jade Juan, it is the "invocation of the soul" chapter hanging Qu Qiong some ...... knot Qi Juan some of the painting records, to our understanding of the actual method of invocation of the soul at that time to help not small. According to Mr. Rao Zongyi investigation, today in Sumatra's Baffaks mountainous area living natives invoke the soul of the words and phrases, actually all with the "Chu Shi" in the soul of the return, anti-home some of the meaning of the popularity of this custom can also be seen widely.

After the death of the ancients, to give him a bath. This is recorded in the Book of Rites - Funeral Records. This custom continued into the later generations. The Book of Jin - Wang Xiang biography" recorded that Wang Xiang will die to warn his son said: "the gas is dead but wash hands and feet, do not need to bathe." It can be seen that people in general are required to bathe after death.

After death, there is a "convergence" (coffin) ceremony. There is a small convergence, there is a large convergence. Small convergence is the body wrapped in burial clothes, the more aristocratic, the more burial clothes. The big convergence is the body into the coffin. The dead were to be collected and placed in the mouth with rice, which is why the "Strategies of the Warring States" (战国策-赵策) said, "The ministers of Zoulu were not allowed to be raised in life, and were not allowed to be contained in rice in death." (Rice is to put rice in the mouth of the dead. (Rice is to put rice in the mouth of the dead, and jade in the mouth of the dead.) After the coffin, stop the funeral to be buried is called "funeral" "Analects - country party": "friends die, nothing to return, said: in my funeral." Confucius meant to say: "stop the coffin at my home!" Zuo Zhuan (左传-Xi Gong 32): "In the winter, Duke Wen of Jin died. Gengchen, will be buried at Quwo." This is to say that the coffin of Duke Wen of Jin was sent to Quwo for mourning, not yet for burial. According to the Spring and Autumn Annals and the Zuo Zhuan, Duke Wen of Jin was buried in April of the following year. In later times, the so-called funeral was to send the coffin to the place of burial.

The rules of the funeral were that the bier was carried in white. The rope is the rope that pulls the bier. The original meaning of the bier was that family and friends would help pull the cart, but in reality it was only a formality. Later, when a funeral was held, two straps were pulled on either side of the procession of mourners, and that was the legacy of the bier.

The elegy is said to have been originally sung by the person holding the bier. The "Allium dew" and "Artemisia" in the ancient Lefu Xianghe song are elegiac songs, Tao Yuanming has three "elegiac poems", and later elegiac couplets evolved from elegiac songs.

The origin of the elegy is very early, it is said that initially it is the song sung by the bier bearers, but it was moved to other places and used for other purposes very early. In Zuo Zhuan (左传-哀公十一年), when a battle was about to be fought, Gongsun Xia ordered his disciples to sing the song "Yu Funeral," and Chen Zixing ordered his disciples to sing "Hanyu," a funeral song that signaled certain death. Hanyu is a funeral song, which expresses the determination to die, then, of course, "Yu Funeral" is also a funeral song (Du Zi's words).

As for the "Ziji Tongjian - Han Ji 44 - Emperor Xiaoshun": General Shang had a meeting with his guests and swallows in the water of the Luo River; when the wine was finished, he sang the song "Allium dew". The elegy became a program to entertain the guests. Literati also learned to compose elegies, and Tao Qian's three elegiac poems, mentioned above, have long been famous throughout the ages. As mentioned above, the slave owners in the Yin Dynasty practiced the system of human martyrdom. Later generations, knowing that human labor was precious, replaced it with "figurines". Terracotta figures are human dolls, and there are wooden figurines and earthen figurines. Later on, Confucius also opposed the use of figurines, and Mencius said, "Zhongni said, 'The one who made the figurines in the first place has no posterity! For its resemblance to people and use it." . ("Mencius - Liang Hui Wang Shang")

From the Yin Dynasty to the Fruit of War, the ruling class also brought carts and horses used in life to the tomb. Other items buried with them were manifold, including eating and drinking utensils, weapons and musical instruments made of bronze, ornaments made of jade and bone, and other titbits. The more aristocratic the person, the more and more exquisite the burial goods. There were also some "Ming wares" (objects accompanying the burial) made especially for the purpose of burial. During the Han Dynasty, things from daily life were made into clay models for burial, and the symbolic nature of Ming ware became even more obvious. Most of the tombs of the ancient aristocratic ruling class had outer coffins, which were mainly used to protect the coffins, and some of them had as much as three or four weights. The Analects of Confucius - Advanced says that Confucius' son, Kong Carp, "had a coffin but no outer coffin" when he died, so it is clear that the outer coffin was not something that the average person could have.

In the coffin plus outside the coffin (outer) to protect the coffin custom has been preserved, and was transplanted by the Buddhists to protect the Sakyamuni's bones on the matter of the spirit, Shaanxi Fufeng Famen Temple Palace unearthed Buddha Sakyamuni bones, gold, silver, eight treasures of the coffin, inside and outside the coffin, up to as many as eight layers of the Buddhists on the matter of the importance of the time.

As for the case of Confucius Carp without a coffin, the original text of the Analects of Confucius is as follows: Yen Yuan died, Yan Lu (Yen Yuan's father), please the son of the car as the coffin. Zi said: talent or not, but also each said his son also. The carp (Confucius' son) also died, with a coffin but no outer coffin. I don't walk in vain to think of the outer coffin. I can't walk in vain since I am from Dafu. A related account is: Yan Yuan died. The son said, "Yelp! Heaven is mourning for you, heaven is mourning for you. ...... Zi wept and mourned, and the followers said: Zi mourned! (Zi) said: Is there any mourning? When Yan Yuan died, his disciples wanted to bury him, but Zi said, "No." The disciples buried him. The disciples wanted to bury him, but Zi said, "No." The disciples buried him thickly. The son said: back (that is, Yan Yuan), also, see you as if the father also. I am not allowed to treat you as if you were a son. It is not me, but the two or three sons of my husband. These accounts surrounding the death of Yan Yuan **** into a gathering, aptly expresses the measure by which Confucius dealt with the problem - propriety. Specifically, there are the following aspects.

One, etiquette when the rich and the poor have appropriate, Yan Yuan poor and the disciples want to be buried thickly, so Zi said no.

Second, the same refusal of the request for a generous burial, the face of the loss of Yan Lu's attitude to be gentle, the face of the disciples of the two or three sons, the attitude to be grim.

Third, in the funeral rites, the outer coffin is not important, when depending on the size of their financial resources, and opposed to reckless burial.

What I have said above is only the funeral of the noble scholar, as for the funeral of the common people, it is another matter altogether. Even the most frugal burials were already exhausting to the families of the commoners. For the common people, the most they could do was to be buried in a draft, and if there was famine, they had to starve to death in order to fill up the gutter.

The Book of Rites - Tan Gong Shang said, "In ancient times, there were tombs but no graves." According to the report of modern field archaeological work, we know that the tombs of the Yin Dynasty and the Western Zhou Dynasty did not yet have burial mounds, and that burial mounds were later built on the tombs, mainly as a sign of the tomb, and secondly to make it more difficult to rob the tombs. (3) Child Brides. An ancient form of marriage in which young girls were adopted for initiation and given to their children and grandchildren as wives when they became adults. This is an ancient custom, the Song Dynasty began to call child brides, because it can save the bride price, then popularized. Adopted girls are poor and young, and are often abused. In "Dou E's Grievance", Dou E, at the age of seven, was sold into the family of Grandma Cai as a child bride.