Social and Cultural Implications of Miao Marriage Customs

The Miao people's marriage is relatively free, young men and women enjoy full social freedom before marriage, parents generally do not interfere, every festival, the day of the market, they will take advantage of the gathering time to sing love songs, talk about love, tell each other their feelings. This kind of pre-marital love is called "Youfang" in Qiandongnan, Guizhou. Youfang is a traditional custom for young Miao men and women to fall in love freely in Qiandongnan. In addition to the fixed "Yufang slope" set up in each village, the location of Yufang can also be farther away from the village on the riverbanks, lift head, fields, or flowers and trees, pleasant scenery of the valley to carry out the activities of Yufang. But all must be in accordance with the rules of the Miao family, young men and women must be in the open place of the location of the party. If this activity is carried out in a hidden place, once it is discovered, it will be regarded as improper behavior and condemned by public opinion.

No room on the wedding night

After a period of time, if the two parties are in love with each other, they usually give each other tokens of appreciation or make a vow of marriage, and get engaged privately. Privately engaged men and women to the agreed wedding date, the man invited a few partners to the woman's cottage "tour party", by the way, the woman will bring home. According to custom, the newlyweds can not be the same room that night, the bride to be accompanied by the man's aunt and sister-in-law overnight. The next day, the man asked the matchmaker to bring gifts to the woman's home to propose marriage. If the woman agrees, she will accept the gifts and entertain the matchmaker. Afterwards, the woman prepares a gift equal to or slightly larger than the man's and returns it to him. When the man learns that the woman is in favor of the marriage, he hosts a banquet for the relatives and friends who come to congratulate him.

Never leaving one's husband's home after marriage

In the past, the Miao people in Qiandongnan region had the custom of "never leaving one's husband's home" after marriage. The bride went back to her mother's home soon after the wedding. The bride, who belonged to the parents' arranged marriage, went back to her mother's home on the day of the wedding ceremony or the next day. The period of time spent in the bride's home is generally six or seven years for underage women in early marriages and three or four years for adult women. During this period, they can only go back to their husbands' homes temporarily during farm work and major festivals, or in the event of their husbands' funerals.

The Miao wedding ceremony includes receiving umbrellas, offering sacrifices to ancestors, eating acacia wine, picking happy water and catching happy fish. The people who send the bride to the bridegroom will sing the songs of "door-stopping wine" and "cow horn wine" outside the main gate.

Free-style marriage bride can go back to the groom's home to live after recognizing the bride. Classical marriage bride at the end of the wedding that is to go home to live, until the husband's family has a wedding or funeral events or busy season to the husband's home to live a few days, called "bilateral residence". When the bride goes to her husband's home for the second time, she is accompanied by her brothers, aunts, uncles and sisters-in-law who carry a pick of glutinous rice, several fish and a leg of pork, and the husband's family invites all the relatives to "have a guest meal" and treats the guests to a feast door-to-door. When sending guests also offer ribbons. Bride live on ten days and a half months later, the husband's family also prepared the same gifts to send its return, subject to the same rituals. Several years later, the new daughter-in-law officially settled in her husband's home. Before the "mold pot stove" ceremony, the new daughter-in-law can only move one side of the family pot stove. Miao marriage customs vary greatly from region to region and are unique. Tianzhu area part of the Hmong married before the night of the custom of singing wedding song; Rongjiang eight open, Danzhai rows of some Hmong around the tune of cattle as a bride price; Taijiang Tainong around the bridegroom in the bride into the home to the end of the wedding a few days do not show up, the daytime work on the mountain as usual, and at night to the relatives of the family to stay overnight.

Miao marital relations, couples do not get along, both sides can file for divorce. Generally the first divorcee to the other party to make amends. The man filed for divorce, in addition to not claiming back the betrothal of the "you ginger", but also must pay the woman a "accompanying gift a". The woman filed for divorce, must pay the male equivalent of the betrothal "you ginger" and the total value of the wedding expenses. Thereafter, men married women married, do not interfere with each other. In the past, divorce is after Zhai Lao mediation is invalid, will be a bamboo piece carved with a pattern, from which the cut to the men and women as evidence. Now, most divorces are decided by the government and the judiciary.

Miao widows can remarry, widowers can continue. If a brother dies and his brother is unmarried, he can ask his sister-in-law to transfer to another house or implement the practice of "filling in the house with a younger uncle," and some areas also allow a brother to take his brother's wife, but only with the consent of both parties, and it is not a bigamous marriage. In the Rongjiang area, after deciding to change rooms, a certain amount of money or cattle must be sent to the woman's uncle as a bride price. Young widows who have not had children and who do not have the right to transfer or fill in their houses usually remarry on their own. When remarried, the new husband can not open "you Jiang". Have children and the husband's family and no one to raise, generally follow the mother, the boy can grow up after the biological father's family inheritance of property, the girl can also be married after the father's family. When a widow remarries from her late husband's family, she must leave her husband's house at night and never enter his house again. A man who is widowed at a young age or in middle age may renew his marriage, regardless of whether he has children or not. In some areas, customary provisions, three years after the death of his wife to remarry, such as less than three years remarried, must give the deceased wife's brother thirty-three dollars.

Miao wedding Miao wedding customs, generally in the clan intermarriage, not and other ethnic groups, young men and women in love, marriage is generally more free, but more by parents. After the founding of the country, has developed into a free love marriage between men and women. Marriage is generally love, propose marriage, betrothal and wedding ceremonies.

Young Miao men and women usually find their sweethearts by participating in festivals and celebrations such as flower picking and moon jumping, and by singing and dancing in the midst of the festivities. When the relationship between the two sides is determined to be sincere love, please matchmakers to the parents of both sides of the marriage, and negotiation of the number of men to the woman to send the bride price, and bring meat and wine to the female aunts and uncles friends and relatives to eat, even if it has been betrothed. According to the situation of the man, then choose an auspicious day to hold the wedding.

Early in the morning on the day of the wedding, the groom will be accompanied by a companion, depending on the distance, or horseback riding, or hiking to the woman's home to marry, if the distance is farther that is three to five days in advance to pick up the bride and to invite people or the groom's family members over the mountains to invite friends to come to participate in the wedding celebrations. Miao living in the territory of Weishan County, because of the small population, marriage is often out of the county, so the time of the wedding depending on the female family and relatives near and far, generally three days, that is, the first day to receive the bride, the second day to return to the third day to send the guests, the locals called "thank you for the guests". Miao people held a wedding day, that is, the day of the first day, the whole village immersed in a happy atmosphere, the man's family not only to set up a banquet to entertain guests from all directions and the whole village young and old, but also to invite the singers to sing the wedding ceremony song and production, life, customs, such as the world, so that the wedding in the songs and blessings. In the evening, all the men, women and children of the village and the guests from outside