CULTURE
Common Marriage Practices Among Modern Chinese Women
So, you want to know about marriage in China. You’ve got your reasons. Maybe you’ve got a decidedly anthropological curiosity regarding the ways in which Chinese men and women are married to each other. Or maybe your reasons are somewhat more personal as opposed to academic. Maybe you’re trying to marry a Chinese woman and you want to be respectful of her traditions and her culture so you don’t come across as an ignorant outsider to her family.
Whatever the reason, you need to learn about modern Chinese wedding traditions and you needed to learn about them yesterday. But you didn’t. But the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, and the second best time is right now. So now you’re smack dab in the second best time to learn about Chinese wedding practices.
Sponsorships and Such
You know when you watch sports and there’s a bunch of logos on an athlete’s jersey that aren’t the team’s logo? Or when you get to a special feature like a dunk contest and it’s ‘presented’ by some corporate entity that isn’t the league itself? Yeah, that’s a sponsorship and it’s not just the exclusive domain of sporting events. Companies pay a premium for their name and logo to be put in front of the eyes of millions of viewers.
Chinese weddings have a banquet where the guests hand the presumably happy couple red envelopes filled with money to help pay for the festivities. The couple then counts the money and makes a note of it so that if the givers get married in the future, the couple knows how much they need to give and it’s presumably going to be more than what was given.
Dress for The Occasion
If you’ve ever been to a wedding before, you’ll notice that the bride wears a white dress. White dresses became popular for weddings after Queen Victoria wore one to her wedding to her cousin Prince Albert.
You’ll likely find a lot of Chinese brides wearing white on their big day. Between western media and other forms of outside influence, a lot of Chinese people break away from the more rigid aspects of their tradition.
But you’ll also find a lot of Chinese women who still wear the traditional red qipao when they get married. The qipao is a traditional dress in Chinese culture and red is a color that’s supposed to symbolize happiness and prosperity.
Getting the Bride
Have you read the classic novel The Good Earth? In the novel, the protagonist Wang Lung goes to the house of a rich family to pick up his bride, O-Lan, who is a slave working in the kitchen.
Now, in modern China, grooms are still expected to pick up the bride. That myth of seeing the bride before the wedding doesn’t really hold a lot of water. Picking up the bride can be a lively affair, with the groom’s walk being accompanied by fireworks. Also, a child is supposed to walk in front of the groom as he makes his way towards the bride, to symbolize fertility.
Full Course
It’s a tradition when it comes to weddings to serve the guests who come to celebrate the festivities. The principle behind it is no different in China. Feed the people who came to share the special day. But the execution is somewhat different in China. But instead of a rubber chicken dinner, the guests in China are served nine full courses of food, each course coming one by one.
The dishes may vary, but there’ll be a fish course because fish are supposed to symbolize abundance, a suckling pig because that’s supposed to symbolize the bride’s purity, some type of poultry for peace, and a lotus seed dessert because that’s for fertility.
Now, throughout the night, the bride and the groom change into different outfits like they’re a pop star at a concert.
The Vows
There’s usually a part in the wedding ceremony where the couple promises to be with each other till death do they part and where someone has a chance to speak now or forever hold their peace. But in China, exchanging vows is a lot different and there’s a lot less room for drama.
The couple simply kneels at the family altar to pay their respects and then bow to each other, which doesn’t leave much space for an ex to try to win someone back at the last moment. Just something simple and intimate.
A Spot of Tea
Tea as a beverage probably originated in China. If it didn’t originally come from there, China has certainly taken to tea like duck does to water that isn’t flavored with plants and served hot. It’s an important part of Chinese culture and as such, plays a pretty important role in matrimony.
The tea ceremony is a part of the wedding festivities and is held in a venue separate from the wedding. A bridesmaid or some other lady hands the couples some cups and the couple serves the groom’s family. After the parents take a sip, the couple gets a red envelope. Then they serve tea to the rest of the paternal family. Once that’s done, the process is repeated with the maternal family. It’s supposed to serve as a welcome to the family.
After the Ceremony
There’s one more wedding ritual in Chinese culture that takes place three days after the wedding itself. It’s when the couple visits the bride’s family. By now, the bride is seen as more of an honored guest as opposed to a full-on member of the family. The groom is also supposed to bring a suckling pig and share the meal with the family.
Marriage means a lot of things to a lot of people. It can mean that two people who love each other are binding themselves to one another. It can represent the completion of a business transaction or a political one. It also varies from place to place and the individual elements of it can mean different things to different cultures.
