Traditional Chinese marriage : Chinese : 婚姻; pinyin: hūnyīn

outlines

◆Etymology ◆Marriage in confusian context ◆Prehistoric Chinese marriages ◆Historic marriage practices ◆Traditional marriage rituals ◆Modern practices ◆Traditional divorce process ◆Divorce in contemporary China ◆polygamy

etymology• In more ancient writings for the word 婚姻, the former has

the 昏 beside the radical 女 (pinyin: nǚ, literally "a female”)

• This implies that the wedding ceremony is performed in

the evening, which is deemed as a time of fortune

• Similarly, 姻 (pinyin: yīn) has the same pronunciation 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 the correct way of living for a married couple.

Marriage in confucian context

• In Confucian thought, marriage is of grave significance both to families and to society as well as being important for the cultivation of of virtue. • 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

Marriage in Confucian context

❖ 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 stability and international relations

❖ From the Han dynasty onward, 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

Prehistoric Chinese marriages

• Marriages in early societies: In traditional Chinese thinking, people in "primitive" societies did not marry, but had sexual relationships with one another indiscriminately, Such people were thought to live like 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

• Mythological origin: The story about the marriage of Nüwa and Fu xi, who were once sister and brother respectively, told about how they invented proper marriage procedures after becoming married. At that time the world was unpopulated, so the siblings wanted to get married but, at the same time, they felt ashamed, So they went up to Kunlun Shan and prayed to the heavens. They asked for permission for their marriage and said, "if you allow us to marry, please make the mist surround us." The heavens gave permission to the couple, and promptly the peak was covered in mist.

• Maternal marriage and monogamy: In a maternal marriage, a male would become a son-in-law who lived in the wife’s home. This happened in the transformation of antithetic marriage into monogamy, which signified that the decline of matriarchy and the growing dominance of patriarchy in ancient China

Historic marriage practices

• Endogamy among different classes in China were practiced, the upper class like the “Shi” class married among themselves, while commoners married among themselves also, avoiding marriage with slaves and other ordinary people

• This practice was enforced under the law

Traditional marriage rituals

• Chinese marriage became a custom between 402 and 221 BC. Despite China's long history and many different geographical areas, there are essentially six rituals, generally known as the three letters and six etiquettes (三書六禮)

• Unfortunately for some traditional families, the wife's mother cannot go to her son-in-law's family until one year (according to the Chinese lunar calendar or Chinese Lunar New Year) after the wedding has elapsed. However, during this one year the daughter can go back at anytime.

Six etiquettes

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

• Birthdates: If the selected girl and her parents did not object to the proposal, the matchmaker would match the birthdates(秊庚八字; literally "the 8 cyclic characters for year, month, day and hour of birth of a man, which determine his fate"), in which Suan Ming( Chinese fortune telling) is used to predict the future of that couple-to-be. If the result of Suan Ming was good, they then would go to the next step, submitting bride price

• Bride price: At this point the bridegroom's family arranged for the matchmaker to present bride price including the betrothal letter, to the bride's family

• Wedding gifts: The groom's family would then send an elaborate array of food, cakes, and religious items to the bride's family.

• Arranging the wedding: Before wedding ceremony, two families would arrange a wedding day according to Chinese tung shing.

• Wedding Ceremony: Wedding Procession, Welcoming the Bride, Actual Wedding Ceremonies, The Wedding Banquets

Modern practicesConfucian wedding rituals have become popular among Chinese couples. In such ceremonies which are a recent innovation with no historic antecedent, the bride and groom bow and pay respects to a large portrait of Confucius hanging in the banquet hall while wedding attendants and the couple themselves are dressed in traditional Chinese robes Before the bride and groom enter the nuptial chambers, they exchange nuptial cups and perform ceremonial bows as follows: 1-first bow - Heaven and Earth 2-second bow - ancestors 3-third bow - parents 4-fourth bow - spouse

Traditional divorce process

In traditional Chinese society, there are three major ways to dissolve a marriage: • The first one is no-fault divorce : according to the legal code of the Tang

dynasty(618-9070), a marriage may be dissolved due to personal incompatibility, provided that the husband writes a divorce note.

• The second way (義绝) is through state-mandated annulment of marriage. This applies when one spouse commits a serious crime (variously defined, usually defined more broadly for the wife) against the other or his/her clan.

• Finally, the husband may unilaterally declare a divorce. To be legally recognized, it

must be based on one of the following seven reasons (七出): - The wife lacks of filial piety towards her parents-in-law (不順舅姑) - She fails to bear a son (無子). - She is vulgar or lewd/adulterous (淫) - She is jealous (妒). - She has a vile disease (有惡疾) - She is gossipy (口多言). - She commits theft (竊盜)

Divorce in contemporary China

According to the Article 32 of the revised 2001 Marriage Law , Parties to a marriage can apply for Divorce under, and by showing, the following grounds: - Bigamy or a married person cohabiting with a third party - Domestic violence or maltreatment and desertion of one family member by another. - Bad habits of gambling or drug addiction that remain incorrigible despite repeated admonition. - Separation caused by incompatibility, which lasts two full years - Any other circumstances causing alienation of mutual affection.

Polygamy

• The traditional culture does not prohibit or explicitly encourage polygyny (one man, multiple women), except as a way to obtain male children

• The scope of practice is limited by the number of available women, as well as the financial resource of the man, since he has to be able to support the women

• Therefore polygyny is mostly limited to parts of the upper to middle class; while among the rest of the population monogamy can be regarded as the norm

• Historical written records are probably skewed with regard to the actual prevalence of polygamy, since the elite can be safely assumed to be overrepresented in them

polygamy

• Sororate marriage: is a custom in which a man marries his wife's sister(s). Later it is expanded to include her cousins or females from the same clan. The Chinese name is 妹媵 (妹=younger sister,媵=co-bride/concubinage). It can happen at the same time as he marries the first wife, at a later time while the wife is still alive, or after she dies. This practice was frequent among the nobility of Zhou dynasty with incidences occurring at later times

• Multiple wives with equal status: Emperors of some relatively minor dynasties are known to have multiple empresses; Created by special circumstances. For example, during wartime a man may be separated from his wife and mistakenly believe that she had died. He remarries, and later the first wife is found to be alive. After they are reunited, both wives may be recognized; Qianlong emperor of Qing dynasty began to allow polygamy for the specific purpose of siring heirs for another branch of the family. Called "multiple inheritance" (兼祧), if a man is the only son of his father 單傳), and his uncle has no son, then with mutual agreement he may marry an additional wife. A male child from this union becomes the uncle's grandson and heir. The process can be repeated for additional uncles

• Concubinage • polyandry

Thank you very much!!!