1.THE CHINESE WOMAN
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There are in every legal marriage in China six ceremonies : first, asking for the name, i.e., formal proposal; second receiving the silk presents, i. e., betrothal: third fixing the day of marriage; fourth fetching the bride; fifth pouring libation before the wild goose, i.e., plighting troth, so-called because the wild goose is supposed to be most faithful in connubial love; sixth _ temple presentation. Of these six ceremonies, the last two are the most important, I shall therefore here describe them more in detail.
The fourth ceremony, fetching the bride at the present day, is, except in my province Fukien where we keep up the old customs, _ generally dispensed with, as it entails too much trouble and expense to the bride's family. The bride now, instead of being fetched, is sent to the bride-groom's house. When the bride arrives there, the bridegroom receives her at the gate and himself opens the door of the bridal chair and leads her to the hall of the house. There the bride and bride-groom worship Heaven and Earth, i. e. to say, they fall on their kness with their faces turned to the door of the hall with a table carrying two red burning candles before the open sky and then the hushand pours libations on the ground, _in presence of the pair of wild geese (if wild goose cannot be had, an ordinary goose) which the bride has brought with her. This is the ceremony called Tien yen pouring libation before the wild goose; plighting of troth between man and woman_he vowing to be true to her, and she, to be true to him, just as faithful as the pair of wild geese they see before them. From this moment, they become, so to speak, natural sweetheart husband and sweetheart wife, bound only by the moral law, the Law of the Gentleman, _the word of honour which they have given to each other, but not yet by the Civic Law. This ceremony therefore may be called the moral or Religious marriage.
After this comes the ceremony called the mutual salutation between bride and bride-groom. The bride standing on the right side of the hall first goes on her knees before the bride-groom, _he going on his knees to her at the same time. Then they change places. The bride-groom now standing where the bride stood, goes on his knees to her, _ she returning the salute just as he did. Now this ceremony of chiao pai mutual salutation, I wish to point out here, proves beyond all doubt that in China there is perfect equality between man and woman, between husband and wife.
As I said before, the ceremony of plighting troth may be called the moral or Religious marriage as distinguished from what may called the civic marriage, which comes three days after._In the moral or religious marriage, the man and woman becomes husband and wife before the moral Law_before God. The contract so far is solely between the man and woman. The State or, as in China, the Family takes the place of the State in all social and civic life_the State acting only as Court of appeal, _the Family takes no cognisance of the marriage or contract between the man and woman here in this, what I have called the moral or religious marriage. In fact on this first day and until the civic marriage takes place on the third day of the marriage, the bride is not only not introduced, but also not allowed to see or be seen by the members of the bride-groom's family.
Thus for two days and two nights the bride-groom and the bride in China live, so to speak not as legal, but, as sweetheart-husband and sweetheart-wife . On the third day, _then comes the last ceremony in the Chinese marriage_the Miao-chien, the temple presentation or civic marriage. I say, on the third day because that is the rule deriguer as laid down in the Book of Rites. But now to save trouble and expense, it is generally performed on the day after. This ceremony_the temple presentation, takes place, when the ancestral temple of the family clan is nearby, _of course in the ancestral temple. But for people living in towns and cities where there is no ancestral temple of the family clan nearby, the ceremony is performed before the miniature ancestral chapel or shrine_which is in the house of every respectable family, even the poorest in China. This ancestral temple, chapel or shrine with a tablet or red piece of paper on the wall, as I have said elsewhere, is the church of the State Religion of Confucius in China corresponding to the church of the Church Religion in Christian countries.
This ceremony_the temple presentation begins by the father of the bridegroom or failing him, the nearest senior member of the family, going on his knees before the ancestral tablet_thus announcing to the spirits of the dead ancestors that a young member of the family has now brought a wife home into the family. Then the bridegroom and bride one after the other, each goes on his and her knees before the same ancestral tablet. From this moment the man and woman becomes husband and wife, _not only before the moral Law or God, _ but before the Family, before the State, before Civic Law. I have therefore called this ceremony of miao chien, temple presentation in the Chinese marriage, _the civic or civil marriage. Before this civic or civil marriage, the woman, the bride, _according to the Book of Rites,_is not a legal wife-When the bride happens to die before this ceremony of temple presentation, she is not allowed_according to the Book of Rites_to be buried in the family burying ground of her husband and her memorial tablet is not put up in the ancestral temple of his family clan.
Thus we see the contract in a legal civic marriage in China is not between the woman and the man. The contract is between the woman
and the family of her husband. She is not married to him, but into his family. In the visiting card of a Chinese lady in China, she does not write, for instance, Mrs. Ku Hung-ming, but literally "Miss Feng, gone to the home of the family (originally from) Tsin An adjusts her dress." _The contract of marriage in China being between the woman and the family of her husband,_the husband and wife can neither of them repudiate the contract without the consent of the husband's family. This I want to point out here, is the fundamental difference between a marriage in China and a marriage in Europe and America. The marriage in Europe and America, _is what we Chinese _would call a sweet-heart marriage, a marriage, bound solely by love between the individual man and the individual woman. But in China the marriage is, as I have said, a civic marriage, a contract not between the woman and the man, but between the woman and the family of her husband, _in which she has obligations not only to him, but also to his family, and through the family, to society, _to the social or civic order; in fact, to the State. Finally let me point out here that it is this civic conception of marriage which gives solidarity and stability to the family, to the social or civic order, to the State in China.
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