Traditional Chinese marriage

Traditional Chinese marriage () is a ceremonial ritual within Chinese societies that involves not only a union between spouses but also a union between the two families of a man and a woman, sometimes established by pre-arrangement between families. Marriage and family are inextricably linked, which involves the interests of both families. Within Chinese culture, romantic love and monogamy were the norm for most citizens. Around the end of primitive society, traditional Chinese marriage rituals were formed, with deer skin betrothal in the Fuxi era, the appearance of the "meeting hall" during the Xia and Shang dynasties, and then in the Zhou dynasty, a complete set of marriage etiquette ("six rituals") gradually formed. The richness of this series of rituals proves the importance the ancients attached to marriage. In addition to the unique nature of the "three letters and six rituals", monogamy, remarriage and divorce in traditional Chinese marriage culture are also distinctive. The two-Chinese character word (pinyin: hūnyīn, literally "marriage") can be analyzed as follows: (hūn) was defined as the father of a man's wife (e.g. a man's father-in-law) in Erya, the earliest known Chinese dictionary; but now it generally means "marriage" in Modern Standard Chinese. The character has the phonetic component 昏 (hūn, "dusk, nightfall, twilight, dark") beside the radical as well as the semantic component 女 (nǚ, "female"). The phonetic component 昏 itself was used as the ancient (original) form of 婚 in Old Chinese. This implies that wedding ceremonies were typically performed in the evenings when yang (representing days/male) and yin (representing nights/female) cross over. (yīn) was defined as the father of a daughter's husband in Erya, but now generally means "marriage" or "relation by marriage" in Modern Chinese. The character has the same pronunciation as its phonetic component (yīn). According to Shuowen Jiezi, a dictionary of ancient Chinese characters, 因 in this character is not only a phonetic component but also means to "go to" or to "follow" one's husband.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (1)

Related concepts (2)

Liminality, Ephemerality, and Marginality with Impact Makerspaces in the Chinese Urban Fabric: Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, and Addis Ababa

Monique Stéphanie Bolli

In the last few years, narratives and imaginaries about maker cultures as well as makerspaces have been flourishing in Chinese cities. With its fast-changing pace, the global maker movement expresses unique features in China and integrates aspects of grass ...

EPFL2020

Hanfu

Hanfu () are the traditional styles of clothing worn by the Han Chinese. There are several representative styles of hanfu, such as the ruqun (an upper-body garment with a long outer skirt), the aoqun (an upper-body garment with a long underskirt), the beizi and the shenyi, and the shanku (an upper-body garment with ku trousers). Traditionally, hanfu consists of a paofu robe, or a ru jacket worn as the upper garment with a qun skirt commonly worn as the lower garment.

Chinese culture

Chinese culture () is one of the world's oldest cultures, originating thousands of years ago. The culture prevails across a large geographical region in East Asia with Sinosphere in whole and is extremely diverse, with customs and traditions varying greatly between counties, provinces, cities, towns. The terms 'China' and the geographical landmass of 'China' have shifted across the centuries, before the name 'China' became commonplace in modernity. Chinese civilization is historically considered a dominant culture of East Asia.