Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 21.djvu/699

Rh unity and affection. The ladies, too, in China as well as elsewhere, indulge in a little fashionable crying on the occasion, and so the relatives of the bride spend the morning with her, weeping over her impending departure, or, more probably, their own spinsterhood. They do not, however, forget to bring some contributions for her trousseau. In the evening comes the bridegroom with a whole army of his friends, a procession of lanterns, a long red cloth or silk tapestry embroidered with a figure of the dragon, borne on a pole between two men, and a large red sedan covered with carving and gilding, and perfectly close. In this the bride is packed up securely out of sight, and the whole procession, preceded by a band of music and the dragon and closing with the bride's bandboxes, starts for home. On arrival she is lifted over the threshold, on which a pan of charcoal is burning, probably in order to prevent her bringing any evil influence in with her. She then performs the kotou to her husband's father and mother, worships the ancestral tablets of her new family, and offers prepared betel-nut to the assembled guests. Up to this time she has been veiled, but she now retires to her chamber, where she is unveiled by her husband; she then returns, again performs obeisance to the assembled guests, and partakes of food in company with her husband; at this meal two cups of wine, one sweetened, the other with bitter herbs infused in it, are drunk together by the newly married pair, to symbolize that henceforth they must share together life's sweets and bitters. The bride then retires, escorted by the matrons present, some one of whom recites a charm over her, and arranges the marriage-couch. The next morning the gods of the household and the hearth are worshiped, and the six following days are devoted to formal receptions at home of different members of the two families or equally formal visits paid to the family of the bride. During the whole of this period she still travels in her red-and-gold sedan, and is still escorted by her band of music and dragon.

Such are the ceremonies with which the chief or number one wife is espoused, and of this rank there can be but one. Taste and depth of pocket give the only limit to the number of subsidiary wives that may be taken. These are married with far less ceremony than the first, are often from a different class of society, being literally purchased, and act to a certain extent as servants or attendants to the chief wife. They are, however, legal wives, with recognized rights and position; their children are legitimate, and inherit in equal shares with those of the first wife. Indeed, this last is considered as the mother of the whole family, and the children are bound to display toward her more reverence than even toward their natural parent.

But even in the Flowery Land, people sometimes find that the bitter predominates over the sweet in the cups of alliance, and that the geese borne in the marriage procession are emblematical of something else besides domestic affection. In a word, they occasionally want to