Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/645

Rh The third ceremony takes place when a son of the family has passed the examination for the public service; for competitive examinations rule in the Annamite Government positions. The parents announce the happy event to the ancestors at their altar, and give a banquet, to which the local notables, the friends and comrades of the young man, and the acquaintances of the family, are invited.

Marriage is celebrated in different styles, according to the fortunes and conditions of the families. Mandarins, literati, and nobles, go through six distinct ceremonies, which, occupying months, and perhaps years, it would take a volume to describe in detail. The families frequently pledge their children to one another at a very early age. This is especially the case when parents advanced in years have young children; they then engage the children, not to force their inclination in advance, but to assure to them an honorable alliance while they are still able to make provision for them.

Marriage settlements and dowries are not recognized, on account of the difficulties that might arise in case the marriage is dissolved. According to Annamite custom, the woman should not bear the charges of marriage, because she takes the name of her husband and associates herself with him in order to perpetuate his family, not for the sake of her own. It is just for the husband, in his own personal interest, to furnish all that she and her children may need; yet, according to another custom frequently followed, the suitor whose character is not well known should make several visits to the family of his affianced, so as to submit himself to a kind of testing often very severe, which shall permit his value and the amount of his knowledge to be rated. This stage of the negotiations sometimes lasts for several years.

Marriage is usually contracted by inclination, without money considerations entering into the matter. The family is regarded as a moral union, and not as a business association. Hence it is common to see a wealthy family allied with a poor one. It is considered that, when a man marries a girl without fortune, but wisely brought up, she will be easily touched by the care he will take of her, and be obedient to his authority. Then, it is not right to exact a dowry from a girl whose education has already imposed on her parents large sacrifices of time and money, and who has, moreover, abandoned her family name to take that of a stranger, so there is no dowry. The parents give their daughter what they please, without the young man being allowed to claim or stipulate for anything. Sometimes they require him to make considerable presents, which will be the sole property of the wife. It must not be supposed that the condition of wives is the same in Annam as in China. The six ceremonies of marriage are, it is true, nearly the same in both countries; but while the Chinese wife has to keep to her apartments, the Annamite wife is treated as the equal of her husband.

This equality is revealed both in the division of authority and in