Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/317

TWENTIETH CENTURY IMPRESSIONS OF HONGKONG, SHANGHAI, ETC. 309 gifts of cakes, and wine, money, and jewellery. Besides the presents, letters are exchanged between the parents of the contracting parties, and these letters, usually three in number, are held to be written evidences of the marriage, and are accepted as legal documents. The marriage usually takes place within about a month after the giving of the last present, but there are certain seasons of the year in which marriages are forbidden by ancient custom. For example, they take place but rarely in the first month of the year, and never in the third, fifth, and ninth months.

On the day appointed for the ceremony the bridegroom's parents send the middleman with a chair, known as the "Fakin" (variegated chair), draped with red silk hangings, to fetch the bride, who is carried in procession to her new home, with banners flying, and amid the music of insistent bands, the clamour of gongs, and the incessant fusilade of fire-crackers. She is arrayed in embroidered red silk, and wears a red veil, which betokens that she has been preserved from the prying eyes of strangers, especially of the opposite sex. When she is carried into the house she is accompanied by the bridegroom, and kneels and bows to heaven and earth and the ancestral tablets and to the bridegroom, who, of course, acknowledges the compliment by returning it. Immediately after this she is unveiled by the bridegroom and is taken to her room. The bridal dress consists of a long coat of embroidered red silk, with a mantle and scarf of red embroidery. The head-dress is a curiously shaped cap, with pearl hangings almost completely hiding the face. The bridegroom is attired in a silk court dress, with two broad ribbons, forming a sash, worn crosswise over the shoulders and breast. The observance of a form of ancestral worship in the family hall, in which the young people take part, is an important feature of the marriage rites. On the night of her arrival in her new home the bride sits down with the bridegroom to dinner, and they celebrate this, their first meal together, by partaking of the loving cup, a vessel usually of silver, but sometimes of pewter. This dinner inaugurates the marriage feast, which lasts two days, and is really a series of festivities. The bride is entertained by the ladies of the household, including the sisters of the bridegroom, but Chinese ideas of modesty forbid her to do more than just touch the proffered dishes at these ceremonial meals. Meanwhile the friends and relations of the family are entertained by the husband's parents, in acknowledgment of the presents which have been received by them. On the third day the bride returns to the home of her father and mother, paying a visit of a day's duration, and in the evening her parents give a dinner to the bridegroom, who is hampered by no restrictions such as are imposed upon his bride. The feasting over, the young people return to the husband's parental roof, under which they are to reside in rooms specially reserved for them. The bride is supposed to provide the furniture and everything required for the household.

The marriage ceremonies which have been outlined are among those more commonly observed in China, and are, of course, subject to considerable variation in different parts of the Empire; but the three essentials — the consent of the parents, the intervention of the middleman, and the ancestral worship in the family hall — are most rigidly adhered to everywhere. Girls are usually married between the ages of seventeen and twenty (in English reckoning, from sixteen to nineteen), and men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one (seventeen and twenty).

When a girl marries she calls her husband's people her family, and her own parents her "outside family." In saying "I am going home" she implies that she is going to the home of her parents-in-law ; she always refers to her maiden home as her "outer home." In this may be traced the influence of the ancient custom which held that when married a woman ceased to belong to her own people, and became the possession, or chattel, of her husband.   The Chinese in their social intercourse have certain well-defined rules. A visitor will seek the acquaintance of the inhabitants of the town or village by calling on any gentlemen to whom he may have letters of introduction, while his wife or female relatives visit the ladies. The arrival of a distinguished man in a place of any importance is usually celebrated by a dinner given in his honour by the leading residents. At a dinner party the gentlemen sit at one table and the ladies at another in a different room. Dishes are served ready cut up, the food being placed in a large bowl or dish in the centre of the table, from which the guests help themselves mouthful by mouthful.