1. matchmaking
when a boy grows up, his parents entrust someone as a matchmaker to find an unmarried woman in a suitable family. The matchmaker explained the man's family, age and appearance to the woman's parents. If the woman's parents agree, they will further blind date, which is called "exploring others"; If you don't agree, politely refuse refuses. The so-called "visiting others" means that the woman's parents invite several close relatives and relatives to the man to watch Lang's appearance and learn about the move, and the man gives a banquet and presents gifts. In the past, my daughter didn't go herself.
with consent, the woman wrote the date, month, day and hour of her daughter's birth, commonly known as "the eight characters of the hour", on a red post and sent it to the man's house, which is called "sending her to the grave". The man put the "Geng Tie" in front of the ancestral tablet, and everything went smoothly within three days, so he further asked the fortune teller to "match the eight characters". If he thought it was "combined", the marriage would be settled. Some women also handle it at home. Therefore, in the old days, the lifelong events of young men and women were mostly decided by parents' orders, matchmakers' words and fortune tellers, and some of them were also limited by family status. Therefore, most of them were "married first and then fell in love", and many of them were from strange bedfellows.
2. Send (send)
After the matchmaking is appropriate, the woman puts forward conditions, including a certain amount of money, pigs, wine, chickens and fish, orange cakes and sweets, and rice, beans, flour and noodles in rural areas; The man asked for a certain amount of dowry, which was settled by the matchmaker between men and women. In rural areas, it is often written as "writing the engagement" or "writing the word of marriage", with "the words are unique" written on the front and "the match made in heaven" written on the bottom. Parents and matchmakers of both sides will sign and sign in person, each holding one copy.
when writing, the man should prepare a feast. In Chengguan, the man sends orange cakes, candy and cloth, shoes and socks, rings or watches to the woman's house, and the woman's house sends back hats, shoes and clothes to the man. Some men also invite one or two tables of "engagement wine". From then on, a woman is a man's family. After the wedding ceremony, the man will give gifts to the woman until he gets married.
3. Report the date and give the bride price
After the man chooses the date of "sleeping together" and picking up the bride, he tells the woman that it is called "reporting the date", usually one month before the wedding, and at the same time the man gives the bride price. Hakkas like to use "nine" for the mantissa of betrothal money, which is a homonym of "long" luck. When the woman fights for the bed, she wants to send grapefruit and charcoal to the man's house, which means giving birth to a precious child and warming the new house, commonly known as "exploring the sun." The man will make many large meatballs for the woman to share with friends and relatives to show their affinity.
4. Dish dowry
There is a big difference between rich and frugal dowry. In the old days, ordinary people married women with five-color shirts and trousers, dressing tables, foot buckets, urine buckets, curtain mats, wooden boxes or suitcases, etc., while rich people added silks and satins, bedding blankets, gold and silver jewelry, etc., and they flaunted the market to the utmost. The dowry giver is called "Qing Niang", and the man gives a red envelope. After the dowry was delivered, the man invited relatives and friends to "see the dowry". The time of dowry is during the day, and the specific date varies from place to place. Chengguan is the day before the bride gets married, and the countryside is mostly the day after the bride gets married.
When a Hakka daughter gets married, her parents must seriously tie some auspicious vegetables, such as celery, garlic, chives, leeks, etc., one by one with red rope or red cloth strips as a dowry to show their good wishes to their daughter and son-in-law. More interestingly, Hakka people also use "longevity grass" as their dowry custom. Long-lived grass is a wild grass, tied with red rope, married to her husband's house, hung in a bamboo basket at the head of the bridal chamber, and planted in the vegetable garden the next day to show its roots.
5. Bridging and seeing off the bride
Bridging is also called welcoming the bride. In the old days, it was mostly done during the day, but now it is mostly late at night. At noon, the man should prepare pig's head, chicken, fish, incense sticks and hi-fi guns to meet his wife's family. "I was carried to my husband's house in a sedan chair!" This is something that women in the old days should be proud of all their lives. As the saying goes, "A broken fan is windy, and a broken sedan chair is awesome." Even number of people who go to pick up relatives. When the bride's family saw the relatives coming, she had to close the door. After the relatives set off firecrackers for three times in a row, they took the candle fire and opened the door to welcome them.
the woman should prepare a banquet to entertain the bride-to-be, which is called "no seats". The husband and the guest move chopsticks a little and don't eat much. After the married girl takes a bath, the matchmaker and the bride dress up for her. The woman's guests should also be in even numbers, usually including the bride's brother and other relatives and friends. When going out, the woman's parents should avoid it.
when you get to the man's house, if it's not time to get started, the bride should wait outside the door first. At the beginning, drums and guns greet each other, and the man's parents should also avoid it and meet each other when they visit the church to avoid "collision" and cause discord in the future. When you step into the big threshold, the cook kills a rooster, which is called "stop the door chicken". Some rural customs put an axe under the threshold, and the bride enters the new house through a rice screen.
In some areas, Hakkas have the custom of "dragging green flowers" in wedding ceremonies, that is, a man behind a flower car is dragging a banyan branch that is a hundred children and grandchildren. When the sedan chair meets another sedan chair on the road, it will exchange branches with each other according to the custom, and the two sides will wish many children and grandchildren, commonly known as "changing green". Then they dragged them home, threw banyan branches on the back of their own tiles, borrowed the meaning of banyan trees, and exchanged red flowers in some places.