Source: http://taizhou.19lou.com/
Marriages in old times were arranged by parents’ order and on the matchmaker’s word. According to traditional marriage customs in Yuhuan, in the first step of a marriage, a boy’s family and a girl’s family, under the negotiation of a matchmaker, exchange birthday letters bearing the boy and the girl’s birthday and birth hour respectively. If the will-be-married’s birthdays and hours does not conflict according to astrology, the marriage will step into the next stage. In the next step, the bridegroom’s family will later present the bride’s family with betrothal gifts, such as jewelry, cloth and silk, which is referred to as “informal betrothal” or “deposit betrothal”. Within several months or several years after “informal betrothal”, the bridegroom’s family should send a red letter stating the selected wedding date, together with marriage payment, to the bride’s family who will return such betrothal gifts as clothes and fruits in season. Then, both of the families will present the fruits and desserts to relatives and friends who will give cash red packets with cash enclosed in and gifts to express their congratulations and goodwishes.
Before the wedding, the bride’s family will tailor the bride underwear with the cloth presented by the bridegroom’s family, which is referred to as “open scissors”. Three days before the wedding, will-be-married couple prepare themselves for the wedding. The bride will tidy her face and shave her forehead; the bridegroom will cut hair and take a bath.
According to traditional marriage customs, the groom won’t go to the bride’s family to receive his wife, but dispatch a bridal sedan chair and musicians to receive her. For a bride, whose native place is Fujian Province or Wenzhou City, there will be a nephew or junior of her carrying a pollen basket accompany her. In Taiping sub-district, Gangbei district, a bride’s brother is allowed to accompany her and send her to the bridegroom’s home. After arriving the bridegroom’s home, the wedding ceremony starts. The bride and bridegroom, guiding by the bridemaid and best man, will pays kotows to Heaven and Earth, the family ancestors and parents successively. When the wedding rites are concluded, a best man will read wedding words. Then, the ceremony proceeds with a grand feast for relatives and those who helped in the wedding. By the way, according to an abolished custom, if a bridegroom fails to return form the sea for fishing, a rooster held by the bridegroom’s younger sister, in substitution of the groom, will perform the rite of exchange bows with the bride. Then, the rooster should be kept in the bridal chamber for three days.
At the wedding night, an activity named “send to the wedding chamber” will be held. In order to tease the newlyweds and add joyous atmosphere, a best man will read easy-understood “bridal chamber words” that complied into rhymes with folk cultural motif and auspicious compliment.
Traditionally, the newlyweds are to prepare gifts and return to visit the bride’s parents three or seven days or 120 days after the wedding. A new bride with no children should return to her parents’ home before the end of May and live for a few days before return to her husband’s home in early June.
The above-mentioned traditional marriage customs were still popular among countryside of Yuhuan in the Republic of China, the customs varied slightly between Gangnan and Gangbei. Complex marriage customs lost its popularity in 1930s, but was still preserved in countryside. After the Liberation, feudal marriage custom was gradually abolished, and marriage customs became more civilized and thrifty and simple. However, matching birthdays of the bride and bridegroom, present and acceptance of a large amount of betrothal payment and expensive gifts, hosting sumptuous feast, showing off wealth and increasingly high monetary gifts can still be seen in some areas.
