What is the custom of getting married here in Zhangjiagang?

First, the old-fashioned marriage procedure is cumbersome and abnormal. Civilized marriage was advocated in the Republic of China, but there were still a large number of old-fashioned marriages among the people. After liberation, free love and independent marriage were advocated, and the marriage procedures were greatly simplified. Both men and women take a fancy to each other. When they get married, they go to the township civil affairs department to register and get a marriage certificate, and they become legal couples. However, the legacy of the old marriage still exists, only the arranged marriage has been abolished, superstitious activities have been eliminated and procedures have been simplified. Many customs have been preserved to this day. The process is roughly like this: in the old days, a man's daughter, with similar family background and age, asked the matchmaker to fix him up. Matchmakers always exaggerate the man's wealth, appearance, taste, diligence and frugality, talk to him as much as possible, and get the consent of the woman's parents to "blind date". Today, many men and women are still engaged in marriage, and the negotiators are called "referees", which is equivalent to matchmakers. Even if men and women are free to fall in love, when it comes to bride price, engagement and marriage, they should temporarily pull someone as an "introducer", which is called a "ready-made matchmaker". Blind date is agreed by the matchmaker. As long as the parents agree, the matchmaker can lead the man to the woman's house for blind date, mainly by looking at the woman's appearance and examining her character. A woman goes to a man's house, and her mother and other relatives go on blind dates for her. Besides looking at the man's appearance, she mainly looks at his house and property to inquire about his character. Nowadays, matchmakers often pull strings, and both men and women visit each other face to face. There is a rule about blind date. If it doesn't match, you will never eat at each other's house. Send a post saying birthday. After the "blind date" is satisfied, both parties can send Geng stickers. According to the old-fashioned procedure, before sending Geng stickers, the man issued a "request sticker" and the woman issued a "permission sticker" without objection. After receiving the "permission sticker", the man issued a "request sticker" and the woman immediately issued a "more sticker". In order to simplify the procedures and reduce the round-trip of matchmakers, men often send out "begging posts" and "begging posts" at one time, while women reply to "letting posts" and "posting posts" at one time. The matchmaker sent the woman's wedding sticker to the man's house, and when she entered the man's house, she quickly pressed it under the incense burner on the man's stove. The man took out the boxer paste, asked someone to do a calculation, and when it was over, he chose an auspicious day and hired an engagement. This process has gradually disappeared. If men and women have nothing in common, they can be employed, engaged and engaged on their birthdays. This area is called "detention day" and "small marriage". Choose an auspicious day at the man's house, prepare a post and send it to the woman's house. On this day, men and women hold separate banquets to entertain their relatives and friends. Generally, the man goes to the woman's house for lunch at noon and the woman goes to the man's house for dinner in the afternoon. Parents and relatives of both sides should give gifts, commonly known as "asking for money." In the old society, the amount of bride price varied greatly between the rich and the poor, ranging from 2 stone meters to 20 stone meters. Children from rich families compete with each other and the bride price amounts to thousands of dollars, so women are called "good girls". This dowry is what the woman needs to buy in the future. In addition to dowry, there are all kinds of ornaments, or gold, silver, jade or jewelry or cloth, most of which are expensive. The woman often haggles over every ounce, and the matchmaker runs at both ends to mediate. After liberation, the dowry fee was not included in the conscription fee. From the early days of liberation to the 1960s, the general bride price was a set of clothes, two catties of wool, a pair of gold earrings (or a gold ring), ranging from tens of yuan. In the 1970s and 1980s, the average working class had a bicycle (or sewing machine), a gold ring, a pair of gold earrings, a watch, cloth and wool, plus several hundred yuan to 1,000 yuan. Since the 1990s, ordinary wage earners have received gold necklaces, gold rings, gold earrings and 10,000 yuan. After the "commitment day", the engagement is over. If the man breaks his contract in the future, he will give up his dowry as usual. If the woman breaks the contract, the dowry will be returned to the man. Since the marriage of 1950, the marriage law has been implemented, with free choice of spouse, abolition of feudal arranged marriage, buying and selling marriage, and the superstitious activities such as arranging eight characters and fortune telling gradually disappeared. However, the traditional way of marriage still exists among the people, which is only a simplification in form. The procedure of marriage is roughly as follows: the invitation period is that both men and women agree on the date of marriage through the introducer. The way is that on the second day of the seventh lunar month, the matchmaker (or introducer) accompanies the man to the woman's house for a "farewell ceremony". There are often several times between accepting and not accepting gifts until August 15. If the woman accepts the "holiday gift", she promises to get married on a fixed date this year or around the Spring Festival. At that time, the dowry paid by the man to the woman was agreed in the process of this farewell ceremony. The standard of the general working class is the converted price of new house furniture, TV, refrigerator, radio and DVD player, plus clothing expenditure. The grade depends on the family situation. The woman used the money to buy the above-mentioned supplies and sent them to the man's house before marriage or in the afternoon of the wedding day. On the morning of the wedding, the groom prepares cigarettes, wine, sugar, fish, meat and money, and goes to the woman's house to get married accompanied by the introducer. Brides used sedan chairs, rickshaws and unicycles from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China. After liberation, I changed to riding a bike, tractor or walking. In recent years, brides get married in vans or cars. When the groom arrives at the door, he will set off firecrackers. Mother's money is called "three teas", including lotus seed soup, glutinous rice balls and eggs. After using it, she said goodbye to home and waited for the bride to "go home"-marry her in-laws. Today, the groom will have lunch at the bride's house before going home. In the afternoon, the man came to "get a dowry", mostly furniture, bedding, household appliances and so on. The dowry went to the man's house to decorate the new house. Near evening, under the repeated urging of the introducer, the bride got married with heavy makeup, bid farewell to her parents and relatives, and cried. Accompanied by an introducer and several unmarried girlfriends, she arrived at her husband's home at the beginning of Deng Hua. The man set off firecrackers to greet him and helped the bride enter the nave. Marriage, commonly known as meeting the bride, is the most important etiquette in a wedding. After meeting the bride, it becomes a legal couple (now the marriage certificate has been obtained some time before the wedding). Pay homage to the church, one to heaven and earth, two to ancestors, three to Gaotang, and then the husband and wife worship each other. Today, they bow and salute. After the ceremony, the bride and groom each held one end of the red and green ribbon, pulled by the groom, stepped on the green cloth bag laid on the ground, and walked step by step to the bridal chamber. The cloth bags were laid forward in turn, which was called "Dai". As soon as the bride entered the new house, the banquet began. Guests, regardless of gender, age and age, flocked to the new house, deliberately commenting on the couple, joking and teasing, asking for candy and teasing the bride. In addition to a couple, the teasing object also dragged the in-laws and brother-in-law into the new house to make trouble. The master is not embarrassed, but proud. The fiercer the trouble, the more face the master has. This is called "making a fortune". The new house is neither superior nor inferior. The so-called "three days without old or young." This custom still exists in the countryside, but it has disappeared. In the old society, it was absolutely forbidden for the bride to talk on her wedding night from getting into the sedan chair to entering the bridal chamber. After the newlyweds finished drinking, they went to bed after the party. Traditionally, the groom lifted the bride's veil with a balance beam, but the bride remained silent. Because traditionally, the bride has a bad mouth. This custom no longer exists today. The bride meets her relatives and elders under the guidance of her mother-in-law. The wedding ceremony means that the woman's parents and relatives go to her husband's house to meet her son-in-law's parents and relatives on the second day of her daughter's wedding. This custom was originally owned by the old Shaman people, but now it is widely imitated by the descendants of immigrants with other voices. There are generally thirty or forty relatives of the woman attending the wedding. Mothering relatives, commonly known as "Huimen". On the third day after marriage, the bride and husband prepared gifts and went back to their parents' home to make peace with their parents and elders. I had to go back to my husband's house that night. Making a full moon, after marriage, the Yue family prepares gifts and sends them to the in-laws' family, which is called "making a full moon". At this point, the wedding etiquette is over. Old-fashioned marriage also includes the following types: refers to the belly marriage, the baby is still in the womb, and both parents refer to the belly marriage. Before liberation, there were many marriages between China and Britain, and people thought that kinship could deepen friendship. After liberation, it is forbidden to get married, because middle cousins are blood relatives. Child brides are called "adopted daughters" in China. Girls from poor families can't feed, so they give them to others as child brides. Some men are poor and afraid that they can't afford a daughter-in-law in the future, so they adopt girls from poor families as child brides from an early age. Child brides have no social status and have been discriminated against and abused since childhood. When they grow up, they are forced to get married. Kidnapping occurs when children are engaged when they are young, and when they grow up, the man is too poor to get married, or the woman marries by intention. Another way to rob relatives is to rob widows. A man's family was poor and he couldn't afford a daughter-in-law, so he robbed a widow to get married, and some widows fell in love with someone. But in the old society, widows were criticized and willing to be robbed. When robbing relatives, first find out where the woman is, then prepare firecrackers and organize people to sneak into the ambush. There are rules for robbing relatives. The groom must first catch the woman, and then everyone will grab it. While holding the woman, she even set off two firecrackers. As soon as the firecrackers rang, the neighbors stopped. Pulling out relatives, the man's elders died suddenly before the wedding of his children and grandchildren. The man didn't want to postpone the wedding, so he held the wedding in advance. Put the dead aside first, hold a happy event first, and mourn after the wedding. In the old society, men were poor and women were rich, and men were adopted by their wives. After adoption, the man has a surname that is easy to change and a surname that is not easy to change, but the child should give the woman the surname. Nowadays, there are many only children, and more and more men are getting married in women's homes. This is different from the previous adoption. Changing relatives, commonly known as girls changing sisters-in-law. Because of their poor families, neither family has the ability to climb up to the daughter-in-law. Both parties married their daughters to each other's sons and could not pay each other's dowry. Marriage is simple. After liberation, this kind of marriage gradually decreased.