A CHINESE WEDDING

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 115, 20 June 1914, Page 6

A CHINESE WEDDING

(BY MARY GAUNT) [Mrs Gaunt is a famous author and traveller. She has just completed a journey through the little-known parts of Mongolia and China.] It was a Christian wedding between one ©I the Chinese evangelists and a girl of the school attached to the American Presbyterian Mission. The contracting parties had never spoken to each other; that would have been a frightful breach of decorum, but as they went to the same church it is possible that they knew each other by sight. , The bride came of a poor family and the bridegroom had"been paying for her edueationf and it is on record that lie once, with* the consent a»4 connivance of the schoolmistress, had written to her exhorting her to diligence, and pointing out how good a thing it was that a woman should be well-read and cultured." : ; ';'_'•." - ! / Waiting at the Church. : : 7 One o'clock was fixed for the wedding, and .at a quarter to one the church was They did the red chair for the bride.! The consensus'bjiT opinion , was against "it. ; /'lt was given up people in Peking; they generally/ had, carriages. ..And,' anyhow, it was a ridiculous expense '"j Wit was .decided ; that the bride should walk. ' The bridegfoom stood at , the chuieh door on the men's ...side 1 of the church, a tall stalwart Chinaman with. liis black,hair sleek "and oiled and cut short after the modern fashion. <; He was suitably dad in black silk, arid beside him stood his special friend, the chief Chinese evangelist, who had himself been married four months .before. At the organ sat the Aneriean doctor's pretty young and as the word was passed; ''The bride is coining," she struck up. the wedding march,' and all the turneA to. the women's door, while the men, who would not commit such a br'eaeh of decorum as to-look/''stared steadily ahead.' ' : ' ""'•• ' ■.'" ' " .."'"-. -■ : ; "..•■• The Foreign Pashion.;-; 1 But the wedding march.had been .played- over and over again before she did conie, resplendent after the foreign fashion, in white mosquito^netting:with" pink and blue ilowersin her hair'and another bunch-in her hand. The bridegroom had wished her to wear, silk on this great occasion, so he; had. hife^ ! the a green silk skirt and a bronze 'satin brocade coat. ;A~ •■model of Chinese decorum was that bride. .Her head under the white veil was bent, her eyes were glued io tlie ground, and not a muscle of her body moved as she progressed Very/slowly forward. Presumably she did put one foot before the "other, but she had the ap2>earanee of an automaton in the bauds of the women' on either side—her mother, a stooping little Old woman, and a tall young: woman in a bright blue ! bro«iade coat, the,wife of the bridegroom's special friend. Each grasped her by an arm just above the eibowy and ap*_ r-arently propelled her lip the aisle as if she were on wheels. Up the opposite aisle, came the 'bridegroom, also with his head k bent and-, his - eyes glued to the ground, and propelled forward in the same manner by his friend. ~ ■.-'--- ' ■./;• ■■■ *. Bowing all Bound ; / They met, those two who had never met face to face before, before the and he performed the short marriage ceremony. As he said the closing words, the Chinese Evangelist became Master of. Ceremonies. "The bridegroom and bride," said he, "will now bow to each other once, in the new style." i The bride and groom standing before the minister bowed- deeply to eaeh other. .: ' . ' ,~," "They will bow a second time," and they bowed a£ain. . " " They will bow a third time,' * and once mor< they bowed low. . "

"They will now bow to the audienee," and they they turned like well-drilled soldiers and; bowed toi the white-haired man who had married them.'.. -■' . c ;

'' They will. now bo''wtb" the 'audience,.','. afld. ilfey faced the -people, jand bowed deeply, and- m; that congregation rose and returned *

. "And now the audience .will bow to the briderfaiid bridegroom, ;} and with right goodwill the congregation, Chinese and the two or three foreigners, rose * and saluted the newly-married couple. ' •.'•-•;.;<: No Lovers in China. ,- It was over; and to the strains •of the wedding march they left the church', actually together, -by way of the women's entrance. But the bride wias hot on : the.groom 's arm. That would not have in accord with Chinese ideas. The bridegroom marched a little ahead, propelled forward by his frieiid as if ti« : had nomeans of volition of his own, and behind hiin came his wife, thrust forward in the same manner, still with; her eyes on the noor and every muscle stiff, as if she had been a doll. ' "All the world loves a lover,'' but in China, the land of eeremonies, there are no ISVers. This man had gone further than most men in the wooing of his wifej and they were beginning life together with very fair chances of success. One pain she would be spared. As soon as the husband has lifted the veil, and she is left alone with the women of his family, the ordinary Chinese bride has to submit to the painful process of "having her face opened"—that is, the hairs on her forehead plucked out so that the forehead is squared at the corners. But the Christians have given up the practice.

The young couple will not set up house alone. That would be most unseemly. The evangelist'"has" not "a mother; but his only sister will take the place of mother-in-law, and the bride will live with'her "anil her husband.