COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE IN CHINA.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIII, Issue XVIII, 29 October 1904, Page 22

COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE IN CHINA.

Young folk in Clrina have need to begin wooing early, as there are so many ceremonies to be observed before the wedding can take place that, were it otherwise, they would stand a fair chance of starting as Darby and Joan. Ami there is no likelihood of this condition of things being altered, for, as has been well said of China, everything that is ancient is modem, and everything that is modern i«.ancient-; customs never change, am! as they were in the beginning they are now', and ever will Ire. "There can be no running off of the young lady to the registry office some morning before her parents come down to I reakfast. nor can a special lieen e be obtained in a moment to grati'y a sudden caprice (says Mr. R. K. Douglas, in his interesting book on “.•o-.-ieiy it China’ ). In the houses of all well todo people* the ceremony is s.irroundcd by rites which make haste impossible, and the widest publicity is se.-ured for the event. In dealing with social matins in ni huge an Empire as China, it is necessary to remember that piactic’s vary in detail in different parts of th? eountrj. Hut throughout the length and breadth of the land the arrangement of marriages of both sons and daughters- is a matter which is left entirely in the hands of th - parents, who in enry ease <-mploj a go-between or match-maker, whose busiruss it is to make himself or herself—for both men and won.cn follow this strange calling—acquainted accurately with the circumstances of both families and th? personal qualifications of the proposed bride and bridegroom.

"it is obvious that considerable trust and confidence have to be placed in these people, and it is also a fact that, they not uncommonly betray this trust r.nd confidence in the interests of rich people who are able to make it. worth their while to represent a plain and ungainly girl as a Hebe, or a dissolute youth as a paragon of virtue. . . .

“ ‘To lie like a matchmaker’ is a common expression, and a published correspondence exists between a <■ hinese bridegroom and his fricnd.i in which the former bitterly complains that his bride, far from being the beauty describ'd by the go-between, is fat and marked deeply with small-pox. His friend, being of a practical turn of mind, and not b.ing himself the victim, rcommends the bridegroom to make th? best of the bargain, and. with cheap philosophy, reminds him that if the lady is stout she is probably healthy, and that, though disfigured, she may very possible ba even as ‘an angel from Heaven,’ to use

his own words. “From the time that the matchmaker is employed .until the* bond is tied there arc six ceremonies- to be performed. . . . So scon as the first of these ceremonies is performed the betrothal is considered binding; and in the eases of the engagement of'children nothing but disablement <r the affliction of leprosy is -considered potent enough to dissolve it. Certain superstit’ons, however, render the contract more easily dissoluble when the pair are of marriageable age. If. for instance, a chita bowl should be broken, or any valuable article lost within three d vs of the engage n>< nt, the circumstance is cons’dere.l sufficiently unlucky to justify th* instant termination cf the undertaking.; and in eases where facts unfavourable to the one side, whether socially, physically, or morally, have in Ihe meantime come to the knowledge of the other partv io the contract, advantage is taken of some such accident to put an eid to the negotiations.”