During my gardening leave, I started reading alot of articles on wikipedia (due to extreme boredom and also trying to “look busy”), from how squids mate to the conquest of Genghis Khan. Then somehow, I stumbled on information on wedding customs, which till now, I have an extremely loose idea on, even though I’ve seen them over and over again. I’m not a very traditional person (loosely translated to, “I’m just lazy to remember them”). Traditions are… nice to know, not nice to practice (that’s why taking table shots are considered a tradition):)

 

“Bride price also known as bride wealth is an amount of money or property or wealth paid to the parents of a woman for the right to marry their daughter. (Compare dowry, which is paid to the groom, or used by the bride to help establish the new household, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage.) In the anthropological literature bride price has often been explained in market terms, as payment made in exchange for the bride’s family’s loss of her labor and fertility within her kin group.”

 

“In Chinese culture, an auspicious date is selected to Ti Qin (literally meaning “propose marriage”), where both families will meet to discuss the amount of the bride price demanded, among other things. A couple of weeks before the actual wedding, the ritual of Guo Da Li (literally meaning “performing the rites”) takes place (on an auspicious date of course). The groom and a matchmaker will visit the bride’s family bearing gifts like wedding cakes, sweetmeats and jewelry as well as the bride price. On the actual wedding day, the bride’s family will return a portion of the bride price (sometimes in the form of dowry) as a goodwill gesture.”

 

– excerpt from wikipedia (bride price)

 

Something to share, in case you guys are as blur as I am. Note, they say “right to marry their daughter”, which reminds me, there’s a few sub-category of “bride price” as well. Remember those the groom has to pay before he can even enter the house. Maybe those are called “Jie Mei Wealth”. Being on the other side of the gate always has it’s advantages.

 

[tags]Weddings, Wikipedia, Bride price, Traditions[/tags]