The universe of etiquette: Decoding the cultural genes of Chinese wedding ceremonies from the perspective of "Tonglaohenu"
The traditional Chinese wedding rituals are very complicated and have profound meanings. It is simply a condensed evolution of ritual and music civilization. In the past, people used the four words "Tonglaohehenu" to clearly express the key essence of Chinese marriage. The so-called "Tonglao" comes from the content in "Book of Rites: Hunyi", which talks about newlyweds eating the meat of the same animal together, which means that from then on, blessings and disasters will be experienced together, joys and sorrows will be shared; "卺" is a cut gourd as a utensil, and the couple each takes a piece to drink. This is "合卺", which symbolizes the fusion of yin and yang into one body, and the equal dignity of those with high status and those with low status. This ritual process has the philosophical thinking of the Chinese ancestors on "the same body with the same dignity". It is not just a simple love romance, but defines marriage as a community of destiny based on morality and responsibility. Different from the Western concept of marriage that emphasizes passion, Chinese weddings focus more on solemn rituals to establish a sacred ethical contract in front of heaven, earth, and clan, and to engrave the core Confucian values of filial piety, loyalty, and responsibility deep in the souls of the couple.
The System of Six Rites: The Educational Craftsmanship Behind the Sense of Ritual
The "three letters and six rituals" system that has lasted for thousands of years has given traditional marriages a sense of solemnity. From "nacai" to ask the matchmaker, "asking for the name" to combine the horoscopes, to "naji" to make the contract, "nazheng" to receive the gift, and then to "ask for the date" to choose the date. After the Song Dynasty, although it was reduced to the "three rites" of accepting gifts, accepting gifts, and personally welcoming, the spiritual essence contained in them has not changed. What needs special attention is that during the "Jiaozi Ceremony" before welcoming the bride, the groom's father went out of his way to toast his son. This seemingly abnormal behavior is actually a critical moment in Confucian "adult" education. With the help of wine as a medium, he warns and encourages the newlyweds to bid farewell to their youth and immaturity and assume the important responsibility of managing the family. This "touching effect" achieved through complicated rituals is a clever manifestation of Chinese ethics' "containing education in etiquette", allowing two individuals who were originally strangers to each other to realize the transformation from "I" to "we" under the influence of etiquette.
Losing etiquette and seeking wildness: the authenticity and alienation of wedding customs
The bad custom of "marriage trouble" that is criticized nowadays is actually rooted in warm folk customs. In ancient rural society, marriage banquets played a simple social role: it allowed singles who had never married to share the joy of happiness, and allowed young and ignorant teenagers to familiarize themselves with the marriage process in advance. More importantly, it served as a tool that could catalyze emotions, helping newcomers who had never met before quickly get rid of shyness and timidity and build a sense of intimacy. However, when this kind of folk carnival loses the boundary of "generating from emotion and ending with etiquette and morality", it becomes a bad custom that harms the social atmosphere. This evolution serves as a warning to us. No matter what kind of folk custom, if it does not adhere to the cultural bottom line, it will eventually deviate from its original purpose of "doing the best for everyone." This is precisely why we emphasize the necessity of changing customs and returning to etiquette orthodoxy.
Lipi Dayan: The code of civilization hidden in the bride price
Cultural evolution from symbolic meaning to material game
The human heart of the world can best be seen in the changes in betrothal gifts. Dating back to the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, the "lipi" sent by the man, that is, two deer skins, was just a token to express respect. The implication is that it means to express respect in pairs and in pairs. By the time Duke Zhou established etiquette and made music, wild geese had become the core betrothal gift throughout the five etiquettes. Ancient people chose the virtues of wild geese. Firstly, they chose the loyalty of "one mate and the last"; secondly, they chose it to show that this wealth is far more valuable than a thousand pieces of gold and it "moves with the sun" to comply with the seasons; thirdly, they chose its "sounds in harmony" to reflect the harmony of harmony. This weighty symbolic meaning far exceeds the worth of thousands of gold. Even after the Tang Dynasty, the sheep, wine, glue, and lacquer stipulated in criminal laws all had auspicious, long-lasting meanings, and the meaning of glue and lacquer respectively. They were all expressions of beautiful expectations for the essence of marriage. This beautiful expectation for the essence of marriage. However, as materials became more abundant, the symbolic nature of the bride price was gradually eroded by economic rationality. From the "double pearls in the ears" and "double jumps around the wrist" that appeared in the poems of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, to the actual rice noodles that changed according to the year in the Song Dynasty, to the heavy burdens such as "all purples and greens" (high amounts of cash) and "motionless" (cars and houses) popular in the contemporary era, betrothal gifts have completed such an alienation from "ritual" to "money". This is not only a reflection of social development, but also a shift in people's hearts from focusing on friendship to focusing on interests.
Keeping integrity and innovating: Reshaping the context and confidence of wedding customs
Facing the nine-month-long "wedding season", we look back at tradition, not to mechanically carry out ancient rituals, but to find the "respect" and "righteousness" that have been buried by time. The reason why traditional weddings appear sacred is that they make couples understand the dignity and responsibility of being "one body" with the help of "Tonglaohexin", and the "six rites" ceremony allows families to see the solemnity of "human relations". Nowadays, when we criticize sky-high betrothal gifts and vulgar weddings, we should see that there are gaps in the spirit of traditional etiquette in the process of modernization. To restore the culture of wedding customs, we need to rely on "creative transformation and innovative development" to guide us and inject cultural genes such as the loyalty of wild geese, the auspiciousness of deerskin, and the harmony of glue paint into weddings again in a way that fits the aesthetics of the times. The wedding must return to the solemn essence of "the good union of two surnames, serving the ancestral temple at the top, and inheriting the descendants at the bottom". Only in this way can we show the cultural foundation and orthodox context of the country of Chinese etiquette, so that each couple can be immersed in the influence of rituals and music, and truly understand the golden promise of "holding the hand of a son and growing old together".
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