Hainan's wedding customs are slightly different between the east and the west. In rural areas, a betel nut ceremony is held immediately after the matchmaker matches men and women. Men send betel nuts in tin boxes or silver boxes to women's homes as dowry. If you can't open the box, open the box and get a betel nut, that's a gift.
In the western regions of Hainan, such as Lingao, Danzhou, Changjiang, Dongfang and Ledong, there is also the custom of "seeing off the bride". The man's family invited his relatives' women to the woman's house, and the woman went out in formal clothes and served them with betel nuts. After the relatives of the man receive betel nuts, they should give the woman a red envelope. However, due to the perennial water shortage in Shishan area of Qiongshan, the woman had to send someone to investigate how many water tanks the man had at home. If the family with more water tanks is rich, the woman will readily agree.
On the day of engagement, the man's family will prepare pork legs and glutinous rice to be sent to the woman's family, which is called "Dan Lu Ying", and then send a bride price to the day, and the man will also send bride price money to the woman. On the appointed wedding day, before the bride left home, all the relatives and sisters of the bride in the village came to visit, and everyone formed a circle and cried together to show their attachment. Wedding sedan chairs, some on foot, and ox carts around the Yangtze River.
When the groom goes to the woman's house, he can't touch the threshold across it, otherwise it will be considered unlucky and will be punished by "fasting" and put on a new threshold. The matchmaker led the groom and his party to the wedding. The best man is usually a close friend or brother of the groom. At the bride's house, the brother-in-law leads the groom to "walk the grass" before he can sit in the door. At this time, firecrackers exploded, and the villagers knew that the groom was coming, and they rushed to witness and comment on the groom for fun. The groom is often blushed, but he is not allowed to talk, so the best man can only excuse him.
The groom will send betel nuts and cigarettes to his father-in-law's elders. The matchmaker will give everyone candy and coins, and the children will rush to grab them. If they get the coins, they will be considered as a year of happiness. After the bride said goodbye to her parents, the matchmaker introduced her to the sedan chair. When the bride gets on the sedan chair, the groom should kowtow to the bride to show his respect. So, the welcoming team began to walk to the man's house.
When the bride enters the man's house, she must go under the groom's armpit. She can't go into the bridal chamber. She has to sit in another room and enter the bridal chamber after the memorial ceremony in the ancestral temple at night. When visiting the church, the bride and groom exchange rings or handkerchiefs as tokens to show their love and grow old together. It's fun to have a wedding. In the new house, newlyweds and guests are singing and laughing, regardless of their relatives, men, women and children. When the guests leave and the newlyweds go to bed, young people, regardless of sex, often hide under the window to eavesdrop or peek (called "stealing the column") to hunt for jokes.
The next day, the bride went out of the kitchen to offer tea or betel nuts to her elders, and then cooked a meal for everyone in the kitchen. On the third day, the bride returned to her parents' home, commonly known as the "loop line", and her parents sent someone to pick her up. A day or two after I returned to my parents' house, I returned to my husband's house. In ancient times, I always lived in my parents' house. I only went back to my husband's house once on Memorial Day, and I have been living in my husband's house since I got pregnant.
In ancient Hainan wedding customs, there were also kidnappings, some of which were hijacked because of the situation, and some were robbed because they had no money to get married. Hijackers often bribed their female relatives and should cooperate with each other to avoid fighting. In addition, there are rules that the same surname does not marry, brother does not marry, sister does not marry, and brother does not marry. Now these rules have been broken, and many traditional wedding customs in rural areas are gradually being replaced by modern wedding fashions in cities.