The first step in marriage is to choose a spouse. In the past, with the help of the matchmaker, both parents expressed their intention to get married and then arranged their engagement. When young men and women met, the matchmaker recruited them to a place to make a living, which was called "making an alliance". When signing the alliance, the two must only swear: "The past is empty, the ancestors are gods, the old moon is the basis, the wedding song, and heaven is the witness. Men imitate Hong Liang and women imitate Meng Guang. They grow old together and die together. " After reading the Bible, three sticks of incense were lit immediately to show the blessing of the gods.
After men and women get engaged, with the increase of age, the wedding date is getting closer and closer. At this time, the man prepared a tea ceremony, accompanied by Waco people, and went to his parents' house to "ask for forgiveness." If the woman's parents approve the man's request, then the man's family will ask the fate person to calculate the eight characters and launch a detailed wedding date. Once the wedding date is set, the man's family prepares clothes, wedding cakes and other gifts. The wedding cake is put in a wooden basin and pasted with red paper. On an auspicious day, they went to the woman's house to "register for a date", and the man's parents took their son with them.
After the "reporting period", it is necessary to give gifts, which is also called "employment". The man's house should have enough wine, meat, fish and the bride's clothes and jewelry, and send them to the woman's house three days before marriage. Interestingly, the importance of the bride price depends on how much the woman's family has married. If the bride uses a full set of furniture as a dowry, the dowry needs pigs and sheep 1, white wine 100 kg, and 50 kg of fresh fish: if only half of the furniture in the bride's house is married, the husband's family will send pigs and sheep, that is, the pig and sheep wine will be halved; If the woman's family only has two dowries, the man's family only gives 20 Jin of pork, 20 Jin of white wine and 65,438 Jin of fresh fish. As for the amount of clothes and jewelry for the woman, it depends on the man's family background. There are fixed songs in ceremonies and newspapers.
The day before the wedding, it's called "little guest" Holding the ceremony of "raising the number" at the man's house is to follow the old saying that "the crown is the best" and enable the font size for the groom. This name should be written on the "No.plaque" in regular script. Please climb the ladder and hang it on the gable at one side of the main hall.
After the plaque is hung, spread a piece of red cloth on it, stick couplets on both sides of the plaque, and sing "Pihong Song" at the same time.
Hang couplets. After everything is in order, the person holding the plaque asks the groom for money and sings "the song of benefit". After the groom pays the money, the drummer recites the eulogy, then comes up from the ladder and reads the ladder ballad at the bottom.
After the promotion ceremony, the groom's family will invite nine unmarried young people and teenagers to accompany the groom, which is called "accompanying Lang" or "accompanying the tenth brother". Unmarried men who eat wine at the table should propose a toast to the groom and sing a toast at the same time.
The day before the wedding, the woman's family will also invite nine unmarried young women of the same age and peers to accompany the wine, which is called "the dowry girl" or "the tenth sister", and will also sing "the song of the tenth sister".
When the sixth course was introduced at the banquet, parents took a pot to pour wine for their daughter and warned her daughter with filial piety and economy.
The day before the wedding, you should "open your face" to the bride. The opening ceremony must be presided over by a married woman, and the hair on the bride's face will be pulled off with plain thread, indicating that she is no longer a prostitute. Read "Kaimian Ci" while talking;
"Open face, change a new look.
One opens a golden branch and a jade leaf, and the other opens a champion.
Three dragons and phoenixes are auspicious, and four flowers are acacia.
Open your face. Good luck. Flowers and fruits meet again. "
Boarding the number and opening the face is the legacy of the ancient crown ceremony. Songzi people combine it with weddings, indicating that young men and women have grown up and can get married and enter social life.
On the wedding day, the groom went to the bride's house with his name and sedan chair. The bride's house is closed, and a large number of wedding guests set off firecrackers. Amid firecrackers, the bride's door slowly opened. The groom set up an incense table at the bride's house and lit a "seven-star lamp" (that is, a seven-twist oil lamp) to worship the ancestors. At this time, the bride cried goodbye to her parents, lit incense from her brother's back in the room, and went to the front of the hall to worship her ancestors one by one.
After bowing down, the bride got into the sedan chair and her parents saw her to the door. The ceremony was held with a ladder (trapezoidal wooden container) filled with tea and grain, sprinkled on the sedan chair, and prayed for peace and happiness.
When the sedan chair comes to the groom's door, you can't go in at once. You have to stop and hold a ceremony of "stopping the sedan chair" (also called "returning to the gods"), that is, ask the "ancestor god" of the bride's family to protect the sedan chair to go back. Then "make friends", the groom's family chooses the Luo couple to take the complete child and help the bride get off the sedan chair and enter the door.
The groom treated the groom when he entered the room. When the chef is the door, he kills a rooster and drives away evil spirits with chicken blood in the four corners of the room.
After entering the house, the husband and wife worshipped. The tea boy handed over a plate of two cups of tea, and after three turns, the two cups of tea were combined into one cup, which was drunk by the groom in one gulp to show two of a kind. This is called "passing tea". After drinking tea, couples drink "cheers". Pour two glasses of wine from the jar and give them to the bride and groom. The two of them will communicate with each other three times and then drink a toast. The wine of life is sweet.
After seeing the bride, the husband and wife were introduced into the bridal chamber. A married woman with many children made the bed and sang, "Make the bed, make the bed, and be happy from now on, your son, a young girl." Let the little boy sleep in bed to pee and pray for his children.
That night, the bride visited her in-laws and relatives. The bride takes out red eggs and cakes to receive the elders, and puts the new shoes made according to the samples in front of the elders, which is called "handing tea". At this time, the elders should give "tea money" as a gift.
On the wedding night, people of all ages can come to have sex until the wee hours.
On the third day after marriage, the newlyweds go back to their parents' homes to visit relatives together, which is called "returning to the door". The young couple went to class immediately after class and called their parents. The young couple listened to their parents' wishes of "returning home" and said "I'm sorry" to their parents before going out on the road.
On the exact date of the return visit, both husband and wife must return to their husbands' home. The custom is "there is no vacancy in January" If you really can't come back because of special circumstances, the son-in-law will rent a house from his father-in-law for the night. In the contract, both parties call him by his first name, which means that it is the same contractual relationship, not the in-laws who take him in. After the wedding honeymoon, the time for the woman to take her daughter back to the province is not limited until the man comes to pick it up.
It is worth mentioning that Songzi people also have the custom of beating the groom, saying it is "opening their hearts". No matter at the entrance to the village, on the street or in the fields, people can only see the groom who is going to see his relatives. Familiar or not, a young man flew forward, put his hands over the groom's head and shouted "happiness!" " Everyone swarmed, and men, women and children patted the groom's head gently. The groom was not only annoyed, but also handed cigarettes, sprinkled sugar and bowed to thank everyone after the "wedding ceremony", and then happily went on to greet the bride. "exultation" means that the world swallows the dirt off the groom's head and brings good luck.
Now Songzi people don't have to take a sedan chair to get married, and the wedding ceremony related to getting on the sedan chair has dissipated, but other procedural foundations have been preserved, and some have only changed slightly in the situation.