There are six rituals in marriage, namely, "winning the lottery, asking the name, winning the prize, accepting the levy, inviting guests and welcoming the relatives". This is the wedding custom of the Han people since ancient times, and Henan, the core of the Central Plains, is no exception. That's usually "Phoenix seeking phoenix". The man proposed to the woman on his own initiative, but many women climbed relatives in turn. They put silver dollars in the flowers and invited the matchmaker to the door, commonly known as "sending bags"; If the two sides have no objection, they will exchange the date of birth, which is called "crossing the eight characters" or "changing the Geng post"; If the eight characters don't collide, and the ancestral spirits and divination are very clear, then a formal wedding invitation will be issued, that is, the man chooses a date to pay the bride price, which is the so-called "uncertain thing". At this point, the in-laws have made up their minds and cannot go back on their words.
After the man chooses the wedding date, the matchmaker informs the woman that it is "good to send", mostly in winter and spring, just after the autumn harvest, which is both leisure and rich; On the wedding day, the groom accompanied the sedan chair, in which firecrackers were lit in front and lanterns were hung on the back. It was a "big wedding". Women often use bedding and "boxes, tables, cabinets and chairs" as dowry. When the bride arrives at the door of her husband's house, the man's relatives hold red-hot plowshares and occasionally spray some white wine around the sedan chair. This is called "holding your temper". Then the groom bows to the sedan chair and calls it "paying homage to the sedan chair door". The bride was helped down by the bridesmaid and sent to the bridal chamber. The husband and wife had a glass of wine, and then relatives and friends began to "make trouble in the bridal chamber".
On the wedding day, the man will kill the pig as a gift and prepare a large piece of "meat from the mother", ranging from 15 kg to 20 kg. If it is ribs and pig hind legs, it is best to have six ribs in the size of the ribs. The pig hind legs must present the whole leg and cannot be cut. Pay attention to the frequent exchanges between the two families in the future. The prepared meat pieces are placed in a food box that looks like a steamer. Meat delivery dates vary from place to place, including pre-marriage, wedding and returning home to thank her mother-in-law for her kindness to her daughter. Later, the groom wore a suit and tie, tied a ribbon on his chest, and held a round mirror wrapped around silk flower to ward off evil spirits. Accompanied by the best man, he took a float decorated with colorful flowers to the woman's house. Balloons and colorful flags fluttered along the way, cars and motorcycles lined up, folk western bands replaced suona gongs and drums, firecrackers and triple cymbals came and went, which was really lively.
When arriving at the woman's house, the groom should bow to the woman's elder to show his respect, and the woman's elder will put on the other side of the ribbon for the groom. The woman's relatives and friends will take the opportunity to "confuse" the man's visitors, mainly the groom and the best man, painting the groom as a big face and the best man as a bad face, creating a happy atmosphere. Congratulations to relatives and friends and the wedding procession. The woman needs to hold a banquet to entertain them. After dinner, it's time to take the bride home. In addition to clothes, bedding, furniture, electrical appliances and other daily necessities, the bride's dowry also needs a unique dowry meal-takeaway meal.
Carry-on meals are prepared by parents in advance, mainly including meat, vegetables, steamed stuffed buns, noodles and jiaozi. Generally, pork is called "carry-on meat", noodles are called "carry-on noodles" and jiaozi is called "carry-on jiaozi". The number of jiaozi depends on the age of the bride. The woman pinched jiaozi to hold her in-laws' mouth and not let her daughter suffer indignities. Everything is put in a rice bowl, put in a food box and served. City people buy more dried noodles, wrap them in red paper, put them in the red washbasin with two new pairs of chopsticks, and replace them with red cloth bags. This number is even.
The bride wearing a red silk coat or a white wedding dress, holding a bunch of flowers, walked out of the boudoir accompanied by her sister and aunt, and the best man sprinkled colored paper in front of the road. When I arrived at the man's house, I gradually entered the wedding climax. In order to be more lively and decent, some families will invite some song and dance troupes or acrobatic troupes to entertain relatives and friends. The man's family will shuttle through the crowd with red plates or washbasins in their hands and accept gifts from guests.
When the bride enters the door, a classical ceremony of "worshipping heaven and earth" will be held under the auspices of the eloquent and respected master of ceremonies. One worships heaven and earth, thanking heaven and earth for giving human life and living space, and the other worships the church. When men and women grow up and get married, they should thank their parents for their kindness, and husband and wife respect each other as guests. The hardships of a hundred years of life are all in love. After the ceremony, the bride was sent to the bridal chamber and the guests sat down to taste the wedding banquet. The chefs are already up to one's ears. Steamed vegetables and steamed bread in iron cages are hot and delicious, usually eight plates of dried vegetables with four meats and four vegetarian dishes. The guests exchanged punches and respected each other.
After the wedding reception, relatives, friends and guests began to make a scene at the wedding, that is, "making trouble with in-laws." They scribbled on the groom's parents' heads and faces with gray, ink and pigments, put on pointed paper hats, pepper skewers and big red flowers, wrapped up skirts and put on clothes backwards, making the old couple look ridiculous. Even so, the in-laws are funny.
"Noisy" is a highlight of the marriage custom in the Central Plains. The "Shaxi Bed" in the bridal chamber is an indispensable link. As early as before the wedding, the groom's family tried their best to choose a candidate among the sisters-in-law of the same clan and neighbors, preferably the "lucky" with children and daughters. And articulate, can sing and knit, but also improvise, choose one or two to be the protagonist of the saxophone bed.
When the bridal chamber was in trouble, my sister-in-law held a plate with chestnuts, red dates, peanuts, longan and other dried fruits on red paper. As she sprinkled it on the bride sitting on the bed, she danced and sang some auspicious words to adjust and create the atmosphere, and the guests followed suit and laughed endlessly. Making trouble in the bridal chamber and listening to the sound of the room is an old tradition of exorcising evil spirits, and it is also a festive link in the happy events of life. It doesn't have to be noisy, but today, this kind of "noisy" is getting out of line, and there is no etiquette restriction. The object of "making trouble" has also changed from making trouble with the bride and groom to making trouble with in-laws, sisters-in-law and even bridesmaids, and the way of "making trouble" is becoming more and more explicit.
Some places in Henan have the method of "painting old turtles as bridesmaids". It was meant to annoy the bride and eavesdrop on the bridal chamber. Later, because the male guest was inconvenient to draw on the bride because of the groom's face, he changed the object to a bridesmaid and insisted on drawing an old turtle on the bridesmaid. In some places, many accidents happened. Although it is the wedding day, it is inevitably implicit.
Generally speaking, the bride "tries the knife for three days" and starts cooking, mainly making noodles, based on the "three lights" of hand light, basin light and face light. When the groom accompanies the bride "back to the door", he must go back to the road he took when greeting the bride. The groom also wants to buy four-color gifts for his mother-in-law. Things can be matched at will, but they must be combined into four to be lucky. In the past, a kind of "silent marriage" was popular in Henan, which, as its name implies, was a quiet wedding.
Not only should the wedding day be chosen in even numbers, but most of them should be on the fourth, sixth or eighth day of the lunar calendar, and the time must be arranged at 12 in the evening to have a pair of auspicious days. The reason why the wedding was held in the middle of the night is said to have originated in the early Ming Dynasty. In order to escape the tyrannical behavior of captaincy Zhu Gui forcibly occupying the first night right of newly married women, this custom has declined and almost disappeared.