Because I don't know what nationality your girlfriend is. I can only give a brief introduction. There are mainly three ethnic groups in Zhenyuan, namely Miao, Tujia and Dong. Marriage of Miao people is relatively free. Young men and women enjoy full social freedom before marriage, and parents generally do not interfere. On festivals and market days, they use the opportunity of parties to sing love songs, talk about love and talk about their feelings with each other. This way of premarital love is called "travel" in Qiandongnan Prefecture of Guizhou Province. Tourism is a traditional custom of free love between young Miao men and women in Qiandongnan. In addition to the fixed "slope" set in each village, you can also choose to travel in flowers and trees, river banks with pleasant scenery, hills, fields or valleys far away from the village. But according to the rules of the Miao family, young men and women must travel in open places. If this activity is carried out in a hidden place, once it is discovered, it will be considered as improper behavior and condemned by public opinion. After traveling in different rooms for a period of time on the wedding night, if the two sides are congenial, they usually give each other tokens in private or pledge their engagement. When the privately engaged men and women reached the agreed wedding date, the man invited several partners to "travel" to the woman's stockade and took her home by the way. According to the custom, newlyweds can't share the same room that night, and the bride should be accompanied by the man menstruation for the night. The next day, the man asked the matchmaker to bring gifts to the woman's house to propose marriage. If the woman agrees, she will accept the gift and entertain the matchmaker. Subsequently, the woman prepares a gift equal to or slightly more than the man to give back to the man. When the man learned that the woman was in favor of the marriage, he hosted a banquet for relatives and friends who came to congratulate him. Miao people in southeastern Guizhou have the custom of "staying at home" after marriage. The bride returned to her parents' house shortly after her marriage. The bride arranged by her parents will return to her parents' home on the wedding day or the next day. Generally, underage women who marry early stay in their parents' home for six or seven years, and adult women for three or four years. In the meantime, you can only go back to your husband's family temporarily when you are busy with agriculture and major festivals, or when you encounter the funeral of your husband's family. Tujia Tujia girl was told by the man to get married more than ten months ago, so she stopped going out to work. First, a square table and ten bowls of tea were placed in the boudoir of the diaojiao building. Women from nine neighboring countries were invited to sit around in turn, and they began to cry for wedding songs. The bride is in the middle, called "banquet", the woman on the right is "banquet" and the woman on the left is "banquet". The bride began to talk, answer questions and take turns crying day and night. There are rules for crying: mother and daughter cry, aunts and nephews cry, sisters cry, uncles and nephews cry, aunts and nephews cry, and scold the matchmaker ... for three or five days, some cry for ten days and a half. The main contents include recalling the deep affection between mother and daughter, telling the pain of parting, thanking for the kindness of raising, asking brothers and sisters-in-law to take care of their elderly parents and teaching women to be human. Weeping wedding songs are generally improvised, crying when you see your mother and crying when you see your aunt. There are different crying characters and fixed crying characters, such as "than the ancients", "crying in the room", "ten pictures", "ten embroidery" and "December". Crying has melody and cadence, which is a very difficult art of combining singing and crying. The bride must ask the teacher to practice before (of course, it is confidential). Crying with modal particles such as "om", "man" and "alas" is sad and moving. The custom of Tujia women crying for marriage has a long history. Peng Tanqiu, a Tujia poet in the Qing Dynasty, recorded: "The song of ten sisters, loving kindness, parting after injury, full of sorrow and tears, is also a legacy of' bamboo branches'. "There is a poem in ancient Zhi Zhu's ci: The peach blossom season is a good season, and it is infinite to bid farewell to sorrow. Cry mother cry sister-in-law, affection such as silk. It seems incredible to celebrate a happy marriage by crying and sacrifice the dead relatives by singing and dancing, but it fully embodies the unique temperament and cultural consciousness of Tujia people. Young men and women in winter and winter have relatively free love activities before marriage. They socialize by "going into the village" and "going uphill", but they also need their parents' consent before they can get married. In the beautiful Dong nationality township, young men and women begin to socialize at a certain age, which is "singing and sitting on the moon." Singing and confinement "means falling in love, which is generally popular in the slack season." Many Dong villages have a special "Moon Hall", which is a diaojiao building for young people to get together. Most of them go to their girls' homes to make friends with girls. As night fell, the boys in the stockade came downstairs from their favorite girl with homemade musical instruments such as oxlegs and pipa, humming an invitation song while playing the strings. The piano and singing touched the girl's heartstrings, so she quickly put down her work, pushed open the window and peeped under the diaojiao building. When they saw the person they liked coming, they signaled that he could enter the building. If invited by someone they don't like or don't know, they will quickly close the window and ignore it. If the young man refuses to leave her diaojiao building, he will whistle, make a hullabaloo about, or beat her windows and partitions with a bamboo pole. Although the patient girl kept silent, her family intervened. If she doesn't go, a stream of cold water pours down from the window, which means you should go away quickly. "Singing and confinement" is not stopped by parents. Because they think that their children's love relationship has been respected by others and their faces are radiant. While singing, the young man played the piano, and the girls were still doing their jobs, but they all listened carefully and wanted to know which song answered best. Different seasons should sing different songs. In question-and-answer duets, it is easiest to see who knows a lot and has a wide knowledge. It is in this social activity of "singing and confinement" that many young people get to know each other better and finally get married. In the past, women had the custom of "staying indoors" after marriage, but most of them changed after liberation. After marriage, the bride will return to her parents' home. In case of busy farming, festivals or important events, she will pick up her husband's family for a few days first, and then go back to her mother's house until she is pregnant and has a baby. It is more common to be a son-in-law at home. Dong people of the same clan can't get married, so cousin marriage is popular, cousin marriage is forbidden, and uncle power is emphasized. In the past, some Dong cottages in the border areas of Hunan, Guangxi and Guizhou still retain the ancient marriage custom of "robbing relatives". The ways of "robbing the bride" vary from place to place, and basically both men and women are willing. On the night of the wedding, they deliberately hid the bride, while the man tried to "snatch" the bride in the middle of the night, carried it on the sedan chair and returned home in triumph. After liberation, new marriage customs were carried forward. Most of the Dong and Miao people have simple marriages, with loving husband and wife and harmonious families. Dong people also have the custom of eloping. When a couple is opposed by either parent, they flee to other places and start a small family. After a few months or years, they will ask their relatives and friends to intercede with their opposing parents. Opponents saw what was done was done and had to admit it, so the young couple returned to their hometown to live.