The Daur people have left the form of marriage such as group marriage and couple marriage for an unknown number of years, and these early human marriage institutions have long been extinct. According to the folklore of the Daur people, in the past, it was not a woman who married, but a man who married a wife. Later, because men did not want to live in their wives' homes, they often fled back to the "mother's house", so they changed to women to marry, and began to give the bride a dowry wardrobe, clothes boxes and other items. It is said that at first the woman also wanted to escape back to her mother's house, but she was reluctant to discard her wardrobe and other things, and over time, the marriage of women became a system. This may be a hazy memory of the historical changes in the late matriarchal clan society from wife to husband.
The Daur people practice strict monogamous marriage and have always adhered to the traditional system of extra-clan marriage, in which marriages are condemned by public opinion and punished by clan customary law. From the end of the Qing Dynasty, a small number of wealthy people took concubines because they did not have children, but those who were concubines were in an unnamed position in the family. Divorce is an isolated phenomenon among the Daurs, and divorce is granted only when the intercession between the relatives of both the man and the woman is ineffective. Divorcees are asked to ask childless people to write divorce papers in the wild to establish evidence. There is a saying in the Daur people: "Where a divorce letter is written, there is no grass and trees for three years." "They think divorce is the most unlucky thing to do. Young widows without children may remarry after three years of filial piety for their deceased husbands.
From the boy's teenage years, the parents ask the woman's relatives and friends to kiss the matchmaker. Even if the woman's parents are satisfied with the suitor, they wait for the matchmaker to go back and forth several times before agreeing to it, so as not to reduce the value of their daughter. Once the woman's parents leave the matchmaker to eat, it indicates that the family affair has been completed, and the matchmaker toasts and thanks. After the engagement, the date of the wedding was chosen to send a bride price, which the Daur people called to send "Chaant", and the son-in-law, accompanied by an elder of the same ethnic group, went to the father-in-law's house to recognize his relatives. The bride price sent consisted of a horse, called a horse called "Sholebure", that is, a horse with reins, which means that a horse with reins connects the two families of the in-laws; a cow, which is said to compensate for the mother's milk that the bride eats when she is young; and a number of fat pigs, as well as wine, pastries, milk skins, etc., which are used to entertain the woman's relatives and friends. After the bride price giver arrived, the woman's parents invited her relatives and friends to come and share the feast. At the beginning of the feast, the son-in-law's entourage first addressed:
Your girl with scissors,
My boy with the bow and arrow,
Thousands of miles of marriage and marriage,
The pine trees grew taller,
The boy grew up,
Choose this auspicious day,
Meet loving parents,
A sumptuous feast was delivered.
When the son-in-law returned, the father-in-law gave some gifts such as wine and meat to his relatives, and the rich family also sent a horse to the son-in-law to ride back.
The wedding of the Daur people is grand and warm. After the marriage date is agreed, the son-in-law goes to the father-in-law's house to greet the relatives on schedule, and the bride is accompanied by the male and female ministers and carries the dowry such as the cabinet, clothes box, and dresser to the in-laws' house. In the Daur language, the male counterpart is called "Huada" and the female counterpart is called "Huodugu", which consists of three to four people each. The bride is accompanied by the youngest female minister in a car, the rest of the bridesmaids in a carriage, the youngest male groom on horseback, and a group of men and horses led slowly by the son-in-law. When the delivery car arrived, the groom's parents greeted the guests outside the gate. At the wedding banquet, the male companion first gave a speech to welcome the vips who sent their relatives, and the woman took a bow and arrow in her hand to bless the newlyweds, wishing them a lifetime of love, filial piety to the elders, loving the younger generations, having children, and wishing them:
Give birth to a married girl,
Seven boys who gave birth to a family,
Go hunting with a bow and arrow,
Shoot the boar on the slope of the mountain,
Shoot the flower deer on the slopes of the mountain,
Shoot the roe deer in the woods by the stream,
..............
During the banquet, the relatives and friends of both men and women sang praises, and some used clever words to compete with each other, and the banquet was warm and cheerful. After the banquet, the guests dispersed, and the bride was accompanied by a concubine to toast and kowtow to the in-laws and the elderly of the man, and to the brothers and sisters of the same generation. After the luncheon the next day, the groom's parents toasted goodbye to the guests.
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Source: Daur Collection, Molidava Lecture Hall