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Ancient Chinese marriage pays attention to "the order of the parents and the words of the matchmaker", but in modern society, the cultural customs of marriage are also different in different countries due to the different regions in which they are located.
There is a village of Moraj in the Old Zagra region of Bulgaria, and every year on the first Saturday of the orthodox Easter fast, the village of Mojira is particularly lively, where hundreds of beautiful girls gather, dressed in gorgeous clothes, singing and dancing, just to please the men who marry them, which is the Bulgarian bride gathering.
The Tres region of central Bulgaria has a population of 18,000 people, all gypsies, of the Kalediz clan (a branch of the Roma), and almost every family has women of the right age to attend the annual bridal opportunity.
Pape, 25, and Rose, 19, are members of one of the families, a large family that rents a three-bedroom family, in addition to Pape and Rose, their parents, sister and brother are a family of three, a total of 8 people.
Pape to the left, Rose to the right
In the local area, girls generally marry between the ages of 13 and 19, and there are very few girls over the age of 20 who do not marry. Mothers have always been reluctant to marry their daughters, so the 25-year-old Pape has not had the right opportunity to marry, and there are many people who come to kiss Pape, but Pape's mother has never made up her mind to marry her daughter.
The person who came to propose the marriage set the price of marriage at $3500, but still did not impress Pape's mother (and of course, the "buyer" who wanted to marry Rose, who bid higher).
Pape parents
Before getting married, Bulgarian women learn from their mothers at home how to cook, how to take care of the housework, and how to serve their husbands.
Here, everyone is a devout Christian, and they are only allowed to marry those belonging to the Kaledez clan, so outsiders can only sigh.
Pape (right) and her friends
Because the circle is relatively closed and the parents are very strict, women do not have much access to men at all, and parents must ensure that their children are guarded before marriage, because this means that when they "sell" their daughters at the bridal market, they can get more bids.
In any country, marriage involves two families, parents on The opinion of Pape's marriage partner is very important, in order to get a happy marriage, first of all, you must obtain parental consent, but the reality is that the people whose parents look up to often two sisters do not look up, and the two sisters look up to the people, parents sometimes feel dissatisfied, which is also a problem in every family.
Although traditional customs are in front of them, with the development of the Internet, although parents can restrict the range of activities of the sisters, they can learn more about the opposite sex around them through dating software.
In his spare time, Pape and Rose would chat online, picking their favorite objects one by one, then commenting on each other, and asking him if he would attend the bridal market to see if he would spend his life with them.
Luckily, Rose took a fancy to a very handsome boy, the two chatted very emotionally, and the boy will also participate in the upcoming bridal market, which makes Rose very happy, as if a happy marriage is beckoning to her.
In order to make Pape and Rose able to get a smooth shot, the mother also made a bloody bet, she took her two daughters to the local market to buy bright and moving clothes, red lace suits and white ceremonial clothes, which cost the mother $44, which is a big expense for the family.
Right Pape
However, in the mother's view, it is more important for the two daughters to find the object of their choice than anything else.
Left Rose, right Pape
Bulgarian girls can't go to nightclubs, let alone participate in group gatherings, they can only stay by the side of their families in case they lose their virginity, on the eve of the brides' gathering, they will hold a grand dance party at home, everyone in the small space laughter, singing and dancing, to release the pressure in their hearts.
At the bridal market, girls wait for a pair of discerning eyes.
In order to impress men, each girl must be carefully dressed, Rose gave herself a layer of foundation, rose who was originally very charming when she laughed at this time, her face looked white and red, extremely charming, she said, "If you wear gold jewelry, with fashionable shoes and wear, then the price of girls will be higher, some parents prefer fair-skinned girls, I just want this effect."
Pape on the left, rose on the right
Girls who are not well-dressed are often unable to "broker a deal", and male parents prefer girls who are dressed up decently and beautifully, which shows that they come from better backgrounds and the price will naturally be higher.
Although the bridal market is ostensibly a "place for human trafficking", the locals prefer to regard it as a blind date, where both men and women can ask for the price as long as they look at it correctly, and after both sides can accept it, the daughter can get married smoothly.
Generally speaking, a woman's marriage price is above 315 US dollars (2000 yuan), not capped, the higher the man's preference, the better the economic strength, the more money may be paid.
Pape's parents came together in this way and are now very happy.
At that time, it was even more demanding than now, when the girls would be directly taken away in the market, and there was no communication time, which was very similar to the ancient Chinese six ceremonies (Na Cai, Qing Ming, Na Ji, Na Zheng, Please Period, Kiss and Greet), the only difference was that both men and women met at least once before marriage, and as long as the money was in place in the ancient continent, the birthday eight characters were appropriate, and they may not have met, and the woman married the man.
Pape's parents wanted their daughter to find a wealthier family so that she would suffer less. In the eyes of the older generation, although the bridal market is derived from traditional ideas, but the purpose is to protect girls, nomadic gypsies are famous for the ancient craft of producing and repairing pots, they live in villages not far away, do not allow girls to have contact with other boys, once married and even more do not let go out, there is naturally no danger in not seeing people, of course, what is lost is freedom.
Of course, the result of this is that girls are not qualified to realize their dreams, they can only serve their in-laws at home, teach their husbands and children, cannot go to school, and cannot go out to work.
In Bulgaria, only 10 per cent of girls have a secondary education, while 25 per cent have never received any education, and the rest remain at the literacy level.
Previously, most of the people in the Calledz clan were engaged in the work of blacksmiths, artificially creating copper plates, the efficiency was quite low, and the price was relatively high, but with the evolution of modern production methods, their incomes were gradually decreasing, and they were gradually unemployed, and even the blacksmith's craft gradually began to be lost, but the work lost the tradition but could not change, and the marriage must also be strictly in accordance with the tradition, even some boys found it very absurd.
The rally is located in a large parking lot, where girls are 13 to 20 years old, boys of all ages, these men and women through chat to understand each other, and ask the girls for prices.
At the bridal market, many men threw olive branches to Pape and Rose, and Pape's parents were very happy to see this, which proved that these boys liked their daughters, but also had deep worries about their daughters' future unhappiness.
However, the boys at the bridal rally can not really take away the girls, they can only understand the wishes of the girls, see if the other party likes themselves, only by going to the door again to propose can the girls accept. So it's more of a speed dating event than a forced marriage market.
At the rally, the man's parents will observe the girl to ensure that she is healthy, has the ability to take care of herself and take care of others, in the case of mutual agreement, then they will negotiate the details of the wedding at the woman's home, and more importantly, they also support the inspection and return of goods, once it is found that the girl has had premarital sex, the man has the right to directly return the girl, which shows how unparalleled chastity is in the local area.
Although this has some materialized taste of girls and treats girls as attributes of commodities, it can at least ensure that both men and women have good intentions and ensure that both parties are truly happy in their subsequent married life.
Before getting married, girls do not know whether they can adapt to married life in the future, they can only understand each other through the first meeting, and then through the rest of their lives to distinguish whether their judgment is correct, if they meet someone unladylike, it can only be silently endured, and will never be divorced.
Of course, not everyone likes this way, and some girls will choose to avoid or even refuse. When she was 14 years old, Vera's parents accepted a man's price of $4660 and wanted to sell Villa, but Vera was adamantly opposed, she kept crying "No, I don't want to get married", so Vera ran away and never wanted to see her family again.
Vera
Vera has a favorite object, the other half is not the Calledz clan, so she chooses to break with the family, she wants to choose the person she likes like other European girls, continue to study and complete her studies, and become a respected female entrepreneur in the future, which is her dream, for which she can only cut off relations with her family.
However, brave people like Vera are really a very small minority, and most choose to respect tradition.
At this year's bridal market, Pape and Rose had a great time, a rare opportunity for them to have contact with other men.
But none of them met the object of their choice, the boy Rose liked did not come, and their parents gave more choice to their daughters until they chose the person they wanted to marry.
Different from the eclectic, thin and long-flowing Chinese culture, gypsies are born as a wandering nation, living a wandering life, they are more advocating a sense of enthusiasm and unrestrained, looking forward to a thousand years of love.
At the bridal market, the man looks at whether the girl is gentle and beautiful, and the girl sees whether the boy has economic strength, and both sides take what they need, live together, and resist the temptation of the outside world.
Of course, Bulgaria not only has a bridal market, but also a tradition of taking pride in men being door-to-door son-in-law, and those who are not economically disadvantaged can join the door-to-door son-in-law association, and the first Sunday in April every year is the Bulgarian door-to-door son-in-law's day.
At this time, the youngest door-to-door son-in-law in the village will hold high the flag of the door-to-door son-in-law association and walk in front of the line, the background of the flag is an apron, a shovel and a broom, and the center is painted with a red heart that has been shot through by a sword, and a drop of blood flows under the red heart, representing that the door-to-door son-in-law came with love, determined to tie up the apron, pick up the shovel and broom, and share the hardships with his wife, and grow old with a white head.
Beautiful girls would sit in cars with signs "Son-in-law needed to come to the door" and surround the boys.
When the parade is over, the old son-in-law will perform an oath-taking ceremony for the new son-in-law, explain the association charter for him, and the constitution stipulates that the father-in-law and mother-in-law should be called father-in-law and mother-in-law, and cannot contradict the father-in-law and mother-in-law, and the daughter born should follow the mother's surname, smell the chicken dancing every day, work non-stop, and give it to the wife for 4 hours after the salary is paid.
Only by doing this is a qualified and competent door-to-door son-in-law.
It can be seen that freedom is actually relative, there will be a bride market will have a door-to-door son-in-law, the process of choosing a wife and a husband is actually quite simple, which is a tradition left over thousands of years, although men and women are labeled, the most heard in the process is "How much can you pay?" But the money will eventually be used for the family's expenses, and the parents will not intercept it.
Curious about what kind of people Pape and Rose will find, and what will their lives be like?
Does this custom have more advantages than disadvantages or more disadvantages than benefits, and is the materialization of young girls civilized or ignorant? What do you think?
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