One side of the water and soil to support one side of the person, male marriage and female marriage is a common wedding custom in ordinary people, in addition to recruiting sons-in-law into the "upside down door", "female marriage to male marriage" is rare. Located in the southeast of Gansu Province, at the confluence of Shaanxi-Gansu-Gansu-Sichuan, in the south of Longnan kang County, as the intersection of The Qiang and Qinlong cultures, the ancestors have followed the marriage custom of "women marrying men" for generations. This marriage custom is also known as "female marriage male marriage", local people call it "holding a son" or "dangwa", it is different from the traditional sense of "inverted door", and it is not a minority marriage custom, which is an extremely rare Han marriage custom.
Unlike the current marriage system in China, this marriage custom in southern Kangxian county is passed on by women to pass on incense and continue the bloodline. Every household implements the principle of "leaving a woman and not a man", that is, marrying out after giving birth to a son and raising a son, and staying at home to recruit a son-in-law after giving birth to a daughter. At present, there are about 6,000 families in the southern region of Kang County, and this peculiar marriage custom breaks the old tradition that daughters cannot pass on the generations and has become a strange flower of Chinese marriage customs.
There are two local theories about the origin of the marriage custom of "male marrying female". The first theory: the southern mountains of Kang County are densely forested, wild beasts and bandits are often infested, in order to protect themselves and property safety, from the Song Dynasty onwards, some of Kangnan's childless families recruited sons-in-law from afar to set up portals. At the same time, because the area belongs to the Shaanxi-Gansu-Sichuan junction belt, the social turmoil in history, and the continuous disasters of war, some young and middle-aged men from other places have fled to this place to escape the chaos of war or to escape the arrest of Ding, some of them have settled down on their own, and most of them have been recruited to settle here. After hundreds of years of generations, a unique and strange marriage custom has been formed.
According to legend, in May 1863, Shi Dakai, a famous general of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was defeated at the Dadu River in Sichuan, and the rest of the army went to Yunnan, and the other went to the Qinba Mountains with deep ravines and sparsely populated areas, and changed their names and surnames to hide in the form of male and female marriages, and escaped the exterminating killing of the Qing army under the cover of ordinary people. Since then, this marriage custom has been handed down in the border area of Shaanxi, Gansu and Sichuan, and it has also been handed down that equality between men and women, do not believe in superstition, and the common people have the habit of wrapping their heads, corseting their waists, and tying their feet, which are quite similar to the legacy of the soldiers of the Taiping Army. Because most of the Taiping Army was brave and strategic, strong and strong, and the families were generally harmonious with local women after they started a family, and the children born were also shrewd and capable. The surrounding ten miles and eight townships saw that they were generally prosperous, and they followed suit and chose the "female marrying male" marriage custom, and this marriage custom was slowly formed.
Kang County's "female marrying a man" also needs to use the "needle lead" of the media's words. When a man is betrothed, the man's elders invite the matchmaker to the woman's home to speak as a matchmaker. Before the man and woman are betrothed, the matchmaker and the two parties agree on the time, dowry, dowry, etc., and then ask Mr. to determine the marriage after "eight characters", "auspicious day", "three books and six gifts". In general, women do not ask for bride price from men, but instead sew several sets of new clothes, prepare daily necessities and dowries for men. Men who are married can go home to visit their parents every New Year's Day, but Chinese New Year's Eve must spend time in the woman's home, and they can only go home to visit relatives and friends after the first day of the Chinese New Year.
There are two forms of "female marrying male" in Kang County, one is "male to female home, change the name and naturalize". That is, after the man marries into the woman's family, everything follows the customs and rules of the woman's family, changes his name and surname, and calls the woman's family members together with his son and wife; the other is "two doors are open, two come and go". After marriage, both men and women retain their original surnames, and both men and women have the right to inherit the inheritance of both parents and the obligation to support both parents.
If two children are born after marriage, the man and the woman will have one in each name, and each will set up a household. If only one child is born after marriage, the surname is determined by mutual consultation, which is generally preferred by the woman. Regardless of the form, the two parties must make a marriage contract before marriage, and the signing of the marriage contract is generally carried out at the marriage ceremony. Most of them signed up for a banquet to show solemnity. At the wedding, the patriarch presides over the ceremony, and the marriage contract is held by both men and women, and after the marriage, both parties abide by it. In the distribution of property, if the marriage between the two parties breaks down, if the man files for divorce, the property belongs to the woman, and the man does not have the right to distribute the property; if the woman files for divorce, the property is half of the property.
In the custom of "female marrying a man", "changing the name and naturalization" is a very formal ceremony, which is generally determined by the elders in the family after consultation, and after changing the name, the man can enter the family tree of the woman's family, and after death, he can enter the ancestral grave of the woman's family. Also, if a family has multiple daughters and the family is poor, it can also marry a daughter, but marrying a daughter here is called "inverted door".
Editor-in-Charge: He Han
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