The phenomenon of marriage customs and early marriage in Laos
Laos was once colonized by the French, so there are many mixed-race beauties in Laos. The beauty of Laos is slim, beautiful, smooth and fair-skinned, natural in appearance, and has a natural beauty.
Young men and women in Laos generally begin free love at the age of sixteen or seventeen, and the age of marriage is generally 20 for men and about 18 years for women.
Marriage is divided into a trilogy of love, engagement and marriage.
In rural areas, a good opportunity for young people to choose a mate is a festive festival for singing and dancing conventions.
In the evening, the girls would dress in what they thought was the most beautiful costume, line up and sit on the floor. The man stood in front of her and carefully selected, and if there was a girl of his choice, he squatted down in front of her to play the instrument and sing love songs. At this time, the woman will pay attention to the man's appearance, listen carefully to the man's singing, and if she wants to accept his love, she will sing with him; if she rejects the other party, the best way is to be indifferent. In addition, men can go to the homes of the girls they like and express their admiration by singing love songs. For visiting men, the woman's parents will warmly welcome them. If she saw that her daughter was intentional, she quietly left and let her talk freely with the man. When both men and women believe that love is mature, the consent of both parents must be obtained before the man can ask the matchmaker or elder to bring gifts to the woman's home to get engaged.
At the time of engagement, the matchmaker negotiates with the woman's parents the date of marriage and the number of bride price. Before the wedding ceremony, the man must send a dowry to the woman, the amount of the dowry is based on the woman's family lineage and appearance and prior agreement.
Weddings are mostly held in women's homes, and men often go to women's homes.
The day before the wedding, the bride and groom go to the monastery to listen to the sutras, worship the Buddha, and worship the monks.
On the day of the wedding, the woman's family invites the monks to the house to chant the sutra and asks an elderly person to officiate at the wedding. After the groom arrives at the bride's house, the host first spills the wine on the feet of the couple before the groom can enter the room and start the wedding. In front of the monks, there were two copper basins and many gifts, as well as congratulatory messages from relatives and friends of both sides. Newlyweds sit face to face, holding copper basins of rice in their hands, and monks chant blessings for a couple.
After the chanting, it is a "tethered thread", in which the master officiates tie one end of a long cotton thread to the groom's wrist and the other to the bride's wrist to bless the bride to love each other until they are old and happy forever.
The tethering ceremony is one of the main activities of the Lao wedding, which is similar to the general tethering ceremony, the only difference is that the bride and groom who receive the tethering must be dressed according to the requirements, before the wedding, the bride and groom must first go to the Buddhist temple to listen to the Buddhist scriptures, and then the groom also has to hold a candle lit at the Buddhist temple in his hand before the tethering ceremony can be held in the woman's home. The wedding ceremony is tied to the thread to express the blessings of the guests to the newlyweds.
Newlyweds generally live with their parents, and with the development of society, many young people have built their own houses and started independent families after marriage.
There are many Lao ethnic groups, and the marriage customs of each ethnic group are different. Some practice monogamy and are strictly enforced, while in others polygamy is practised, and in others polygamy, the latter is less numerous.
The Old Dragon Clan practiced monogamy and forbade marriage between aunts and cousins. The marriage customs of the Taiyang people, a branch of the Lao Long clan, are: after marriage, the man is required to work for his parents-in-law for 8 years; except for half-siblings or half-siblings, intermarriage between relatives is allowed; polygamy and polygamy are allowed; if one party requests divorce, he needs to pay the other party, and after the divorce, the boys born to both parties belong to the father and the girls to the mother.
The other branch of the old dragon people, the Black Thais, do not invite others to act as matchmakers, but the man's parents go to the woman's parents to ask for relatives. Some branches of the old listener practice monogamy, and the form of marriage is generally relatively simple, only need to kill a white buffalo and a black buffalo when getting married, and invite people to eat and drink. The Hmong of the Laosong tribe practice polygamy.
The Lao Thai attach great importance to marriage, and the cost is staggering. First of all, the man must give the woman a bride price and ransom, but the wedding is generally held in the woman's home, and all the costs are borne by the woman independently. Several cows, a dozen pigs and many chickens will be slaughtered. Guests gathered for days and nights to eat and drink. After marriage, the groom must stay in the bride's house for 3 days before taking the bride back to the man's home and holding another wedding officiating by the man, and the marriage is over. The wife of the husband who marries with ransom money can have several options after the husband's death: to remain widowed in the in-laws' house for a lifetime or to return the ransom to remarry; if the deceased husband is an only child and has no offspring, then the man's family will take her as a daughter and recruit another "son-in-law" to pass on the inheritance. A daughter-in-law who appears as a "daughter" is second only to her in-laws in the family and can dominate the affairs of the whole family.
Similarly, a man who comes to the door can find another person to marry after the death of his wife, or he can live with his children in the house of his in-laws; if he does not have children, the woman's family will marry another daughter-in-law for him, and he will change from son-in-law to "son", and his value in the family will increase greatly, and he can also dominate the affairs of the family.
According to the custom in the past, men must be shaved as monks or have a profession before marriage. The man wants to give the bride price to the woman's family, but if the man's family is poor and cannot afford to pay, he can go to the woman's house to work to pay the bride price.
The custom of marriage in Laos is to insert the door upside down. When a wedding is held at the woman's home, the cost is the responsibility of the woman's family, and the woman's family is to live in the woman's home for a period of time. Of course, if the man's family does not pay the bride price, then live in the woman's home for a few years to help the woman's family work to pay off the debt.
There is also an interesting custom of getting married in Laos, which is that the son-in-law parades the streets. On the wedding day, the groom wears the crotch pants of the traditional Lao dress, carries a sword, and holds sugar cane and flowers in his hand to symbolize the beauty of life. Get to the bride's house on foot, singing and dancing all the way.
Despite economic development and social progress, the phenomenon of early marriage in Laos is still very serious.
In August 2021, Laos reported that a couple in Savannakhet Province (the province where I teach school) married under the blessing of their families, and the wedding scene was very festive, and the two couples smiled happily.
But what is shocking is that the two protagonists at the wedding are only 14 years old. This makes many 20- and 30-year-old single netizens sigh that "it is really ashamed of themselves."
As soon as the news came out, many netizens read it and said:
"I (17 years old) have married and had children around me many younger than me..."
"When I was 13 years old, I was still playing with mud, and everyone was getting married."
"The 17-year-old worker in our shop often brings children to work."
"It's normal, the 18-year-old in our village has a second child."
In fact, the younger age of marriage is very common in Laos, especially in economically underdeveloped areas.
According to the Lao media ເປປນເລື່ອງ 2021'April 9, quoted from the Lao official media "Bat Liao", the deputy dean of the Lao Medical College, Aaron Gong Phansevan, deputy director of the Lao Medical College, revealed: According to statistics, young people younger than 25 years old currently account for more than half (53%) of the total population of Laos, and the situation of early marriage and early childbearing is common throughout the country. Of these, about a quarter of all girls aged 15-19 are married.
A young mother who has just turned 13 is just as childish as the child on her back
Especially in rural and remote areas, child marriage is more common, and early childbearing is more widespread in Laos and other countries, according to statistics, 83 out of every 1,000 girls have given birth, and giving birth at a younger age has also caused many girls under 18 years old to die due to pregnancy and childbirth.
In the past four years, more than 500 women have died of pregnancy and childbirth in Laos.
In fact, in Laos, the age of marriage is indeed a common phenomenon, many girls in remote mountainous areas will be 15 or 6 years old or forced or voluntary to enter the marriage, even xiaobian around many Lao girls early marriage and early childbearing. The phenomenon of having a baby at the age of 15 and having a two-child child at the age of 18 is indeed very common in Lao families with poor economic resources.
According to a set of data released by UNICEF, the marriage rate of women under the age of 18 in Laos ranks first in ASEAN, reaching 35% of the number of female marriages, and the marriage rate of women under 15 years old also ranks first in ASEAN, reaching 9% of the number of women married in Laos.
What do twelve- and three-year-olds do without reading? Just make friends with men and women, it is better to do it late than early, the same reason for drinking beer, as long as you are happy, this is the Lao Buddhist thinking of happiness.
Anyone who has grown fruit will know that the fruit on the sunny side of the tree ripens quickly! Some people say that because Laos is a tropical region, human cells are more active and mature earlier than human cells in subtropical and boreal regions. In this country with high sunshine intensity, is the "fruit" really "ripe" earlier?
"If you are poor, you want to marry" and live a good life early. Laos has some relatively poor and backward areas, in order to reduce the burden on the family, let the girls marry early, not only reduce the burden but also in exchange for a certain amount of money, it is very common to exchange girls for money for cattle, resulting in many child marriages.
The number of women is far greater than that of men, and early marriage is to find a suitable man and a happy family as soon as possible, and girls over the age of twenty-five are leftover women who are not easy to marry.
Under the blue sky and white clouds is boundless desolation, and the low chaotic educational environment cannot give birth to poetry and distant places. Such a custom has caused many girls to miss the opportunity to receive education, and has also destroyed the immature body, so that the spiritual civilization and physical quality have regressed more and more, from backwardness to ignorance, to primitive barbarism, contrary to human morality, contrary to the law of human historical progress!
The Lao Government has decreed that a person under the age of eighteen be sentenced to imprisonment for a term ranging from three months to fifteen years.
On the land walked under their feet, Buddha statues and bombs coexist, suffering and innocence coexist, and more and more Lao girls are entering the temple of civilized society from the barriers of weak and poor families.