Newlywed Yan'er, why does the bride have to "return to the door for three days"? The ancient parents' approach was too wise! The modern meaning of the bottom of the pressure box is understood by everyone, how many people have seen the "bottom of the pressure box" in the old days?
As the saying goes, "the male should be married, and the female should be married" When young men and women reach marriageable age, it is common in life to form their own happy little families. The marriage of men and women is one of the major events in the process of growing up in life, so weddings from ancient times to the present pay attention to the sense of ceremony. In the meantime, there are also many customary marriage customs, such as wine, cave room, three days to return to the door, and the bottom of the dowry box, these seemingly unrelated "broken things", in fact, contain the great wisdom of the ancients - what they give to the newlywed is a set of vivid images of the "new marriage lesson".
In the ancient marriage custom, after worshiping heaven and earth, a couple had to drink Hezuo wine. What is Hezuo Wine? Hezuo wine, that is, the ancients' "cup of wine".
Why is the ancient people's cup of wine called Hezuo wine? This requires first figuring out what the word "卺" is. 卺, pronounced jǐn, was used as a scoop for wine vessels when marrying in ancient times. The raw material of this scoop is squash, commonly known as bitter gourd, bitter and inedible, and is mostly used to make scoops. In ancient times, people used it as a wine container when getting married; hezuo, which began in the Zhou Dynasty, was a kind of marriage ceremony for couples in the old days. In the marriage ceremony of the ancients, a melon would be cut into two scoops, and then connected with a thread, and the bride and groom would each take a scoop to drink and drink the same pot, symbolizing that marriage would connect the two into one. Drinking Hezuo wine is a family, so the ancients got married and were also called Hezuo.
The custom of the newlyweds drinking hejiu wine, in some places has evolved into drinking "reunion wine", the time is generally after the formal wedding banquet, the back kitchen then specially prepares a table for the newlyweds, presided over by the married women who can speak the tao, and each time the bride is sandwiched, do not forget to send a good blessing. For example, in our hometown, there is such a shout: "Eat a vegetable, come to a small bald (small bald, meaning boy." To have a small bald is to give birth to a son)" "Eat a vegetable stalk, come to a small crest (Xiao Feng, also referring to a boy)" Such a "reunion wine" is very suggestive, that is, since she is a woman, the next step is to assume the heavy responsibility of continuing the incense for her husband's family.
After drinking the reunion wine, the next link is the cave room. There is a saying in the hometown, called "there are no old and young in the new people's room", which is said that when making a new house, it is not bound by traditional etiquette, and both the elders and the juniors can let go of the jokes for the newcomers. In this way, one is to allow the bride to have a perceptual understanding of the relatives of the husband's family and increase emotional interaction, and the other is the theme in the new house, which is the same as the content of the reunion wine, and is still related to the life of husband and wife. The purpose of such a fuss is to let the bride slowly adapt to the new environment, put aside her shyness in the laughter with everyone, and prepare for the "spring supper moment" that does not change in the evening.
When the crowd was finished, they were crazy and tired, and they scattered one after another, and the new house completely belonged to a new couple. Then, the climax of the wedding night will come at the right time.
After the new marriage, there is a custom of returning to the door in three days in general. Huimen, also known as Guining, is the first time for newlyweds to return to their mother's home in the true sense of the word, the couple is paired, and it is naturally an indispensable etiquette to visit the woman's parents. At this time, when the groom sees his father-in-law and mother-in-law, he should change his mouth to father and mother, and officially conclude the whole wedding. The Yue family also set up a banquet to entertain the new son-in-law, and some of the woman's relatives also wanted to make trouble with the son-in-law.
The reason why the ancients chose the young couple to return to the door for three days after the new marriage was because the newlywed men and women at that time did not interact before marriage, accumulated a long period of passion, and suddenly broke out on the wedding night, and the bride's body would sometimes be unable to bear the pain, so at this time, she had to give her a rest, buffer time, and returning to the mother's house was the best rest, because, in the ancient marriage customs, the married woman returned to Ning, and she could not sleep with her husband in the mother's house, so that she could sleep peacefully and quietly.
In addition, three days back to the door, but also to give the bride and the mother or the mother or the sister-in-law of the mother a private communication time, the main topic, is the bride these two days of husband and wife life is harmonious, if the two get along with the problem, the married woman of the mother's family to give advice and solutions. After all, people at that time were very feudal, and this kind of private matter was difficult to communicate before a woman got married.
In order to make up for the lack of a husband and wife life guide, the ancients also thought of a crooked trick, that is, when a woman gets married, the mother's family will accompany the marriage to a "pressure box bottom". The so-called bottom of the pressure box, ancient China had a practical tool for newlyweds to carry out enlightenment education. It may be a kind of porcelain, some smaller than a fist, mostly fruit-like in shape, with a lid, and a pair of men and women in the form of intercourse; or some pictures depicting men and women. Usually, people put it at the bottom of the box to ward off evil spirits, and when the daughter gets married, the mother will take out the "bottom of the pressure box" and open the cover to show the woman, so that she can experience the "way of husband and wife".
In "Dream of the Red Chamber", it is written that the sachet of "two goblins fighting" found by the silly elder sister of Yahuan on the rockery of daguanyuan belongs to this category. Because the ancient traditional culture believes that the pleasure of the boudoir is extremely private and not enough for outsiders, otherwise it will be bad customs and customs, and unmarried women are even more inappropriate to watch. Therefore, although these things are widely circulated, they are always secretive, so that Yahuan picked up an embroidered spring sac and caused an uproar, causing the master of Jia Fu to copy and inspect the Grand View Garden.
The "bottom of the pressure box" that modern people call it generally refers to the treasure of the housekeeper, or the objects of certain significance that are worth cherishing or cherishing at the bottom of the box, and the skills of the housekeeper are used metaphorically.
In the matter of marriage, the ancients can be described as painstaking, from the wine, the cave room, the three-day return door, to the bottom of the dowry box, all of which do not contain great love and goodwill. However, with the development of the times, the renewal of people's concepts, some things, people have been familiar with the road before marriage, the new marriage has become less mysterious and terrifying, so the elders no longer need to go to such great trouble, these stereotypes and old habits are gradually abandoned by modern people.
(Image from the Internet)