Hokkien Marriage (Culture & Custom)

As a conclusion, Hokkien marriage involved several procedures with a lot of complicated customs.  They have many cultural views for the Hokkien marriage.  Some people think that customs are important and necessary to have as a Hokkien people.  Some people think luxury marriage is needed, and some Hokkien people promote the “Na ked Marriage”, but the important thing is, they know who they are, and they are concerned about the Hokkien culture.  Therefore the inheritance of the thinking about the importance of the Hokkien’s customs are needed to avoid the lost of the custom. 

For the current state of the Hokkien marriage, there are fewer and fewer people along the way of inheritance.  Most young Hokkien Chinese no longer concern about the Hokkien marriage custom due to the complicated process and less information since there is no written document to record the full procedure  that considers all the customs.  They decide to complete the marriage with a simpler way like just contract the wedding dinner, or even just have a buffet as a ceremony to tell other people they are married.   Beside, due to this unwritten culture, appear some different customs in different Hokkien families.  It may affect some argue between the family of the broom and bride due to the different view of the marriage culture.

Since there are a lot of procedures to follow fully of the Hokkien custom in the process of marriage, and this will cause a higher cost in the payment in this several processes especially for the wedding dinner.  Therefore, the people who have low income may find it hard to follow it, and they will decide to have a simple way __ “Naked Marriage "and do not follow the custom at all.  “Na ked marriage” in China, sometimes called "bare marriage", is a form of marriage without the couple having first accumulated a solid financial foundation. Normally it does not include a wedding, a ring, a house, a car or a honeymoon In other ways, some Hokkien Chinese insist to follow the full process of wedding with the higher payment, due to their concern about their family’s reputation. In Hokkien society, traditional weddings involve a lot of costly ceremonies and relatives and friends.  Therefore, the person who is able to conduct the full process luxuriously, people will think the pe...

The culture of monogamy is important because it can provide momen to avoid their husbands marriage for more than one woman. For Hokkien society, monogamy is a practice of showing respect to women.  This is because monogamy can offer equal benefit to women.  Beside that it also can inherently be more trusting, committed, passionate and less likely to involve jealousy then other types of relationship. The custom of the Hokkien marriage is important because Custom is an important means of controlling social behavior.  It also is a nonmaterial culture inherited from the old to now.  Normally, the people that are responsible for inheriting this culture are women.  The older the woman, the more culture knowledge she has.

  There are some transition taboos of marriage in Hokkien. The bride can not eat the Chinese wedding biscuits from the betrothal gift. The pregnant women are not allowed to attend the engagement. The couple are not allowed to wear the clothing with pocket The marriage is not allowed to held on the 6th-month in the Chinese calendar The guests are not allowed to wear a black color clothing

  Blind date Blind date in general is a date where people involved have not met each other previously. In Hokkien marriage , the parents will arrange the blind date for their son or daughter  in order to find a suitable marriage partner in future. In the tradition of Hokkien, before 2000, the blind date was aimed to recognise deeply about the background of the man and woman.  This was because the Hokkien community was very concerned about the desired husband or wife’s name, lineage, personality, character, and behavior. Name is related for the Feng Shui, lineage is related to the well connection of the people, personality, character and behavior were related to how the people deal with their partner in future.  These characteristics are important for the parents to know whether he or she is subtable or not as a partner for their son or daughter.  Usually the parents of the man started to find the family which has a girl of marriageable age, and arrange the blind...

What is polygyny? Polygyny is a system of marriage allowing a man to marry more than one woman.   The legality of this polygyny system is apply by some countries, and mostly are only legal for specific religion which is Muslim that allow man to marry up to four women.   Nowadays, monogamy is currently recognized in China. However, the polygyny use to genera in China before 1950.  This polygyny practice in China from the oldest dynasty China which is dynasty Xia.  During the ancient period, a man was allowed to marry with more than one woman, or we can say it does not matter how many women a man wants to marry.  It only depends on the income and the willingness of the man.  The richest man, emperors, the emperor in every dynasty had a huge harem.  For example, in dynasty Tang, the palace system states that the imperial harem needs to have at least 120 women with different status.   In this 21 century, most of Chinese are monogamist...

 In Chinese society, the system of marriage is a concept of monogamy, which is marriage between only one men(husband) and one woman(wife). However, there was a concept of polygamy that was common at the ancient of Chinese.  A Chinese man can marriage with more than one women.  There was no limit for the man to marriage with how many women's, and it depended on the income of the men. The process of marriage for Chinese is very complex and complicated with a lot of steps.  All of the Chinese will following the step refer to our own groups such as Hokkien, Hakka and Guangxi. Normally, the process of each group are similar, but there have some difference due to the different culture ad custom.

I am a Malaysian Chinese.   Majority of Chinese in Malaysia own their group with different dialects.  For example, Hakka, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan and Hokkien.   Every subgroup of Chinese have their own culture like the traditional customs for pray, obsequies and wedding. As a Chinese Hokkien, I has follow the culture of Hokkien that inherited from my ancestors. What is Hokkien? Hokkien actually is a dialect of southern Min Chinese that is also spoken in Malaysia and mostly spoken in Penang, Kedah, and my state, Perak. There have a lot of traditional cultures followed by us. In my blog, I will share about this traditional wedding, which is Hokkien Marriage.

My home town is Kuala Kangsar, Perak.  Kuala Kangsar is a district that has a majority of Hokkien Chinese and they had set up the Hokkien association Kuala Kangsar since 1897 .   I am staying in one of the villages in Kuala Kangsar, called Enggor.   Enggor is a very small village and the facilities in this village is not really enough.   Why I say like this?  When my mother needs to buys some meat or vegetable for our dinner, she need to take a bus around 15 minute to buy it due to my family have not own a car.   Sometime, the bus may delay until we need to spend over a hour to wait for the bus. When in the night, there are only one restaurant Chinese, and one "mak mak " are operating. Even though Enggor is lack of facilities, but this village still has some good inside.   Our relationship between villagers are well connected and there is a famous tourist attraction here, which is Vitoria Bridge.

  Hi everyone, my name is Hwang Shean Loo, people usually call me Loo.   I am a 21-years-old student and currently stay in my home town during this "covid-19 period" . My family is a big "Hokkien" family, but now I only stay with my mothers and two sisters.  My whole family and my father's side relatives are the believer of a religion due to our ancestral house is a small temple. I am live in my ancestral house which showed in the first picture.  The people inside the pictures are a part of my farther side relatives.