Marriage Customs in Hokkien

 

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 date with the consent of the girl’s parents. 

We can see from here, in the old period, all decisions were made by the parents.  However, starting from the 19th century,  most of Chinese people are allowed to make decisions to decide who will be their partner  but there is a small group of chinese people who marry without the permission of their parents.  

"Guo Da Li"

Once the parents for both man and woman agree for the marriage, the groom’s family will find a woman which is “mui po” to sent the betrothal gift to the bride’s house and the family of the bride will send back the return present.  This process is called “GUA DA LI” in Hokkien  and the things in the gift that specific by tradition Hokkien are shown below:

The betrothal gift that compulsory sent by family groom:

• A pair of live rooster and hen

• Two bottle of wine

• 12 type of fruits

• Chinese wedding biscuits

• Bride price (RM500 - RM 500)

The return present

• One bottle of wine

• Ang Bao (RM20 - RM50)

• Two coconut

• Chinese wedding biscuits

• 
  

"Shang Tou"

This is a hokkian ritual that is held at 12.00 a.m. on the day of wedding. Both groom and bride will have this ritual separate in their own house.  

For the groom's side, the whole family will pray in front the house once 12.00a.m. , and the family who have the higher position hierarchy than the groom will feed the groom “tang yuan” and the groom will feed “tang yuan” to other families who lower position then groom.

For the bride’s side, the whole family also will do the same prayer as the groo,’s family, but the ritual after prayer is different.  After prayer, the bride's family will request a pair of blessed marriage couples to comb the bride’s hair.  At the same time, they will sing the “Shi Shu Ge”.

Engagement

The day for engagement refers to the chinese calendar which matches with the birthday of the couple, because Hokkien community believes the wrong decision of the date will bring a lot of bad effects such as the life of the couple will not be smooth.  Beside, if any family members of the couple dies in the time near by the day of the engagement, all the process will delay until day-100 after the death.  However, if the marriage is not held on 100-day after death, then the marriage needs to run after 3 years.

Wedding dinner

Usually, the wedding dinner will be held on the night of the engagement.  The drinking ritual will be done during this dinner, which all the guests of the dinner will drink together with the couple 3 times.