MARRIAGE--PART I
Again we pass over a few years. Everlasting Pearl had now reached the
age of seventeen, and her future husband was twenty-nine years old;
therefore the day of the wedding was drawing near. The intervening
years between engagement and marriage had been busy ones. Little by
little the trousseau had been prepared, and was all ready. A lucky
day, the third of the eleventh moon, had been chosen for the
approaching wedding; and already, a few days before that date, some of
the guests began to arrive, each one bringing a present of some
garment, or hair flowers, shoes, etc. for the bride. A present of 120
lbs. of pork, 60 lbs. of fish, 12 chickens, and a good supply of
expensive vegetables had been sent by the young man, and the guests,
with many of whom luxuries were rare, set themselves to enjoy the good
things.
The evening before the wedding the middleman arrived with the bridal
chair, which was covered all around with red cloth, and embroidered in
gay colours. Now the feasting began in real earnest. The pipers
struck up their usual melody, and with each hour the excitement grew.
The following morning the trousseau had to be packed, but the bride had
nothing to do with it. She did not rise from her bed at all. Her
breakfast was brought to her by one of her relatives, and she was
exhorted to eat heartily, as that would be her last meal till the
following morning. Towards dinner-time she was coaxed to get up, but
she persistently refused to do so, and began bemoaning her fate, in
having to leave her parents and her own home to go to strangers. Every
now and again the mother joined in the wailing, and the relatives stood
round them crying, trying in vain to comfort them. After dinner the
bride was again urged to get up, but maidenly modesty and her
dutifulness to her parents still forbade her to obey. No one should
have any reason to say that she was anxious to go. She wanted to show
how loath she was to leave her parents, and every one was praising her,
and saying that such a dutiful daughter would make a filial
daughter-in-law.
But even the most ardent filial piety could not put off the hour of
separation much longer. At last she was dragged from her bed by the
women who had to prepare her for her journey, and she reluctantly
submitted to the preparation. Her hair was shaved all around the
edges, the hair in front, which used to make the fringe for the
forehead, was pulled out. Then her hair was combed straight back to
show that she was now to enter the ranks of the married women. Then
she was powdered and painted, and dressed in her bridal attire, which
consisted of a red skirt, and red cloak, beautifully embroidered in
bright colours, but rather the worse for wear, as it had accompanied
the bridal chair on many another journey. The box with the mitre was
brought forth and the crown was placed on her head, already too richly
adorned with artificial flowers. And now the wailing broke forth
beyond all bounds, the young bride and her mother vying with each other
in making the greatest possible noise; at times beating their heads
against the wall, the bed, or the table in their self-imposed
manifestations of sorrow.
Outside, the trousseau was being sent off, as it had to reach the
bride's future home before she entered the same. Two men carried a
cupboard between them. Others followed with some chairs, and a table
covered with candlesticks and all kinds of utensils. A pair of the
bride's shoes might also be found, placed within those of the
bridegroom's, for, as every one remarked, "The two must now walk
together till old age." Others carried a couple of red wooden boxes
filled with the clothes and personal belongings of the bride, also a
wadded bed-quilt, a bed-curtain, and two embroidered pillows, etc. The
whole procession made an imposing show, and the relatives of
Everlasting Pearl looked after it with pride. The girl had been well
provided for, and could lift up her head without shame before her
husband's people.
The bride herself was at that time kneeling in her bedroom on a large
sieve (a token that all evil influences are "sifted out" and all good
luck and riches "sifted in"), bidding farewell to all her relatives.
One by one they were led to her, beginning with her parents and
brothers, and ending with the distant relatives, neighbours, and
guests. To each one she clung in despair, clutching their feet, and
vowing she could not leave them; and she did not let go her hold until
a coin, wrapped in red paper, was dropped into the sieve; then, with a
few words of comfort, the giver would move away to make room for
another, and all the time the red paper parcels increased in number.
When the farewells had nearly come to an end, the middleman urged a
speedy departure, and at last, when she still delayed, he entered the
room, lifted the weeping girl into his arms, and carried her out into
the guest-hall. Standing on the table before the ancestral tablet, she
worshipped her dead ancestors for the last time, for from henceforth
they were nothing to her, as she would bear another's name. This
performance over, the middleman again lifted her up like a child, and
placed her in the chair. The little bride was then locked in, the key
to the chair resting in the pocket of her guide. Fire-crackers were
let off, the pipers piped, and the bride, loudly wailing, was on her
way to her future home.
Her brothers followed her for a short distance. After having escorted
her for about a mile, they handed her the keys of her boxes and
cupboard, bade her a last farewell, and returned home, leaving the
middleman and his assistant to escort her all the way. Some ragged
little boys were carrying the large lanterns, on which was inscribed
her husband's name, in front of her chair; others carried red banners;
again, others were beating gongs. One carried the big red umbrella,
which only a bride or a Mandarin is allowed to have carried in front of
the chair.
It was a proud day in the young girl's life. Everywhere the people
crowded round to get a peep at her through the glass windows of her
sedan chair. And she, sitting motionless and with bent head all the
way, was conscious of the deference paid to her. All the people turned
respectfully aside for the procession to pass, and even if a Mandarin
had happened to meet her on the way he would have had to turn aside.
For once in a lifetime the simple country girl was to be honoured by
him, to whom all others had to bow, for, as he would have said, "Who
knows if the bride of to-day may not bear a son, who shall far exceed
me in position and power?"