In ancient times, women getting married was called "marriage", "returning", "suitable", "Xu Zi", "leaving the pavilion", "leaving the suitable", "leaving the engagement", etc. Cultural factors such as marriage concepts, customs, and social status permeated these titles.
1. Getting married
Shuowen Jiezi ":" Marriage is suitable for women. "Yang Xiong's" Dialect ":" It is called marriage when one's own family comes out. "The left part of the" marriage "character represents" woman ", and the right part uses" home "to represent the pronunciation of the character, meaning that a woman marries and lives in her husband's home, with her husband's home as the ultimate destination. Therefore, in ancient times, there was a saying that" men take women as their wives, and women take men as their homes.
2. Returning
The Book of Songs, Tao Yao ":" When a son returns home, it is appropriate for his family. "Kong Yingda's" Commentary ":" A woman... takes her husband as her home, so it is called 'returning' when she marries. "This means that a woman's marriage to her husband's home is like returning home, and 'returning home' is often used to refer to marriage. The left part of the character 'Gui' represents the pronunciation; In ancient times, the phrase 'men lead the outside, women lead the inside' was pronounced with the character 'broom' on the right, which was a cleaning tool used to indicate that a woman's main responsibility was to take care of household chores and clean the house. Therefore, women's betrothal was also known as' carrying a broom '.
3. Suitable for
The original meaning of "shi" is "to go" or "to go", referring to a woman's arrival at her husband's house, meaning that she is getting married. For example, in the poem "The Peacock Flies Southeast", it says: "With this woman, it is appropriate to return to the family." "Marriage" and "shi" have a hierarchical difference. In the "Annotations on Rites and Ceremonies: Funeral DRESS", it says: "If a woman is above the level of a doctor, she is married; if she is above the level of a scholar, she is appropriate
4. Xu Zi
In the Book of Rites, the Inner Canon states: "A woman who is fifteen years old is said to be eligible for marriage. When a woman is allowed to marry, she will be given the courtesy name of 'she'; when she is not allowed to marry, she will be given the courtesy name of 'she'. In ancient times, the age of fifteen was considered the appropriate age for marriage for women, and the latest age was no more than twenty years old. For women, the word "zi" means "to be married". A woman's marriage is called "xu zi", her husband is called "zi ren", and if she can get married but has not yet been married, it is called "waiting in the boudoir".
5. Leaving the Pavilion
Ge, also known as the boudoir, refers to unmarried women who live in the attic without leaving the main door or stepping on the second door. Therefore, married women are called "out of the pavilion" or "out of the room", while unmarried women are referred to as "unmarried". 'Chu Ge' originally referred to a princess getting married. In Yuan Zhen's' Seven Women's Princess System ', it was written:' Although the princess is still young and beautiful, she has not yet left the palace, but Tang Mu will give her the title first, and the distribution will be based on it. 'Later, it became a general term for women getting married.
6. Hiring out
'Pin' means dowry, deposit, etc. 'Chu' means to visit or get married, mainly referring to a woman leaving her mother's home to marry her husband.
7. Wife
In ancient Chinese literature, it is common to encounter the phrase "marrying a daughter to another" or "marrying a wife to another", which means marrying a daughter to "him" as his wife. The verb 'wife' here can be seen as a title for a woman to get married.
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