What is the reason for this custom of the bride returning home in three days?

The peaches are actually sweet. When the son returns home, it is suitable for his family. ——"The Book of Songs"

Getting married is one of the most important things in a person's life. Marriage is grand and novel for young men and women, and the sense of ritual must also be full. In ancient times, weddings were very grand, and there were many etiquettes that needed to be followed. The custom of the bride returning home in three days has continued to this day. If you think about it carefully, the ancients were quite considerate.

Hexin Wine

As the saying goes, "It's time for men to get married and women to get married." When young men and women reach the marriageable age, they need to start their own family, start a career and have children. Ancient people thought about getting married. It is very important. Generally, when a man and a woman are about 15 years old, their parents and matchmakers decide how to marry. Before the marriage, the man and woman have never met each other. They only see each other's appearance when they lift their headscarves after praying to heaven and earth. Therefore, Marriage in ancient times was also very blind. The only way to understand the other person's character is through the introduction of the matchmaker, but generally the matchmaker will make some clever lies in order to charge a fee for promoting a marriage.

After entering the 21st century, people have entered a fast-paced lifestyle, and many people suffer from phobia of marriage, which is a symptom of excessive worry about marriage. Because houses and cars are very expensive now, raising children is hard and expensive. In addition, young people today are highly educated and do not regard getting married and having children as their own mission. What they pursue is more freedom. Happy life.

But there are also some loving and suitable couples who are very happy to get married. Marriage is a turning point in life, so people attach great importance to it and have high requirements for marriage rituals. Although many complicated procedures for getting married in ancient times have been deleted, some good things have still been passed down, such as drinking Hexin wine during the wedding ceremony. .

Hexin wine is what we call Jiaobei wine. It is a vessel made of bitter gourd divided into two parts for holding wine. In ancient times, people could not afford bronze and jade cups, so the bitter gourd pulp was used. It was too bitter to be eaten. Its hard and pot-shaped shell was suitable for holding water and wine, so people took it easily.

Coincidentally, one bitter gourd can be made into two gourds, and the two gourds are perfectly combined into one gourd, so the common people borrowed it to symbolize the newlyweds' eternal union. Gradually, the custom of drinking wine at weddings was passed down. To this day, people no longer use gourds to drink wine, but instead use more convenient wine glasses. The custom in some places is to drink reunion wine. At the wedding, everyone sits at the table happily. Usually the man will invite the eloquent married women of the tribe to speak eloquent blessings while serving dishes to the bride and groom.

Blessings are usually edited so that they rhyme and can be expressed in the form of singing. For example, "Eat a vegetable stalk, come a little bald", which means that eating this vegetable can give birth to a boy, and "eat a vegetable stalk, come a little bald", which means eating this vegetable stalk can give birth to a boy.

The general meaning is that the woman hopes to give birth to a boy as soon as possible after marriage to continue the incense of her husband's family. In ancient times, the superiority of men to women can also be reflected in a small blessing poem. In addition to blessing the birth of a boy, of course, there are also blessings for the couple to be harmonious, prosperous, and healthy for their children and grandchildren, etc., all of which express good wishes for a new family.

Press the bottom of the box

The ancients valued a woman's chastity and etiquette very much, and did not casually circulate and watch books and pictures about sexual intercourse between men and women. Therefore, most women know nothing about sexual intercourse before getting married, so it is inevitable that some embarrassing things will happen during the wedding. In order to avoid such embarrassment, the mother of the bride will prepare something for the bride before the wedding. Unlike today, where we think the bottom of the box is precious money and items, in ancient times, the bottom of the box was paintings about the sexual intercourse between men and women.

Because sexual intercourse was an unspeakable and shameful thing in ancient times, it was generally put at the bottom of a hidden box by adults. There is usually a small box containing porcelain, as big as a fist, in the shape of a fruit, and inside the porcelain is a man and woman having sex, or pictures of such things.

Before marriage, the mother will hand it over to the bride and teach her that she will be an adult and there are some things she needs to know. The woman looked at the picture curiously and coyly, her face flushed with embarrassment, but she was still full of expectations for the new things to come.

In "A Dream of Red Mansions", it is recorded that the silly elder sister accidentally picked up a sachet on the rockery of the Grand View Garden, which was embroidered with the pattern of male and female intercourse. The silly elder sister didn't know the pros and cons and just played with the sachet. However, in the Grand View Garden where girls are in power, the most important thing is chastity, and these shameful things are also the most taboo. Once the incident was discovered, Wang Xifeng led the maids to search for things in the rooms of various young ladies and maids, making a very unpleasant scene.

Cao Xueqin deliberately included this incident in the article, perhaps to point out how taboo people were about sex in ancient times, especially women. If they were exposed to such pictures before marriage, Books mean that one's reputation is ruined. If one has an affair with another man before or after marriage, one will be imprisoned in a pig cage. Women's lives seem to be involuntarily controlled by themselves.

Return home in three days

After the wedding, it is generally customary for the bride to return home. That is, on the third day after the wedding, the groom accompanies the bride to visit the home of his father-in-law and mother-in-law. In ancient times, women had very few opportunities to return to their parents' home. Returning to their parents' home on the third day after marriage was a very precious day. Even in the future, they could only return after their parents died and stay with their husband's family for the rest of their lives. The saying that the bride returns home in three days has profound meaning, because in ancient times, men and women could hardly see each other before getting married, and they could not fall in love freely. They were curious and longing for things between men and women, but they had no way to vent their curiosity.

Men and women get married during a period of strong sexual desire. It is inevitable that there will be frequent activities in the two days before the wedding. Usually the woman will feel pain during intercourse. If the intercourse is too frequent, the bodies of both parties will not be able to bear it. So for the sake of the health of the newlyweds, everyone allowed the bride to return to her natal home for a visit on the third day after the wedding. On the one hand, it could comfort the woman's longing for her relatives after marrying far away, and on the other hand, it could allow the bride and groom to have a rest, because in her natal home, the couple Sexual intercourse is not allowed. I have to say that parents in ancient times were very thoughtful.

When the bride returns home in three days, she can also tell her mother-in-law’s female relatives about the situation of her husband’s family, such as the conditions of housing, food and clothing, what are the temperament rules of her father-in-law and mother-in-law, whether they get along well, and what is her husband’s temperament? What kind of person he is, is he a reliable person, etc. In addition, he will also exchange some tips on running a house. Weddings in ancient times were cumbersome and grand affairs. Various preparations were required before the wedding. There were many ceremonies at the wedding. It was not until the bride returned home three days after the wedding and the groom paid homage to his father-in-law and mother-in-law that the whole wedding was considered over and recognized. The legality of a man and a woman becoming husband and wife.