In the early traditional wedding customs in China, we often see the bride carrying a suitcase, which not only represents the status of the female family, but also symbolizes wealth. Usually, in addition to more expensive jewelry, dowry is mainly a symbol of good omen. For example, the wedding quilt is full of peanuts, beans, red dates, cypresses and other things. Why do you put these things?
It is a great event in life that a man marries a woman and a woman marries a man. The ancients attached great importance to marriage and thought that marriage symbolized that a couple had entered the "adult" stage. The ancients also thought that "there are three kinds of unfilial, and there is no big after." Everyone wants to have a "room full of children", the so-called "many children and many women". If a woman can't have children after marriage, she will be abandoned by her husband's family. Therefore, a woman's fertility is the key to a happy marriage. For the sake of her daughter's happy marriage, the bride's family always puts some auspicious items in her dowry.
Traditional wedding dowry
Put longan, walnuts, red dates, chestnuts, persimmons, cypresses and peanuts in the bride's quilt. Longan, homophonic "circle", symbolizes the happiness of husband and wife; Walnut, homophonic "harmony", means harmony between husband and wife; Jujube homophony "early", chestnut homophony "Gigi Lai", meaning "early Gigi Lai", early birth of a son; Persimmon homophones "things" and takes "all the best"; Bai Zi has the homonym of "Bai Zi"; Peanuts, homophonic "peanuts", are born alternately, giving birth to boys and girls. In some places, there are "chopsticks" in the dowry, which is the homonym of "chopsticks". There must be lotus seeds, pomegranates and sweet-scented osmanthus in other dowry, which are homophonic as "lotus", "son" and "laurel", meaning "lotus gives birth to cinnamon".
There is also a local custom that if there is a cupboard in the dowry, it must be carried in front, indicating that "your son is born early" and "your son comes first"; If the shoes of the bride and groom are put together, it symbolizes that the two will grow old together; In addition, we often see the groom take off the bride's hijab with a scale, which is homophonic, indicating that the bride and groom are "satisfied".
In the folk custom of China, homophony is used to win good luck, which is numerous in weddings and Spring Festival celebrations. For example, on the cloth of the newly-married bride's clothes, shoes and socks, insert two branches of small cypress tied with red ropes and place them in "cypress trees are eccentric and full of children and grandchildren." Sugarcane with leaves tied with two pieces of red paper symbolizes that the life of husband and wife is as sweet as sugarcane. Some take plants as their auspicious homophony, such as multi-seed pomegranate, which is homophonic "eat and stay" and metaphorical "pomegranate opens a hundred grains", which has double auspicious significance; Magnolia, begonia, hibiscus and osmanthus constitute auspicious patterns, meaning "Jade Hall is rich". As long as we pay more attention, there are many similar ways to seek good luck around us!