Korean Chuantonghunli
01 · Historical Records
The Korean ethnic group long practiced "uxorilocal marriage" (男归女家婚), in which the groom held the wedding at the bride's family home and stayed there for a number of years before taking his wife and children back to his own home. During the Ming and Qing periods, influenced by Confucian thought, the Joseon dynasty strongly promoted the "personal escort" (亲迎) form, in which the bride was brought to the groom's home on the wedding day itself, but this proved difficult to carry out in the face of traditional custom, so the "uxorilocal" form and the "personal escort" form were combined to create the compromise "half escort" (半亲迎) form: the groom held the wedding at the bride's home and stayed only two days, returning with the bride to the groom's home on the third day. Thereafter the "half escort" form became the principal marriage form of the Korean people. Marriages among Koreans in China before the 1950s adopted both the "half escort" and "personal escort" forms, with the "half escort" form predominant; after 1950 the "personal escort" form was adopted uniformly and has been followed to this day. The traditional Korean marriage form comprises three major stages — the marriage negotiation (议婚), the main ceremony (大礼), and the subsequent rites (后礼). The negotiation includes checking the compatibility of the birth charts (宫合, comparing the eight characters of the couple's birth dates), writing the marriage letter, and selecting the auspicious date (涓吉, fixing the wedding date). The main ceremony includes the groom's family presenting the gift chest (礼装函, the betrothal gift box) to the bride's family, the wild-goose-presenting rite (奠雁礼), the mutual-bow rite (交拜礼), the nuptial-cup rite (合卺礼), and the groom's receiving of the great table (大桌). The subsequent rites include the bride's going to the groom's home to receive the great table and, on the following day, the rite of the new wife meeting her parents-in-law (妇见舅姑礼). The traditional Korean wedding is a concrete manifestation of Confucian culture; its form bears distinct ethnic characteristics and can provide reference for the study of the spread and development of Confucian culture and of Korean folk culture.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The wedding of the Korean ethnic group is laid out in the three major stages of marriage negotiation, main ceremony, and subsequent rites, each with its own named items and procedures. The negotiation begins with checking the compatibility of the birth charts, that is, comparing the eight characters of the couple's birth dates to see whether they match; if they match, the man's side writes the marriage letter, and having chosen an auspicious day, performs the date-selection rite (涓吉), engaging someone to fix the wedding date. The main ceremony takes place on the day of fetching the bride: the groom's family sends the gift chest to the woman's side, containing gift money and colored silks; the wild-goose-presenting rite uses a wooden goose as the pledge, taking from it the meaning of keeping faith. The mutual-bow rite follows, groom and bride bowing to each other before the table, then the nuptial-cup rite, eating together from the same sacrificial share, and the ceremony closes with the groom's receiving of the great table. The subsequent rites begin the day after the wedding, when the bride goes to the groom's home to receive the great table; the following day the rite of the new wife meeting her parents-in-law is held, the new daughter-in-law bowing to her husband's parents, who respond with red envelopes or clothing — only then is a marriage deemed to have joined the two families. The banquet must include tteok (pounded rice cakes) and rice wine, and during the feast the couple must toast each elder at the table in turn; once the elders have drunk, they bestow their blessing on the marriage, and the order of observance is never disrupted from beginning to end.
Matching the birth characters
The eight birth characters are compared first; without a match the marriage stops before it begins.
The marriage letter and the naming of a day
A written marriage paper and a day chosen by a ritual expert turn talk into a binding compact.
The wooden geese of the offering rite
Wooden geese are offered as a token of trustworthiness, before the couple have even met.
The mutual bow and the shared cup
A mutual bow sets the duty between them, and one shared cup makes two households one.
The bride's greeting to her parents-in-law
A brief bow before the parents-in-law gives the new wife her place in the husband's house.
Wine offered to elders at the table
The newlyweds toast each elder in order of age, and the answers they receive warm the whole table.
The lingering half-welcome custom
The compromise rite faded, but the names and order of the three stages carried on unchanged.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Korean weddings in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture preserve, besides the three major stages, the older "half escort" form, and the items that must be expressed in the ceremony do indeed survive. The "half escort" means the wedding is still held at the groom's home, while the new wife is brought into the husband's family on the second or third day; this compromise was once common among Koreans in the north. Marriages among Koreans in China were predominantly "half escort" before the mid-twentieth century and uniformly "personal escort" thereafter, with the new rites carried out accordingly in the villages of Yanbian. Local organizers often have one household take charge of one district, and families with nearby wedding dates help one another; cart drivers, box carriers, and cooks are assembled ad hoc, and the ceremony is considered complete once the proper forms have been observed.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The value of this ritual order lies in its gathering Confucian norms into executable gestures. The mutual bow is the application of the duty between ruler and minister to the couple; the new wife's meeting with her parents-in-law is the step by which the daughter-in-law gains her place in the husband's family; the nuptial cup is the symbol of the two sharing a single sacrificial animal. Each of the three rites has its own function, and lacking any one, the ceremony would be incomplete. Beyond the rites there are songs and wine, the liveliness matching the solemnity, so that a wedding serves both as moral instruction and as a gathering of kin, and is still carried out generation after generation in modern life.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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