"Self-Combing" and "Not Leaving Home" Unveiled Mysterious Customs
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Self-combing women and not leaving their homes were developed in the late Qing Dynasty under the feudal system. Only the Pearl River Delta is a deformed custom. Because Guangzhou is the economic center of the Pearl River Delta, many self-employed women and women who do not leave home live and make a living in Guangzhou. Therefore, Guangzhou also has this custom.
The origin of the name "self-combing" may be that in the past, unmarried women in Guangzhou and the Pearl River Delta wore a long braid and hung it on their backs. When they got married, their mother or female elders tied the braid into a ball and put it close to the back of their heads., called a bun. The self-combing woman uses a specific ritual to tie her braids into a bun, indicating that she will never marry and will die alone. But once it is combed, it will never be regretted for the rest of its life, and its parents will not be able to force her to marry. If there is any misconduct in the future, he will be tolerated by the township party. After being tortured and beaten, he will be tied into a pig cage and thrown into a river and drowned.
After death, his parents were not allowed to collect the bodies and bury them. The self-combing women in the "great-aunt's house" had to use straw mats and door panels to dig a hole to bury the matter. If there were no "self-combing women" in the village to help bury them, they would be thrown into the flood and flowed with the water. Therefore, parents are heartbroken about their daughters dying of celibacy, so they often take precautions before they happen and discipline them extremely tightly. However, some daughters who are determined to "comb" have to hide from their parents and secretly hold them in self-combing or "great-aunt's house" under the cover of their sisters.
On the eve of self-brushing, take a bath in "fragrant soup"(boiled water with cypress leaves and yellow-skinned leaves), and then ask your beautiful girlfriend who has already combed to teach him how to stand in the family and society after combing, how to persist in celibacy, and how to make a living independently, how to support each other among self-brushing sisters, etc. Early the next morning, he went to the temple and set out three sacrifices and new clothes in front of the Goddess of Mercy Bodhisattva. He swore to the Bodhisattva. After the oath, he untied his long braid and combed it into a cloud bun, put on the new clothes that he had sacrificed to the Bodhisattva, and then kowtowed to the Bodhisattva. After that, he bowed to each other to the sisters who lived there, and the sisters congratulated her. After the ceremony, he went home to tell his parents and family members, and distributed the sacrifices he had sacrificed to the Bodhisattva to relatives and friends, announcing that he had combed himself. Rich families still set up banquets to entertain guests at this time.
The inheritance after the death of the self-comb daughter, in addition to being given to her as a concubine, will be inherited by her apprentices or the Jinlan sisters. The apprentices accepted by a self-grooming woman are not a master-apprentice relationship in the general sense of imparting skills, but a special mutual support relationship. The apprentices accepted by a self-grooming woman must also be self-grooming woman. The apprentices must also have a kind of ceremony, that is, they must worship the god and make a covenant in front of the god. The apprentices must be filial to the master. When they are sick, they must serve the body, serve the body, serve the tea and medicine, and bury them after death, establish a god to worship and sweep the sacrifice. Therefore, when selecting an apprentice, self-grooming women must go through long-term observation and multiple tests before they can be accepted. Once a master-apprentice relationship is formed, both parties can never go back on their word.
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In addition to having a similar social background to self-grooming girls, it is more common for girls to be forced by their parents to neither "comb" nor escape from the house. They have to take advantage of the opportunity of "returning home in three dynasties" to live in their parents 'home for a long time to avoid cohabitation with their husbands. This kind of woman is called married, but in fact she is still single, commonly known as "never leaving home".
Some women, determined to live a single life, have secretly married themselves without telling their parents, but eventually married because they could not resist their parents 'pressure. Therefore, they had to adopt the method of "staying home" after marriage to deal with their parents. Women who deliberately stayed at home secretly asked their confidant sisters-in-law and sisters to teach them how to deal with the wedding night before getting married, and asked the Jin Lan sisters to make a special set of defensive clothes. The clothes were made to be connected from top to bottom, and the jaws were sewn particularly firmly, making it impossible for the bride to pull apart. Bring a pair of scissors as self-defense and keep the groom away from him. If the groom forced him with violence, he shouted for help, and Da Jin, played by the Jin Lan sisters, went to rescue him collectively after hearing the news and helped the bride escape. I stayed at my husband's house for three days, and then stopped returning to my husband's house after "returning home".
However, women who do not leave home are still housewives in their husbands 'homes. If there is a red and white funeral in your husband's family, you will also send someone back to show your concern. If Wu-gu or her husband passes away, she must go back personally to "take up her duties" and perform her filial piety and funeral. If I am critically ill and about to die, I cannot stay at my mother's home for the funeral. I must return to my husband's home to die. The woman's family will be responsible for the food, medicine and afterlife expenses during her dying period. The husband's family must conduct the funeral in accordance with the etiquette of a housewife. The inheritance is left to the concubine or the children of the concubine. There are also people who die in "great-aunt's houses" or nunnery without returning to their husbands 'homes.
These typical customs of combing women and not leaving home disappeared on their own after the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Bingyutang, located in Jun 'an Town, Shunde, and Guanyintang, Tajiao Road, Duanzhou District, Zhaoqing City. This is a special tribe that experts call "the last group of self-grooming women in the history of China." "Self-combing" is a lifelong commitment,"Comb your own hair, cook your own food, enjoy your own joys and sorrows, and support your own life." This is the entire interpretation of themselves by the self-combing women.
When they were still young girls, they combed their own hair, vowed not to marry for life, ate fasting and worship Buddha every day, and lived a life of pure desire and self-reliance. For decades, despite the changes in society, they have remained the same and lived every day calmly.