The Yao people's custom of "carrying Lang to the door": sell off, sell half, and walk on both sides
The Yao people practice monogamy and intra-ethnic marriage. They rarely intermarry with other ethnic groups, and early marriage is more prominent. However, they generally live in harmony after marriage, rarely divorce, and are not discriminated against when widowed remarrying. There is a custom in Yao marriage called "carrying a man to the door"."Carrying a man to the door" means that the woman does not marry but carries a man to marry in her family, and the man being carried to the woman's house is called "door-to-door". This marriage custom is common in the Yao people in Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Guizhou, Yunnan and other regions.
In the past, due to the large amount of cutting of wasteland and planting, more labor was required. Therefore, this marriage custom was quite popular among the frequently migrating Guoshan Yao people. The Yao people's "carrying Lang to the door" is a custom passed down by their ancestors in ancient times and is also a reflection of the relics of ancient human marriage. This marriage custom came into being because in matriarchal clan society, women engaged in work that played a decisive role in the society at that time, thus winning a noble social status and the power to dominate clan life. Women occupied the dominant position in marriage. Women brought their husbands into their clans at first individually, and then generally, and the marriage of "women married men married" emerged.
The marriage custom of "carrying a man to his door" in Yao marriage preserves several different forms of "carrying a man to his door" in ancient times. The first type is to sell off, which is relatively simple. That is to say, if the man's family is good, the woman does not need to give gifts when he comes to the door. The man's family is poor. When the woman is carrying him, she must send wine and meat to the man's home, and invite the young man in the village to accompany the groom to the woman's home to eat gift wine.
The characteristic
selling marriage customs is that after a man comes to the door, he usually changes to his wife's surname, lives and works in his wife's home for life, and all children born to him follow the woman's surname. In the family where he carried a son, the wife was the head of the family and had a lot of power. In order to clarify the status of the woman, when the Yao people in some places establish such a marriage relationship, they use written documents to determine it to prevent the man from going back on his word after coming to the house. Selling off a husband by signing a contract generally has a low status in the family. If you don't want to go against the wishes of your wife and family, you will be insulted at least, or if you are expelled from the house at worst.
The second type of
is to sell half, which is a derivative method of "selling out." Although the man who comes to the door is subordinate to the woman, he has a small part of the property in the woman's family. Once the couple turns against each other and leaves, the husband can get the fruits of his labor from the woman's family. On the other hand, it doesn't matter whether a man changes his name after coming to the door. Although some women's families choose a different name and change their surnames, their own names are still not cancelled and each person can have two names. Children born after marriage can leave one of them to inherit the male heir, that is, the child can take the father's surname, and when he grows up, he can return to his father's other home, that is, his grandfather) to live and work.
The third way to
is to walk on both sides. This kind of marriage requires both men and women to participate in the life and production of both families. Men generally live in the woman's home first, work in the woman's home, and live for a period of time. Children born after marriage must follow their parents 'surnames. In the order of taking surnames, the first one follows their mother, the second one follows their father, and the third one follows their mother, and so on.
The procedures for this form of marriage are simpler than "selling off", and generally neither party does need any gift money. However, all men who come to the house must make a door-to-door deed stating that they voluntarily divide their wives and children equally. Husbands generally do not change their names after visiting the woman's house. Marriage life is relatively stable. Moreover, both men and women have equal status in the family, and family property is shared by the couple. Once the two parties divorce, in addition to participating in the division of property, the husband also has the right to take away the children who bear his own surname. For example, when a husband is dissatisfied with his wife's family and proposes to divorce, he often has to make a contract to cancel the marriage. This marriage custom of "walking on both sides" was still widespread in some Yao areas after liberation.
Yao people's custom of "carrying a man to his door" is a relic of the ancient marriage custom of "marrying a woman and marrying a man". It is determined by the development of social history. The forms of "selling off", selling half, and walking on both sides exist in the Yao people's "carrying a man to his door" marriage relationship vividly reflect the evolution of marriage relations from matriarchal clan society to patrilineal clan society.