Research On The Changing Of Modern Marriage Customs In Fu’an City

Upon due time, every male should take a wife and every female should take a husband. Wedding is an essential part of great importance in our life. The educational meaning and social value it carries have varies from races to races and have changed through years. So did its theoretical meaning and practical guidance. Therefore, it is necessary to study bridal custom of local ethnic and get a better understanding of characteristic features of local race with a view to further promoting and inheriting cultural legacy in this region. This is the major reason of writer in doing research on marriage rituals.Fu’an city is a area where Han ethnic group and minority groups live together, of which local marriage customs influence and interact with each other, Thus Fu’an city developed its own unique and charming marriage custom. This essay took the wedding ceremony of Han ethnic group in Fu’an city as the example and had a detailed description of local wedding ceremony before1949and after1949respectively. By adopting field investigation and documentary analysis, this essay aims to find out the changing of wedding ceremony of Han ethnic group through vertical comparison, the reform and heritage of major elements within (such as matchmaker, time of wedding, wedding site, clothing of the bride and bridegroom, dowry, cry marry) and the cultural heritage in wedding ceremony of which includes ritual of warding off ill luck, carrying on the family line, praying for prosperous and perfect family. Therefore we can get a better analysis of the changing value of people and changing culture in Fu’an as well.Judging from the reform and heritage of wedding ceremony of Han ethnic group in Fu’an city, we can find that the thought of people has changed rapidly and the concept of marriage has came to its critical time of quantitative change. At the same time, the marriage custom has give out the blossom of learning both from western and eastern, ancient and modern. In recent years, academic field has paid much attention on the rituals in Han ethnic group and minority groups and focus on research of cultural legacy. However specific research of folk custom of Han ethnic group in certain area remains relatively few. This essay aims to have a detailed description of local wedding ceremony and pointed out the dying wedding rituals, such as "cry marry" and "eating Jiaxi", hoping that it may contributes in academic study in probing into the current thoughts of Han people in Fu’an and its marriage culture and provides reference value in learning culture difference of different ethnics. It’s expected that people in Fu’an will recognize that the changing of marriage custom of Han ethnic group means the progress of our society and a must of history and will accept the new ritual so as to develop and promote the harmonious development of Fu’an city.