1、 Differences between Chinese and Western WeddingThe wedding as an important part of culture, it is also one of the necessary ceremony for us.With the difference between Chinese and western, it presents a different marriage customs. Marriage, it symbolizes romantic and sweet. It is the gate for lover
2、s to marriage. It also signed of established relationship between husband and wife. Marriage is a beginning, from then on husband and wife should encourage each other, support mutually and keep in life. So in such a special day all the best wishes become more meaningful and more precious. It is roma
3、ntic and full of nice flavor. Of course, with the blessing it also has all kinds of marriage customs. People always like to make it special for every ceremony. Because of the difference cultural between Chinese and western, the marriage customs and ceremony become different. Although along with the
4、globalization of economic and communication, some Chinese and western fixed the marriage. But the marriage customs always plays irreplaceable differences.China is a country with an ancient civilization and a long history, and many customs. Among so many customs, there is a particular marriage custom
5、. This custom goes through various and long stages of development from ancient simple wedding ceremony to later complex ceremony, from feudal marriage custom to the modern free marriage custom. During these courses, peoples ideas are progressing, though we can not say that their ideas are up to the
6、top of mankinds ideas in all over the world at all over the time because there are still backward ideas existing in many places, in many peoples mind and they maybe will still exist for a long time. However, they are up to the top of mankinds ideas in a certain stage of the uninterrupted development
7、 of ideas.Comparing with each other, west are different in many aspects such as in right aspect and in freedom aspect and there are many reasons that result in these differences such as cultural reason and geographical reason. 一Chinese marriage customIn China, marriage has gone through for a long ti
8、me. As a most grand etiquette, it has always been a high degree of attention. To control the marriage, the family and the whole society, since the beginning of Zhou Dynasty, Chinese marriage should comply with six procedures, which is the so-called “six etiquettes.“ And Later in Tang and Ming Dynast
9、y in China, marriage also complied with the “six etiquettes“. As time goes by, although many wedding customs experienced various changes “Six etiquettes“ as the basic pattern has not changed much. It is still essential and core in marriage custom.Marriage has changed much today, but in many place th
10、ere still remains traditional marriage custom.In feudal society, a marriage would be decided not by the youths love, but by their parents desires. Only after a matchmakers introduction and when parents considered the two family conditions were similar and could be matched, would the marriage procedu
11、res went forward. Conditions that should be taken into consideration included wealth and social status. If a boys family was well-off or an official family, his parents would never permit him to marry a girl from a poor family. Essential to the marriage process were the commonly recognized three Let
12、ters and six etiquettes. The three letters were the betrothal letter, the gift letter with a gifts list and the wedding letter used on the day the bridegroom met his bride at her home. The book propriety and ceremony, which records earliest wedding ceremony, says that marriage, usually, involves six
13、 necessary procedures, namely, proposing, asking the name, asking for fortune, sending betrothal present to girls family, discussing date of marriage and meeting the bride.In the whole wedding, we should according the certain order: For worshipping, set out, burning cannon, waiting for the groom, de
14、nounce happy event, strange, go out, the limo, and throw fan, wedding banquet, see, chamber.In China, the entire weddings main colors are red, it also the representative of the traditional Chinese festivity colors. This change will enable the wedding jubilation. In a traditional wedding, the bride g
15、enerally wearing red ROM and the groom wearing red long gown mandarin jacket, wearing a red cap along. Palanquin bride rode in the red, the groom on horseback in front, with matchmaking and domestic-market-oriented team to the grooms house. Parents sitting on the two sides appear, and appear next ma
16、rried bride and groom. Entire wedding presided over by the master of ceremonies, in his command, a bride and groom into the bridal chamber. Noisy wedding is the climax of wedding, the bride and groom first to wait for the wedding, the groom greeted came to the wedding. Everybody started noisy weddin
17、g, the bride and groom all stirred up trouble in the next gamedo all this in a whole wedding laughter ended. 二Western marriage customWestern marriage custom is different from China. Western wedding is a romantic style, the whole wedding from start to finish to the full of romantic. And the brides dr
18、ess is generally white, the groom is black dress so that the whole wedding was the solemn seriousness. Marriage to the church to whole wedding is the most important link. First, as the wadding march rhythm, the bride pull her fathers hands go before the groom by her father she personally delivered t
19、he hands of the groom, pastor will ask the bride and groom on the other side to make a lifetime commitment, this is the climax of the whole wedding. Then they will be priests and the blessing of everyone, exchanged marriage rings and kiss each other. The bride spent the hands of the ball were not or
20、dinary furnishings. At the end of the wedding, the bride would throw the female guests arrived at the scene, who received curd, who is a married person, which makes the entire ceremony be heard laughing in the end.In the middle ages children were married at a young age. Girls were as young as 12 whe
21、n they got married, and boys as young as 14. The arrangement of the marriage was based on monetary worth. The family of the girl who was to be married gave a dowry, or donation, to the boy she was to marry. The dowry went with her when the marriage was held and stayed with the boy forever after the
22、marriage. After the marriage was arranged, a wedding notice was posted on the door of the church. The notice was put up to ensure that there were no grounds for prohibiting the marriage. The notice stated who was to be married, and if anyone knew any reasons that the two could not marry, they were t
23、o come forward with the reason. If the reason was a valid one the wedding would be prohibited. There were many reasons for prohibiting a marriage. One reason was consanguinity, if the two were too closely related. If the boy or the girl had taken a monastic or religious vow, the marriage was also pr
24、ohibited. Sometimes widows or widowers took vows of celibacy on the death of their spouse, and later regretted doing so when they could not remarry. Other reasons which also prohibited marriage, but were not grounds for a divorce, were rape, adultery, and incest. A couple could not be married during
25、 a time of fasting, such as lent or advent. Nor could a couple be married by someone who had killed someone.By studying the differences between Chinese and Western wedding, I understand their characteristics: Western wedding is pure romantic, and China is happy wedding; Western wedding is feeling va
26、lued, and China values the ceremony. Because of their different customs, they also formed their own characteristics wedding customs. Even though, no matter where the wedding was full of blessings and laughter.The differences existing in Chinese and western marriage custom are inevitable. The differe
27、nt religious, cultural origin, marriage concept, and geographies caused different marriage custom in both worlds. These differences maybe will still exist for a long times between Chinese marriage custom and western marriage custom because it is not easy to change a kind of traditional culture witch has remains for thousands of years.国贸一班范珊珊