Wedding Taboos Part 3- Walking Under Pants
By: Jhong Ren | Posted: 31st July 2007
According to Chinese wedding customs, it is always ideal for the elder brother to get married first, followed by the younger ones.
However, there will be times when the younger brother get married first. It is unrealistic for him to forgo his wedding plan just because his elder brother has yet to find his ideal life partner.
In such circumstances, the elder brother has to “give way” to the younger siblings and let them tie the knots before him.
There is a ritual that the younger brother or sister had to crawl under the elder brother’s pants before stepping out of the house.
The significance of it is to show the approval of the marriage by the elder brother and the younger sibling could then be happily married rather than openly resented.
It is an act of apology to the elder siblings that “Sorry, I don’t mean to spite you because you can’t find a suitable wife. I am getting married before you though you are older than me.”
Interestingly, this ridiculous practice is still being done even in Singapore.
I remembered a friend told me that she jokingly told her mom about this wedding ritual that she had to go through at the groom’s place. Initially, she shared it because she found it to be comical and funny
However, soon after her mother heard it and she found it to an insult to her daughter. She grew so furious that she severed ties with the in-laws and she is still angry about this issue even 10 years have passed.
So this is only to show that Chinese are in general very particular over such customs and may find wedding customs of other dialect groups weird or even insulting to their dialect group.
About the Author
Occupation: social worker
Jhong Ren runs My Wedding Blog- an online wedding diary that gives more than just the usual tips and advice on a daily basis. Check out http://www.romance-fire.com now and by all means leave us your comments, share some of your own wedding experiences and give us some suggestions for new resources we can recommend to our community.
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Tags: circumstances, spite, 10 years, mom, life partner, marriage, ties, sibling, insult, singapore, apology, knots, elder brother, wedding plan, younger ones, younger siblings