12. The old rule at sacrifices was to have the
vessels (only) of earthenware and gourds; and when
the kings of the three dynasties instituted the
(partaking of the) victim, those were the vessels
employed. On the day after the marriage, the wife,
having washed her hands, prepared and presented
(a sucking-pig) to her husband's parents; and when
they had done eating, she ate what was left,—as a
mark of their special regard. They descended from
the hall by the steps on the west, while she did so
by those on the east;—so was she established in the
wife's (or mistress's) place.
13. At the marriage ceremony, they did not employ music,—having reference to the feeling of solitariness and darkness (natural to the separation from parents). Music expresses the energy of the bright and expanding influence. There was no congratulation on marriage;—it indicates how (one
generation of) men succeeds to another[1].
- ↑ See p. 322, paragraph 20; where Confucius says that in a certain case the bridegroom's family has no music for three days, on the ground that the bridegroom had lost his parents, and sorrow was more suitable than mirth as he thought of their
tried to catch and indicate the ideas in the mind of the writer. Taken as I have done, the passage is a most emphatic declaration of the religious meaning which was attached to marriage. Dr. Medhurst (Theology of the Chinese, pp. 88, 89) has translated the greater part of the paragraph, but not very successfully, thus:—"A black crown, with fasting and watching, is the way to serve the Kwei Shins, as well as the male and female principle of nature. The same is the case also (with regard to marriages which are contracted) with the view of obtaining some one to perpetuate the lares domestici (社稷); and principally respect obtaining successors for our ancestors:—can they therefore be conducted without reverence?"
