Chapter 22 chapter 22

Thus for two days and two nights the bride-groom and the bride in China live, so to speak not as legal, but, as sweetheart-husband and sweetheart-wife . On the third day, _then comes the last ceremony in the Chinese marriage_the Miao-chien, the temple presentation or civic marriage. I say, on the third day because that is the rule deriguer as laid down in the Book of Rites. But now to save trouble and expense, it is generally performed on the day after. This ceremony_the temple presentation, takes place, when the ancestral temple of the family clan is nearby, _of course in the ancestral temple. But for people living in towns and cities where there is no ancestral temple of the family clan nearby, the ceremony is performed before the miniature ancestral chapel or shrine_which is in the house of every respectable family, even the poorest in China. This ancestral temple, chapel or shrine with a tablet or red piece of paper on the wall, as I have said elsewhere, is the church of the state Religion of Confucius in China corresponding to the church of the Church Religion in Christian countries.

This ceremony_the temple presentation begins by the father of the bridegroom or failing him, the nearest senior member of the family, going on his knees before the ancestral tablet_thus announcing to the spirits of the dead ancestors that a young member of the family has now brought a wife home into the family. Then the bridegroom and bride one after the other, each goes on his and her knees before the same ancestral tablet. From this moment the man and woman becomes husband and wife, _not only before the moral Law or God, _ but before the Family, before the State, before Civic Law. I have therefore called this ceremony of miao chien, temple presentation in the Chinese marriage, _the civic or civil marriage. Before this civic or civil marriage, the woman, the bride, _according to the Book of Rites,_is not a legal wife-When the bride happens to die before this ceremony of temple presentation, she is not allowed_according to the Book of Rites_to be buried in the family burying ground of her husband and her memorial tablet are not put up in the ancestral temple of his family clan.

Thus we see the contract in a legal civic marriage in China is not between the woman and the man. The contract is between the woman and the family of her husband. She is not married to him, but into his family. In the visiting card of a Chinese lady in China, she does not write, for instance, Mrs. Ku Hung-ming, but literally "Miss Feng , gone to the home of the family (originally from) Tsin An adjusts her dress." _The contract of marriage in China being between the woman and the family of her husband,_the husband and wife can neither of them repudiate the contract without the consent of the husbands family. This I want to point out here, is the fundamental difference between a marriage in China and a marriage in Europe and America. The marriage in Europe and America, _is what we Chinese _would call a sweet-heart marriage, a marriage, bound solely by love between the individual man and the individual woman. But in China the marriage is, as I have said, a civic marriage, a contract not between the woman and the man, but between the woman and the family of her husband, _in which she has obligations not only to him, butalso to his family, and through the family, to society, _to the social or civic order; in fact, to the State. Finally let me point out here that it is this civic conception of marriage which gives solidarity and stability to the family, to the social or civic order, to the State in China. Until therefore, let me be permitted to say here, _ the people in Europe and America understand what true civic life means, understand and have a true conception of what it is really to be a citizen, _ a citizen not each one living for himself, but each one living first for his family, and through that for the civic order or State, _there can then be no such thing as a stable society, civic order or State in the true sense of the word. _A State such as we see it in modern Europe and American to-day, where the men and women have not a true conception of civic life, _such a State with all its parliament and machinery of government, may be called, if you like, _a big Commercial Concern, or as it really is, in times of war, a gang of brigands and pirates, _but not a State. In fact, I may be permitted further to say

here, it is the false conception of a State as a big commercial concern having only the selfish material interests of those who have the biggest shares in the concern to be considered, _this false conception of a State with the esprit de corps of brigands, which is, at bottom, the cause of the terrible war now going on in Europe. In short, without a true conception of civic life there can be no true State and without a true State, how can there be civilization. To us Chinese, a man who does not marry, who has no family, no home which he has to defend, cannot be a patriot, and if calls himself a patriot, _we Chinese call him a brigand patriot. In fact in order to have a true conception of a State or civic order, one must first have a true conception of a family, and to have a true conception of a family, of family life, one must first of all have a true conception of marriage, _marriage not as a sweetheart marriage, but as a civic marriage which I have in the above tried to describe.

But to return from the digression. Now you can picture to yourself how the sweet-heart wife waiting for the morning_to salute the father and mother of her husband, toilet finished, in a low voice, whispers to her sweet-heart husband and asks if her eyebrows are painted quite a la mode_Here you see, I say, there is love between husband and wife in China, although they have not seen each other before the marriage_even on the third day of the marriage. above is not deep enough, then take just these two lines of poetry from a wife to her absent husband.