In Chinese, marriage is translated to 婚姻 (Hūn-yīn). Many Chinese
people like to joke that someone wants to get married because they have 昏了 (Hūn le) ‘blacked out’. While learning more about these two
characters 婚 and 姻, let’s take a close look at 嫁 (Jià) and 娶 (qǔ) first to see how
they are used to express marriage.
From a female’s
perspective, you would say “she 嫁 (Jià) 入 ‘enter’ 夫家 ‘husband’s home’”. But a male would say “我 (Wǒ) ‘I’ 娶 (qǔ) 老婆 or 妻子 ‘wife’”. Note, there is a 女 (Nǚ) ‘female/woman/girl/daughter’ radical
on both characters: 嫁 and 娶, so what is the difference in between these
two characters.
The character 嫁 is a combination of 女 (Nǚ)
‘female/daughter and 家
(Jiā) ‘home’, which means quite literally that the female moves to a new home. Her
parents would say their daughter moved to a different home. Another way to
express this event would use the character 女 (Nǚ) for ‘daughter and 取 (Qǔ) ‘get’ for the character 娶 to show that the
husband’s home has received or gotten someone’s daughter. The parents of the
husband would say “我 (Wǒ) 娶 (Qǔ) 媳婦 (Xífù) ‘daughter-in-law’”.
Many people
knowledgeable of Chinese culture would tell you that marriage for Chinese
emphasizes the interaction of two families. We will learn more about marriage
in this context while interpreting `the characters 婚 and 姻.
