The Pragmatics of the Chinese Marrying Ritual: Stability, Change, and Identity Presentation

In this article, we study the pragmatics of the ritual of Chinese marriage diachronically. It is found that Chinese marriage includes six sequential steps, from proposal (Step 1) to wedding (Step 6), and these steps held steady from the earliest times to 1912, when the last dynasty was replaced by the Republic of China. Synchronically, it is found that most of these six steps are still present, but many are conducted in different ways. We demonstrate that such stability and change reflect the stability and change of social values that underlie them. We propose that they be viewed as identity presentation: The marriage system is an institution in which key participants display various identities “assigned” to them by society, although contemporary weddings do offer participants some room to create their own individual identities while performing their assigned duties.