
A tongyangxi marriage certificate from the
Ming dynasty (1588)
Tongyangxi (
traditional Chinese: 童養媳;
simplified Chinese: 童养媳;
pinyin:
tóngyǎngxí), also known as
Shim-pua marriage in
Min Nan dialects (
Chinese: 媳婦仔;
Pe̍h-ōe-jī:
sin-pū-á or sim-pū-á; and in
phonetic Hokkien transcription using Chinese characters: 新婦仔), was a tradition of
arranged marriage dating back to pre-modern China, in which a family would adopt a pre-
adolescent daughter as a future bride for one of their pre-adolescent (usually
infant) sons, and the children would be raised together.
[1][2]
A direct translation of the Taiwanese (Hokkien) word "sim-pu-a" is "little daughter-in-law", in which the characters "sim-pu" (
traditional Chinese: 媳婦;
simplified Chinese: 媳妇;
pinyin:
xífù) mean daughter-in-law and the particle character "a" (
Chinese: 阿;
pinyin:
ā or
Chinese: 仔;
pinyin:
zǐ;
Pe̍h-ōe-jī:
á) indicates a
diminutive. The similarly used Mandarin Chinese term "tongyangxi" (
traditional Chinese: 童養媳;
simplified Chinese: 童养媳) means literally "child (童) raised (養) daughter-in-law (媳)" and is the term typically used as translation for the English term "child bride".
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Social anthropology perspectiveEdit
Within social anthropology research of Chinese marriage, shim-pua marriage is referred to as a "minor marriage" because the daughter-in-law joins her future husband's household when both are minors, in contrast to Chinese major marriage, in which the bride joins her husband's household on the day of the wedding.
[3] The shim-pua daughter was often adopted into a family who already had a son to whom she would be betrothed, though this was not always the case. Instead, some families adopted a shim-pua daughter prior to having a son, prompted by a traditional belief that adopting a shim-pua would enhance a wife's likelihood of bearing a son.
[4] Although the shim-pua daughter joins the household as a child, the marriage would only occur after both had reached
puberty. Depending upon the family's socioeconomic status and financial means, the wedding could range from a large banquet on par with a major marriage to a small family ceremony, or in the simplest cases "a bow to the ancestors and a slight change in the family's sleeping arrangements."
[5]
Shim-pua marriage occurred over a range of socioeconomic classes, but was particularly common among poor and rural families. Among the well to do, marrying a son in a major marriage was prestigious and a display of status, but also costly.
[6] In poorer and more rural communities, shim-pua minor marriage was inexpensive and helped to ensure that no matter how poor a family was, their sons would have wives when they reached marrying age, and thus a greater likelihood of producing descendants.
[7]