Revealed: The sexual implications of "making trouble in the bridal chamber"

Nowadays, getting married means finding an auspicious day and having a wedding banquet, but you may not know that there are many particularities in traditional Chinese marriage customs. Customs such as choosing a wedding date, making trouble in the bridal chamber, and returning to the bride's parents' home after three days are not feudal superstitions or red tape, but are closely related to sexual health.

Will definitely avoid the bride's menstrual period

In the past, people had to choose an auspicious day to get married, which was called "picking a happy date" or "looking for a date". Usually the man would find a local Feng Shui master to calculate the best auspicious day for the wedding based on the man and woman's zodiac signs and birth dates. After the "wedding day" is chosen, the man will ask a matchmaker to take some gifts to the woman's house to "send the day".

If the bride's family accepts this date, then the wedding day is set. If the woman's family returns the date, it means there is something wrong with the date and it needs to be re-selected. So what exactly is the problem?

It's not that the day is unlucky, it's mainly because this day happens to coincide with a girl's menstrual period, and you can't have sex during your menstrual period. At this time, the boy’s parents will bring gifts and ask the Feng Shui master to choose an auspicious date again. The date chosen by the Feng Shui master this time will definitely be about 15 days later or earlier than last time.

Because people cannot ask directly about extremely sensitive issues such as menstruation, they use this method of "picking a happy day" to solve this tricky problem. The matchmaker will then send the new wedding date, and the bride's family will take over. However, we all know that if the menstrual period is delayed or advanced by about 15 days, it happens to be the ovulation period of women. In the past, there were no better contraceptive measures, so pregnancy on the honeymoon was not uncommon.

Modern medicine has proven that it is not suitable for newly married couples to have children due to factors such as fatigue and drinking. Therefore, although the Feng Shui masters at that time could choose the date, they did not understand reproductive health knowledge.

Another way to “choose a wedding date” is for the Feng Shui master to select two dates at once, one in the first half of the month and one in the second half of the month, for the bride’s mother to choose from, also to avoid the bride’s menstrual period.

It's ambiguous sex education

People in the past were very conservative. Many newlyweds would blush if they secretly glanced at each other before getting married. Some even got engaged based solely on the words of a matchmaker. It is very embarrassing for two people who have never met each other to have skin contact and the most private contact at night. Therefore, the day before the bride's wedding, the mother must make a last-minute effort to provide her daughter with sex education, so as to avoid scaring her daughter silly when the time comes.

There are special tools for sex education, called "bottom of the box". In common people's homes, they are mostly porcelain cups and plates, while in noble families, they are mostly carved from ivory and contain "pornographic pictures" to give the bride basic psychological preparation.

Wedding night pranks are also a form of sex education. As the saying goes, "There is no distinction between young and old for a new bride for three days." After entering the bridal chamber, everyone, regardless of gender, age or status, can come in to "see the new bride" and tease the bride, both dirty and dirty, with the intention of turning the originally shy girl into a bold and outspoken bride.

More importantly, during the bridal chamber prank, everyone will ask the newlyweds to do various intimate, subtle but clearly directed actions to dispel the bride and groom's sense of strangeness and shyness, thus paving the way for that exciting moment. This is the "foreplay" that everyone participates in. The bridal chamber prank is actually expressing a kind of ambiguous sex education: things are just like that, and the situation is just like that.

Let the bride "heal"

On the third day after the wedding, the bride will be taken back by her younger brother or elder brother to stay for three days (in some places the custom requires staying for seven days), and then the groom will pick her up again. This is called "returning to the parents' home". The ostensible meaning is that the bride has lived with her parents since she was a child, and after leaving home this time, she is afraid that she will miss her family, so she wants to go back to see her parents.

In fact, the reason behind this was that the brides at that time did not go out of the house and were basically all virgins. During a virgin's first night, the hymen is damaged and it is quite painful. The groom is in his prime youth and does not know how to be gentle with women. The bride’s family is worried that the bride cannot bear it, so they take her back home to “heal” under the pretext that she misses her parents.

When returning to her parents' home, the bride is often called aside by her sisters-in-law, who whisper some private words to her, asking her whether her married life is harmonious and happy, and also teaching her some methods of married life and precautions for female hygiene. In addition, in many places there is a custom that newly married couples are not allowed to have sex when they return to the bride's home. This is also for the purpose of protecting the bride and suspending sex.

Nowadays, with the development of society, many traditional customs have disappeared. However, no matter how customs change, sexual health during the wedding period is still very important. I hope that everyone can find some inspiration after reading this article.