Delivery of The Bride's Dowry
The bride's parents may include the bride's dowry (嫁妆, jiàzhuāng) with the return gifts on the day of betrothal or deliver the dowry a few days before the wedding. Chinese dowry typically includes:
- beddings (e.g. pillows, bolsters, comforter set, blankets, bed sheets)
- new clothes for the bride in a suitcase (in the past, wardrobes or wooden wedding chests were used)
- tea set for the wedding's tea ceremony
- a spittoon of baby items (子孙桶, including baby bathtub, potty, face washbasin, tumblers, toothpaste and toothbrushes, mirror, comb)
- two pairs of red wooden clogs, wedding slippers or bedroom slippers
- a sewing basket (with even numbered rolls of colourful thread, needles, pincushion, scissors, and sewing wax with auspicious words on it)
- gold jewellery given by bride's parents
Read more about this topic: Chinese Pre-wedding Customs
Famous quotes containing the words delivery, bride and/or dowry:
“There was no speculation so promising, or at the same time so praisworthy, as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“I was disappointed in Niagara—most people must be disappointed in Niagara. Every American bride is taken there, and the sight of the stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments in American married life.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“As groceries in a pantry gleam and smile
Because they are important weights
Bought with the metal minutes of your pay,
So do these hours stand in solid rows,
The dowry for a use in common life.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)