Thus for two days and two nights the bride-groom and the bride in a live, so to speak not as legal, but, as sweetheart-husband and sweetheart-wife . Ohird day, _then es the last ceremony in the ese marriage_the Miao-, the temple presentation or civic marriage. I say, ohird day because that is the rule deriguer as laid down in the Book of Rites. But now to save trouble and expe is generally performed on the day after. This ceremony_the temple presentation, takes place, when the aral temple of the family is nearby, _of course in the aral temple. But for people living in towns and cities where there is no aral temple of the family nearby, the ceremony is performed before the miniature aral chapel or shrine_which is in the house of every respectable family, even the poorest in a. This aral temple, chapel or shrih a tablet or red piece of paper on the wall, as I have said elsewhere, is the church of the State Religion of fucius in a corresponding to the church of the Church Religion in Christian tries.
This ceremony_the temple presentation begins by the father of the bridegroom or failing him, the senior member of the family, going on his knees before the aral tablet_thus announg to the spirits of the dead aors that a young member of the family has nht a wife home into the family. Then the bridegroom and bride oer the other, each goes on his and her knees before the same aral tablet. From this moment the man and woman bees husband and wife, _not only before the moral Law od, _ but before the Family, before the State, before Civic Law. I have therefore called this ceremony of miao , temple presentation in the ese marriage, _the civic or civil marriage. Before this civic or civil marriage, the woman, the bride, _acc to the Book of Rites,_is not a legal wife-When the bride happens to die before this ceremony of temple presentation, she is not allowed_acc to the Book of Rites_to be buried in the family burying ground of her husband and her memorial tablet is not put up in the aral temple of his family .
Thus we see the tra a legal civic marriage in a is not between the woman and the man. The tract is between the woman
and the family of her husband. She is not married to him, but into his family. In the visiting card of a ese lady in a, she does not write, for instance, Mrs. Ku Hung-ming, but literally "Miss Feng, goo the home of the family (inally from) Tsin An adjusts her dress." _The traarriage in a beiween the woman and the family of her husband,_the husband and wife either of them repudiate the tract without the sent of the husbands family. This I want to point out here, is the fual differeween a marriage in a and a marriage in Europe and America. The marriage in Europe and America, _is what we ese _would call a sweet-heart marriage, a marriage, bound solely by love between the individual man and the individual woman. But in a the marriage is, as I have said, a civic marriage, a traot between the woman and the man, but between the woman and the family of her husband, _in which she has obligations not only to him, but also to his family, and through the family, to society, _to the social or civic order; in fact, to the State. Finally let me point out here that it is this civiception of marriage which gives solidarity and stability to the family, to the social or civic order, to the State in a. Until therefore, let me be permitted to say here, _ the people in Europe and Ameriderstand what true civic life means, uand an