Marriage (is) Taboo
It is a given fact that we humans are a superstitious lot. We are often niggled by things which have sinister connotations. Black cats, walking under ladders, the number 13 and so on.
The Chinese are arguably one of the most superstitious people you can find anywhere on this planet. They have aversion to the number 4 and they love the number 8. 4 sounds like ‘die’ and 8 sounds like ‘prosper’.
In the old days, when two people want to get married, they go to great lengths to ensure that everything starts off on a good footing. It is not so much different today, isn’t it? For whatever it is, it feels good to know that everything is under control and selecting an auspicious day is one of them.
Date selection is a very arduous process (the Chinese traditional way at least is). It starts off withdrawing up the parties birth charts and then selecting an auspicious year and finally completed with the month, day and hour in that order. Date selection is never complete until the hour is selected. In fact the hour is very important. That is why the date selected is called the ‘four subjects’.
But for general chit chat, there are some months which are taboo.
The beginning of the year, especially the first month (which roughly coincides with February/March) is avoided. The spring festival is one reason as it keeps everybody busy. The bosses have to worry about the bonus for the staff and everybody is chasing down debtors. They say, “head but no tail” which implies that things get started but remain unfinished. The marriage will not last. Maybe that explains why divorce is so common.
The middle part of the year is also avoided. They say, “both ends do not reach the shore” which is another way of implying that projects do not see completion. That leaves the ending months of the year which explains why the year end is high season for restaurants and banquet halls. Sigh, so many taboos but there are more taboo months.
The month of April corresponds to the ghost festival, Qing Ming. This is a taboo month. Rare that anyone would want to get married when ghosts roam free. This period is normally left for ‘white’ affairs when the populace does their filial bit – remembering their dead. Marriage is a ‘red’ affair and red and white do not go along together. They clash. The end result won’t be good.
Another taboo month is the Chinese 7th month. This year it falls on august23rd. Another name for this period is ‘ghost season’. Yin energy is strongest at this time so it is considered wise not to get married during this time.
Next comes the 9th day of the ninth month (of the Chinese lunar calendar of course). That is October 16 this year. Yang energy is strongest at this time and people avoid picking this day.
Taboo is a very interesting thing. They are defined by culture and each society have their own set of peculiarities. For the more traditional astrologer, they may eliminate these taboo days or months. The more open minded astrologer may also do so as he takes in account the mind set and psychological innuendoes of his client.
In reality, there are diverse methods of date selection but they do have one thing in common in that they are in practice for a very long time.
What advice would there be for selecting days? It is bound to be difficult to select one that is ‘free for all’ so the advice would be to go for a compromise date. The rule would be simple. Where two persons are involved, go for a date which is a ‘general good day’ (something I recommend) and there are auspiciousness for everyone involved. By this I mean that we can choose a good day but if the day is not the best for the other party then the hour can be selected which is at worse neutral for the other person.
Good Luck!
This book is a translation of a text by FengShui Master Jiang Da Hong (ca1640) with my explanations and comments. The root text is a section on yang dwellings from his book “5 Songs of the Heavenly Principles”.