嫁 (Jià) and 娶 (qǔ)

It’s a spring time, as the rest of the world, is a time for natures renewal and love is in the air. It is also a popular season for getting married. This also makes me think of the different Chinese characters used for expressing marriage.

In Chinese, marriage is translated to 婚姻 (Hūn-yīn). Many Chinese people like to joke that someone wants to get married because they have 昏了 (Hūn le) ‘blacked out’. While learning more about these two characters 婚 and 姻, let’s take a close look at 嫁 (Jià) and 娶 (qǔ) first to see how they are used to express marriage.

From a female’s perspective, you would say “she 嫁 (Jià) 入 ‘enter’ 夫家 ‘husband’s home’”. But a male would say “我 (Wǒ) ‘I’ 娶 (qǔ) 老婆 or 妻子 ‘wife’”. Note, there is a 女 (Nǚ) ‘female/woman/girl/daughter’ radical on both characters: 嫁 and 娶, so what is the difference in between these two characters.

The character 嫁 is a combination of 女 (Nǚ) ‘female/daughter and 家 (Jiā) ‘home’, which means quite literally that the female moves to a new home. Her parents would say their daughter moved to a different home. Another way to express this event would use the character 女 (Nǚ) for ‘daughter and 取 (Qǔ) ‘get’ for the character 娶 to show that the husband’s home has received or gotten someone’s daughter. The parents of the husband would say “我 (Wǒ) 娶 (Qǔ)  媳婦 (Xífù) ‘daughter-in-law’”.

Many people knowledgeable of Chinese culture would tell you that marriage for Chinese emphasizes the interaction of two families. We will learn more about marriage in this context while interpreting `the characters 婚 and 姻.