Hand Over the Bride 交出新娘

Generally, one of the touching moments of a wedding ceremony is the handing over the bride to the bridegroom. This simple step also enables the bride to be emotionally prepared for a new stage of her life. It means that she is leaving her parents and to start a new home with a man she loves. The practice of handing over the bride is a cultural practice with the belief that the daughter is to leave home to get married. However, shouldn’t marriage also require a man leaving his parents to be married to a woman?

There is nothing wrong for having a ceremony of handing over the bride. But I believe it is more meaningful if simultaneously a man is given away for marriage by his parents while receiving his bride from his father in-law during the wedding. I hold such belief because I am amazed to see the Bible stated, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

The above statement was written several thousand years ago when most societies were predominantly male-chauvinistic. Instead of stating a woman has to leave her parents, it is the man required to do that.

Personally, I had officiated wedding that both the bride and groom were willing to be given away by their original families for marriage. This is helpful in preparing the bridegroom to transit himself into a new form of relationship following the wedding ceremony.

It is quite frequently we may have heard about the conflict between the mother in-law and the daughter in-law, and the son or the husband is sandwiched between two women. Comparatively, the wife is well aware that the moment when she was handed over by her father to her husband, the husband was henceforth the most intimate person to her in terms of human relationship. Therefore, rarely do we hear about a woman is sandwiched between her father and her husband. But, the son who has not experienced a handing over of him by his mother to his wife is sometimes emotionally unprepared to regard his wife as the woman with whom they should have the most intimate relationship.

When a man and a woman have got married, the two of them are one, and often being referred to as a couple. Such oneness and intimacy surpass other kind of human relationship. Nevertheless, both of them are to honour their parents. In other words, the relationship between the husband and the wife is about “unity”, whereas, the relationship between the children and their parents is about “filial piety”.

一般来说，婚礼的一个感人场面就是当新娘被交给新郎的时候。雖然这只是一个简单的步骤，但它其实是可以幫助新娘心理上准备好进入人生的新阶段。这意味着她要离开她的父母，并与她热爱的男人开始新的家庭。交出新娘的做法是一种文化习俗，它包含了一种伩念，即女儿必须离开家结婚。然而，婚姻豈不也是需要一个男人离开他的父母与一个女人结婚吗？

举行交出新娘的仪式並没有什么错误。但是我相信，如果在婚礼上，新郎由他的岳父那里接过新娘的时候，他也同时被自己父母交给新娘，那么这婚礼会变得更有意义。我擁有这样的信念，因为我很惊讶地發现圣经记载，“因此，人要離開父母，與妻子連合，二人成為一體。” （创世纪 2:24）

上述记载沿自几千年前，当时大多数社会均是以男性为主，与其说女人不得不离开她的父母，而男人乃是需要如此做的人。

就个人而言，我曾主持过婚礼，即新郎和新娘双方都愿意被原生家庭交出来结婚。这仪式是可以在情感上预備新郎过渡到新形式的关系。

不少时候，我们可能听说过婆媳之间的冲突，而儿子或丈夫则被夹在两个女人中间。相比之下，妻子比她丈夫清楚，在她父亲把她交给丈夫的那一刻，丈夫就成了她在人际关系中最亲密的人。因此，我们很少听到一个女人被夹在她父亲和丈夫之间。但是，没有经历过母亲把他交给妻子的儿子，在情感上反而经常没有准备好把他的妻子视为在人倫关系上是他最亲密的人。

当男人和女人结婚时，他们合而为一，常常被称为是一对夫妇。这种合一和亲密关系是超越了其他的人倫关系。不过，他们作为合一的夫妻，必须要孝敬他们的父母。换句话说，丈夫和妻子的关系是有关”合一”， 而兒女与父母的关系则是关乎“孝顺”。

The bride and the groom light the unity candle to signify their oneness.
新郎与新娘点燃合一蜡烛以象征他们的合一。