it sounds like me until I met Leef ... I think the 18 years age difference between us, and his 19 years marriage experience may have helped it last until now, with all the problems we are living with. As for myself, I don't have a positive image of marriage, I am so scared things will just go wrong - because I grew up in such horrible/tense atmosphere of my parents' disaster marriage until I was 16 when dad left the house ...
I guess I've been looking to be cured all these years, but living with Umi was another disaster, and I quit that pretty fast after experiencing violence. only after living with Leef for more than a year, did I start to have some faith in sharing my life with someone, seeing that things can be possible, and starting to understand why people do want to get married ...
for a very long time I think the social structure in Lugu Lake (on the border between Sichuan and Yunnan in China) is the best. villages in Lugu lake area still living in the maternal social structure - that means family sturcture are based on mothers only.
in these villages they have two ceremonies in the entire life circle - the birth ceremony and the death ceremony. there are no weddings.
families living together in a community are only formed out of relatives from mother's side. there is usually a head of the community who is often the most respected grandmother. family members including grandmother's siblings, sibling's children. but no husbands.
children in the family usually sleep together in a big room until they become 12, then they receive a private room, especially girls. kids at this age get their first formal introduction to sex education, mothers/aunts taking the girls and uncles taking the boys - to the natural hot spring in the mountain area, where the folks all bathing there totally naked, women and men mixed, so the children will learn about both the female and male body in real and absolute openness.
the kids are officially allowed to start choosing their mates from now on, and it can be a very long process. young people meet each other in the fire dancing parties held in villages once or twice a week, or love songs are exchanged in the mountain forest - most girls there having this natural clear high frequence voice which go through distances that their lovers can hear their singing over the mountains ... whoever has a better voice got higher chances to win the heart ...
the local girls said that it usually takes years until the couple find each other, at age of 16 to 18, they are ready for a real relationship. mostly, once the girl is ready, she comes home with her chosen one, the boy usually brings a gift to the girl's house, coming asking for permission of the eldest to become an official lover of the girl. once this love relationship is approved, the gift he brought will be hang at the entrance of the girl's room, and the boy is always invited to come be with her - they call it "marriage by visit". after every visit, he always goes back to his own mother's community and contribute his work to his own community, and be the role model/educator of his sisters' kids. the couples' own children will stay and be raised by the girl's families.
the villagers say that most couples stay old together. because their togetherness is really just because they enjoy being with each other, they don't have any financial/property involvement with each other, don't need to have conflict on how they want to raise up their kids, no discussions about house work menage ...
but there are cases, things change, and the couple wish to stop being together. and if this happens, the woman removes the gift from the man at her door, to sign an end of it, and each of them are now free.
No comments:
Post a Comment