Meiji period weddings

LINDA CIPRUSE
Weddings

• In Meiji period existed several types of

marriages. Formalities varied between
regions and social classes, but the custom
of arranged marriages was borrowed from
the samurai class.

“Wedding”. From the book Japan and Japanese

• During this time society accepted
(1902)
marriages between people of different
regions and social classes.
 Wedding ceremony

• The official ceremony usually would take place at

the groom’s home.

• The groom and bride also were participating in

Shinto wedding ritual called san-san kudo, where
they seal their union by drinking sake 3 times from
3 different cups.

• On the day of he wedding, the bride would be

The matchmaker (nakodo) sings for the bride and groom escorted to he grooms home in a rickshaw.
during an arranged marriage. Published in 1905 by Kobe
based photographer Teijiro Takagi.
 Japanese marriage procession, in which the bride's
possessions are carried to her husband's estate. 

On the day of the wedding, the bride-to-be would be escorted to

the groom’s home in a rickshaw or a basket-chair palanquin.
Wedding dress
Women’s wedding
kimono at Art Gallery
of Greater Victory
• On her wedding day, the bride would
wear a traditional Japanese costume or a
western style dress with a white veil. 

• White, the color of mourning, expressed

the family's loss of their daughter. 
 • Marriage under the Meiji Civil Code
required the permission of the head of a
household and of the parents for men
under 30 and women under 25.

• In arranged marriages, most couples

The groom's mother offers the newly married couple sake
during an arranged marriage.  Published in 1905 by Kobe
based photographer Teijiro Takagi.
met beforehand at a formal
introduction called an omiai ( お見合い ,
lit. "looking at one another"), although
some would meet for the first time at
the wedding ceremony.
Marriage institutions and laws

• Marriage, like other social institutions of Meiji

period, emphasized the subordinate inferiority
of women to men. Women learned that as a
daughter they ought to obey their father, as a
wife their husband, as a widow their sons.
 
• A law which not repealed until 1908 allowed a
husband to kill his wife and her lover if he
found them in an adulterous act.
'Bride and parents in law - the bride performing a rite of
drinking sake with her groom's parents in order to express
the true heart of loving each other tenderly as parents and
daughter-in-law after that time'.
Imperial marriage

Wedding of crown prince Yoshihito and

princess Sadako Kujō
Literature
• http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/edu/ViewLoitLo.do?method=preview&lang=EN
&id=12998
• https://www.academia.edu/25761063/Shinto_Wedding_as_a_Meiji_Era_Inventio
n
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_Japan
• https://books.google.lv/books?id=8KPHBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT211&lpg=PT211&dq
=meiji+period+wedding&source=bl&ots=r99ICyFeU2&sig=ACfU3U1JtAM9RSsc
g5oi736FDYJJhQX6yw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjjo_SD1NPoAhVPfZoKHbe
8BEo4ChDoATAEegQIDBAu#v=onepage&q=meiji%20period%20wedding&f=fal
se
• https://books.google.lv/books?id=v-7SBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=m
eiji+period+wedding&source=bl&ots=WRomGo3R7n&sig=ACfU3U2Y_lvtdDR-z
Thank you for your attention!