Traditional Chinese marriage (Chinese: 婚姻; pinyin: hūn yīn) is a ceremonial ritual within Chinese societies that involve a marriage established by pre-arrangement between families. Within Chinese culture, romantic love was allowed, and monogamy was the norm for most ordinary citizens.

Etymology
In more ancient writings for the word 婚姻, the former has the 昏 beside the radical 女 (pinyin: nǚ, literally "a female"). This implies that the wedding ceremony is performed in the evening, which is deemed as a time of fortune. Similarly, 姻 (pinyin: yīn) has the same pronunciation as 因 (pinyin: yīn). According to Zhang Yi's (張揖) Guangya Shigu (廣雅•釋詁), a dictionary of ancient Chinese characters, 因 (pinyin: yīn) means "friendliness", "love" and "harmony", indicating the correct way of living for a married couple.
 
Marriage in a Confucian context
In Confucian thought, marriage is of grave significance both to families and to society as well as being important for the cultivation of virtue. Traditionally incest has been defined as marriage between people with the same surname. From the perspective of a Confucian family, marriage brings together families of different surnames and so continues the family line of the paternal clan. This is generally why having a boy is more preferred than a girl when giving birth. Therefore, the benefits and demerits of any marriage are important to the entire family, not just the individual couples. Socially, the married couple is thought to be the basic unit of society. In Chinese history there have been many times when marriages have affected the country’s political stability and international relations. From the Han Dynasty onward, the rulers of certain powerful foreign tribes such as the Mongolians, the Manchus, the Xiongnu, and the Turks demanded women from the Imperial family. Many periods of Chinese history were dominated by the families of the wife or mother of the ruling Emperor.
 
Prehistoric Chinese marriages
Marriages in early societies
In traditional Chinese thinking, people in "primitive" societies did not marry, but had sexual relationships with one another indiscriminately[citation needed]. Such people were thought to live like animals, and they did not have the precise concept of motherhood, fatherhood, sibling, husband and wife, and gender, not to mention match-making and marriage ceremony. Part of the Confucian "civilizing mission" was to define what it meant to be a Father or a Husband, and to teach people to respect the proper relationship between family members and regulate sexual behavior.
 
Mythological origin
The story about the marriage of Nüwa and Fu Xi, who were once sister and brother respectively, told about how they invented proper marriage procedures after becoming married. At that time the world was unpopulated, so the siblings wanted to get married but, at the same time, they felt ashamed. So they went up to Kunlun Shan and prayed to the heavens. They asked for permission for their marriage and said, "if you allow us to marry, please make the mist surround us." The heavens gave permission to the couple, and promptly the peak was covered in mist. It is said that in order to hide her shyness, Nüwa covered her blushing face with a fan. Nowadays in some villages in China, the brides still follow the custom and use a fan to shield their faces.
 
Maternal marriage and monogamy
In a maternal marriage, a male would become a son-in-law who lived in the wife’s home. This happened in the transformation of antithetic marriage into monogamy, which signified that the decline of matriarchy and the growing dominance of patriarchy in ancient China.
 
Historic marriage practices
Endogamy among different classes in China were practiced, the upper class like the Shi class married among themselves, while commonors married among themselves also, avoiding marriage with slaves and other ordinary people. This practice was enforced under the law.
 
Traditional marriage rituals
Chinese marriage became a custom between 402 and 221 BC. Despite China's long history and many different geographical areas, there are essentially six rituals, generally known as the three letters and six etiquettes (三書六禮). Unfortunately for some traditional families, the wife's mother cannot go to her son-in-law's family until one year (according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar or Chinese Lunar New Year)after the wedding has elapsed. However, during this one year the daughter can go back at anytime.

Modern practices
In Mandarin Chinese, a mangnian, or 'blind year', when there are no first days of spring, such as in year 2010, a year of the Tiger, is considered an ominous time to marry or start a business. In the preceding year, there were two first days of spring.
 
Since the late 20th century, it has become popular to create an elaborate wedding album. The album usually consists of many pictures of the bride and groom taken at various locations with many different costumes. In Singapore, these costumes often include wedding costumes belonging to different cultures, including Arab and Japanese wedding costumes.
 
In contrast to Western wedding pictures, the Chinese wedding album will not contain pictures of the actual ceremony and wedding itself. In Hong Kong, however, pictures of the ceremony and wedding are taken.