Marriage and Betrothal Among the Hokkaido Ainu
The Ainu consider marriage to be a social and family arrangement, which affects the parties immediately concerned more than anyone else. The young people need not marry unless they choose.…
Location: Hokkaido, Japan
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From The Ainu and Their Folk-Lore by John Batchelor, 1901. Images from text.
Marriage and Betrothal
The Ainu consider marriage to be a social and family arrangement, which affects the parties immediately concerned more than anyone else. The young people need not marry unless they choose.
They may have been betrothed in childhood by their parents, but they cannot be forced to marry each other; both the young man and his fiance have a final word in the matter. However, until the age of maturity, the bond entered into by the parents is held sacred, and is only made void by the parties themselves, should they desire to bring the contract to an end. In short, the young people do their own courting and wooing, and no one, as a rule, grumbles at this arrangement.
Let us suppose a young couple to have made up their minds to marry. If the young man made the first proposal, he asks his father and mother to call upon the parents of his chosen one, and try to arrange for the marriage to take place. If, however, it was the young woman who did the wooing and courting, she gets the mother and father to call upon the parents of her choice.
If all is well, the marriage takes place at once. If the parents do not agree, the young couple take the law into their own hands, build a hut, and become husband and wife without any ceremony; and that relationship is sacred, and stands good in Ainu society.
After the father has duly called on a friend to ask the hand of a daughter for his son in marriage, the following little ceremony takes place between them, if all has gone well.
The bridegroom’s father takes a small sword, and placing it in the hands of the father of the bride, says: ‘This sword is a pledge of betrothal; take it and worship. Do thou pray to the goddess of fire.’ Then, having received the sword, he worships the fire, saying: ‘We have here and now settled to marry our son and daughter; therefore, O thou goddess of fire, hear thou, and be witness thereto. Keep this couple from sickness, and watch over them till they grow old.’
The bridegrooms father then receives the sword back, and worships in like manner. This done, the old people procure sake, and make a great feast, to which they invite their friends and relatives. The drink is called uwechiu sake, i.e. ‘matrimonial sake’' and the food eaten goes by the name of uwechiu marapto, i.e. ‘matrimonial feast.’ After this has been satisfactorily concluded, the newly-married couple build their hut. and the old men assemble and make inao, especially the household inao mentioned in Chapter X., and the chiseismbe described in Chapter XIII.
If the young woman herself or her parents have been the main movers in the business, the bride-groom is removed from his own family to take up his abode close to the hut of his father-in-law; he is, in fact, adopted. But if the bridegroom did the wooing, or his parents were the prime movers, the bride is adopted into his family. Or if a woman of one village chooses a man of another, he, if agreeable, goes to live with her; or if a man chooses a woman who resides at a distance, she, if agreeable, goes to live with him.
Persons who marry in their own villages are all called uiriwak, ‘blood relations,’ ‘brethren,’ but those who remove from their homes to be married into some distant family are called uiritak, i.e. ‘relation taken away,’ or ‘distant relations,’ ‘brethren brought in.’
The people consider their daughters to be marriageable at about sixteen or seventeen years of age. The men marry when about nineteen or twenty. The youngest marriage I have yet seen amongst them took place when the bride’s age according to the Japanese register was sixteen years.
The marriage ceremony consists in nothing but a little feast of cakes and rice with wine, at which the mother and bride officiate. The bride-groom has a few heirlooms given to him, should there be any, and the bride a few trinkets, such as beads and ear-rings, and sometimes an old sword guard to wear as a charm.
Owing to certain superstitions, to be mentioned in another place, the wife never takes her husband’s name, but retains her old one. When not called by her own maiden name, she is merely called so-and-so’s wife, that is to say, so long as her husband is living.
Should he die, she is always known by her name as a maiden, or called so-and-so’s mother, should she have a son or a daughter. The social position therefore of the woman before marriage is looked upon as being equal to that of man, but after that event she becomes subservient to her husband, and may neither take nor use his name. The husband is the head of the wife; but this principle is carried too far when the woman is not considered good enough to take her husband’s name upon her lips. In this matter, therefore, we must regard the people as somewhat low in their social status.
Soon after marriage the bridegroom makes a knife sheath, a spoon, a shuttle and weaving loom, and presents them to his bride. This little ceremony is called mat-eikara, i.e. ‘making my wife.’ The bride then makes a girdle, a pair of leggings, a necklace, and a head-dress, which she presents to her husband; this is called hoku eikara, i.e. ‘making my husband.’
This ceremony appears to be a second pledging of the marriage vows, showing that they are satisfied with each other. When it is done it gives great satisfaction to both parties concerned.
Another piece of lore given me on this matter runs thus: ‘when a couple are newly married the first thing to be done is for the bridegroom to give the bride a knife and sheath. In return for this the bride must give her husband a new cap. This is a very good custom, and should always be observed. So say the ancients.’
It seems to have been an ancient custom, though not general, to sometimes betroth children. But even in this case the persons so betrothed were not absolutely bound to marry. Either of them could, when the time for marriage arrived, veto the decision of their elders.
But the curious thing about this betrothal was that the boy and girl exchanged clothes, and, I believe, homes, until the season for their union came round. Then, if the parents of the lad were the prime movers in the proposal, the young lady remained at his home, but if otherwise, the bridegroom went to live with the bride’s parents or at least in her village.
John Batchelor, The Ainu and Their Folk-Lore (London: Religious Tract Society, 1901), 223-227.
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