Marriage Forms
In ancient China, there were mainly four marriage forms as follows.

(1)
"Seizing marriage" is a kind of coactive marriage. On the one hand, women do not have any choice on their marriages. On the other hand, some men were too poor to offer money to marry women, they chose to seize unmarried young ladies in other villages and forced them to be their wives. "The seizing marriage" can be sub-divided into three types.

There are three kinds of "seizing marriage": 1) Selecting marriage - to select some beautiful women for the Emperor. 2) Punishing marriage - when a criminal is sentenced, his wife and daughters will be allocated to others, or the next generations of the criminal will be classified as riffraff and cannot get married with normal citizens. 3) Granting marriage - parents can control the marriage of their sons and daughters, they can present them to their close friends, or the Emperor may grant a marriage to his subordinates, or parents from two parties may decide the marriage for their young child.

(2)
"Marriage with proposal" is based on the order from parents. The male will present "formal gift" to the female's family, and both parties should obtain consent from their parents and being introduced through a matchmaker.

(3)
"Exchanging marriage" means when the man marries a woman, a man from the woman's family should marry a woman from the man's family in exchange, "Formal gift" can be exempted to reduce family's economical burden generated by marriage.

(4)
"Succeeding marriage" means when an elder brother dies, his younger brother can succeed his widow as his own wife. A son may succeed his step-mother as his wife too. It is because when a woman has lost her husband, her life will become very difficult. If her husband's brother succeeds her, he can take care of her and protect her. This can also maintain the benefit of the man's family and recover productivity.

Besides the monogamy, polygamy was widely practiced in ancient China. However, mainly many women married to one man. There are two major reasons of marrying a second wife. The first reason is continuation, and the second is the man showing off his own status and property.

In general, a man can marry a second wife if he obtains the consent from his principle wife. However, there is an apparent difference between the principle wife and the second wife. The second wife cannot promote to principle wife or enjoy the rights of a principle wife even when the principle wife dies. The wedding rituals for a second wife is much simpler than marrying a principle wife, just to select a good date and then to pick up the woman by using a little sedan chair. She cannot enter the man's home by main entrance, and nuptial ritual is not needed, she just needs to bow and present tea to the principle wife.

Marriage Laws in Hong Kong
"Marriage Reform Ordinance" is an important law. Before 1 October 1971, Chinese people can get married in Hong Kong by "Three Letters and Six Etiquette" according to "Qing Legal Code". Marrying a second wife was also permitted. This kind of marriage is called "Customary marriage". After 1 October 1971, marriage is only valid according to "Marriage Ordinance", which means marrying a second wife is not permitted. The practice of being married to only one person at a time is stipulated, and wedding rituals should be held in the Marriage Registry or other authorized venue (for example, the church).

Divorce
An ideal marriage is an ever-lasting one. In contrary, the marriage comes to an end if problems exist. In today's civilized society, people can invalid a marriage by legal means. However, in ancient times, divorce was not decided by the couple themselves. Before the marriage system was established, humans can get married or divorced freely. They can live together if both parties agreed. After they lived together, they became husband and wife. It was considered to be a marriage relationship. If they departed and did not live together any more, it meant their marriage ends.

During the feudal age, the customs of divorce was strictly restricted by feudalism. Ancient people stated seven valid reasons for divorce, which are: 1. failure to produce a male heir; 2. adultery; 3. disrespect her husband's parents; 4. quarrelsomeness; 5. stealing; 6. jealousy; 7. vicious disease. There were stipulated that a husband cannot divorce his wife under three situations, they are: 1. the husband's parents were dead; 2. the husband was poor when getting married but then became rich; 3. the wife's parents were dead after marriage.

In the Chinese traditional culture, all activities are to cope with the Heaven, Earth and Man. Marriage and death are important incidents in life. Humans cannot decide the time of born and death, but can manage their own life-long marriage. Therefore, people take it very seriously in the selection of season, date and time for wedding.

In ancient times, there were two sayings for wedding time:

The first saying is that wedding should be held in spring according to Rites of the Zhou, which recorded that this was a common practice during the Zhou Dynasty. It was believed that spring is the season for mating, in turn the best time for marriage. February is the best month. From this we can see the law of nature did affect the wedding time of ancient people.

The second saying is that ancient people think that autumn and winter are the best time for wedding. From the economical view, autumn is the time after agricultural harvest. As a result, spring is the season for engagement, and autumn or winter is the season for wedding ceremony.

Although ancient people cared the wedding time, they did not take it very seriously. It varied according to changes of historical background. For example, in late East Han Dynasty, because of the political chaos, men and women were usually matched at the first meet, and had no time to consider the marriage time. The wedding at that time was very simple, just using a yarn to cover the bride's head, and the bridegroom would unveil it. Then they would bow to their parents or elder relatives. A simple wedding is then accomplished.

In the ancient times, people chose wedding date because of superstition as well as happiness-bringing. They think that wedding cannot crash with diseases. Therefore, if one of the couple's parents are ill, they will take the time for wedding immediately in order to drive away the bad luck by the happiness of wedding, and hasten their parents' recovery.

Under normal situation, the wedding date was selected by fortune-teller, not only to choose a good date, the time slot was also very important. In Tang and Song Dynasties, wedding was held at the evening and could not last over 12 noon. The time slot for wedding should also be confirmed in advance.

In Hong Kong, people are living in a busy city, so convenience and efficiency are the most important. Therefore, many traditional bridal customs are no longer observed and the wedding procedures are simplified. For instance, Hong Kong people just pick an auspicious day from the almanac for wedding.

Ancient people believe in happiness-bringing, but Hong Kong people are just the opposite. When either one of the couple's relatives passed away before the wedding, the wedding will be suspended.

In general Hong Kong people will invite a fortune-teller to choose a good date, because they are still seeking for happiness and luck. Moreover, some people will choose a special festival for wedding, for example, the New Year's Day, National Day, Mid-Autumn Festival, or the birthday of either of the couple, for celebration and joy.

Natural and social factors are taken into consideration for the marriage age of ancient Chinese. They believe that the more sons they rear, the more blessing they have. Confucious encourages early marriage and early child-bearing in his writings. The early marriage then was influenced by historical change and various social factors. It varied in different dynasties.

Ancient people suggested that man should get married at the age of 30 and woman 20. They cannot get married above these two ages respectively. Confucious has written a book which reveals a similar concept on marriage age.

In order to increase national income, Han Huidi (Emperor Hui of Han) stipulated that woman who are not married after the age of 15 will have to pay fifth-fold poll tax. Emperors in Han Dynasty are typical examples of early marriage. For example, Han Huidi married Queen Zhang when she was a bit older than 10 years old; Han Zhaodi became Emperor at the age of 8 and married Queen Zhangguan when she was 6; after Han Zhaodi died, Queen Zhangguan became a widow at the age of 14 or 15. Han Pingdi became Emperor at the age of 9 and married a Queen of 9 years old. Other Emperors and vassals in Han Dynasty were generally get married at 15 or 16. Their wives then were generally 13 of 14 years old. The rulers in Han Dynasty encouraged early marriage in order to increase population growth. As a result, ancient Chinese people get married well before they reach the age of puberty.

The most important factor affecting ancient people's concept and knowledge of marrying age is social economical factor. To increase social wealth, we have to accelerate population growth. In ancient society, social productivity was low. Increase in population means increase in productivity. It is especially true in China. As it is an agricultural society, production method is not advanced, and cultivation and related works are dependent on manpower. In order to increase population growth, they encourage early marriage and early child-bearing. Thus, some villages in China still keep the traditional custom of early marriage until now.

A difference of age between couples is also a concern. According to traditional marriage customs, the man is generally 3 to 5 years older than the woman. As we have mentioned above that the man should get married at 30 and the woman at 20, so the age difference should not exceed 10 years. In ancient society, the age difference should not be too great, or else the couple will be teased by others.

In Hong Kong, there are not many regulations for marriage, man and woman can get married freely when they have both reached the age of 21. If both are between the age of 16 and 21, then parents' consent is needed.