Abstract

Marriage, the beginning of a new stage in life, is closely associated with the well-being and happiness of everyone. Therefore, it has become one of the top concerns for lots of people. Wedding ceremony, as an important ritual which declares the establishment of the marriage relationship, has been undergoing constant changes and development, and demonstrating its unique charm. Every country in the world has wedding customs of its own national characteristics and the entirely different cultural backgrounds lead to the huge difference between traditional Chinese wedding customs and western wedding customs in many aspects. This paper briefly introduces the difference between Chinese and western wedding customs from such three perspectives as pre-wedding, mid-wedding and wedding climax customs, explores through analysis the cultural factors for such difference and puts forward some suggestions on how to inherit and carry forward the Chinese traditional customs.

Key words: difference, wedding custom, China and the west, cultural factor

摘 要

婚姻是人生新阶段的开始，与每个人的幸福息息相关，受到人们广泛的关注和重视。而婚礼作为宣告婚姻关系建立的重要仪式也在不断的变化和发展中，显示出自身独有的魅力。世界各国都存在具有自身民族特色的婚礼习俗。截然不同的文化背景导致了中国的传统婚礼和西方婚礼之间在很多方面都存在着巨大差异。本文从婚礼前，婚礼中以及婚礼高潮三个角度介绍了中西婚礼的风俗习惯，对比分析了两种习俗间的差异，详细剖析了造成这些差异的文化因素，并对中国传统习俗的继承和发扬提出了建议。

关键词: 差异；婚礼习俗；中西方；文化因素

. Introduction
With the high speed of modern economic growth and the dramatically rising living standard, contemporary people pay more and more attention to their feelings of happiness and joy. Celebrating and memorizing the important days of one’s life constitutes an essential step on the way to pursuing satisfaction. As the symbol of growing-up and independence, marriage has for a long time been regarded with a high status and priority. Wedding custom as the most important cultural feature of marriage has been passed down and diversified from generation to generation.
Essentially affected by cultural factors, wedding custom varies in different parts around the world. Through thousands of years of evolution and development, Chinese culture has been continuously marching ahead along the history track with great reputation and prestige and become the principle and guidance of various social behaviors. Wedding custom is inevitably the result of such cultural impact and regulations. Western culture originates from the ancient Greek culture and Hebrew culture. During the constant development of western civilization, different ideas and proposition fuse with each other in the process of continual exchange and conflict and gradually exert great influence on education, politic and all walks of social life to which wedding custom is no exception.