In ancient times, the Vaco people were also called "Icemen". At that time, the best time for people to marry was in the middle of spring when the snow and ice had not melted. Legend has it that during the Tang Dynasty, there were three icemen who were known as the world's first mediators and were canonized as "Gold Medal Icemen"

Unfortunately, despite the praise of adult beauty, it is not uncommon for tragedies to arise due to the misalignment of the Vaco people, and even today's marriage shrines are often fraudulent. Sometimes, it is the faintness of the Vake people that leads to the chaos of mandarin duck scores, but there are also people who use sweet words to induce men and women to enter into a marriage contract in order to seek personal gain, especially in the feudal era, when men and women cannot meet and fall in love freely, the consequences of ills are more prominent, and they have become the culprit of many unfortunate marriages in the world. In response to these unscrupulous so-called Vake people, there is a scathing and spicy satire on this in ancient Chinese folk songs: a handkerchief with flowers on both sides, and the Vake people boast on both sides when they are back. One said that the in-laws had land, and the other said that the outsiders were everyone; He also said that men are wise, and that women are like flowers. A mouth is grunting, like a field cow and a toad. If you have nothing to do, you are talking nonsense, calling your sons and daughters rotten teeth. In the future, he died in the underworld, and the ghost pawn took him to the fork.

In addition, don't look at the endless scenery of the Vake people, this bowl of rice is really not delicious, saying that the medium requires extremely high skills and even art, try to look at the one in "Gold Medal Iceman", which one is not ingenious and exquisite. The Vake people not only need to understand the basic situation of both men and women and their families, and strive to propose marriage in the right place, but also must not only basically and correctly reflect each other's situation to both men and women and their parents, but also hide the evil and promote the good as much as possible, so that both parties are fully familiar with each other's merits, so that they are happy to reach an agreement on marriage. From the day of the start of matchmaking for both men and women, we must often go back and forth between men and women, exchange information, convey each other's wishes and requirements, and prevent unexpected changes. The media said well, both parties are satisfied, and they often come and go in the future, becoming old friends; If the media does not speak well, the two sides are not satisfied, and they are often blamed on the Vake people, who are regarded as passers-by and even enemies, and it will be even more difficult to be a matchmaker in the future. For the official media, because it is an agency that acts on behalf of the government to carry out the marriage of men and women, the marriage contract it intervenes in is recognized by the government and has the force of law.

For a long time, there are also a lot of nicknames about the Vake people, such as the old moon, the matchmaker, the judge, the executive Ke, etc., taking the "iceman" as an example, there is a very interesting allusion. According to the Book of Jin, filial piety made Hu Ce have a dream, dreaming that he was walking on the ice lake, and he actually talked to the people under the ice, and he woke up unexpectedly. A soothsayer explained this dream and said, "The ice is yang, and the ice is yin, and yin and yang are also; If you return to your wife, the ice is not over, and the marriage is also. Jun is on the ice, talking to people under the ice, for yang and yin, and the medium is also. Jun should be a matchmaker, and Bingpan got married. "In today's terms, it means that you can stand on the ice and talk to the people under the ice, which symbolizes that you are reconciling yin and yang, and reconciling yin and yang is to be a medium, and you will be a matchmaker for others. But this matchmaking is not easy, you have to use your enthusiasm to melt the ice before the man and woman can get married. Since then, the "iceman" has been used to refer to the Vake people, and to be a matchmaker is also called "ice". This is also reflected in the colloquial language, such as the forty-first volume of "Strange Scenes from the Past and Present", "This matchmaker is an iceman matchmaking, a good thing for a day." Unless his daughter doesn't want to get married, he will give up, otherwise, there will be few male matchmakers and female concubines. And the Jin Yong "Heaven and Dragon Slayer" that everyone knows, Yin Susu and Zhang Cuishan, the two happy enemies, relied on Xie Xun to be an iceman once, and finally became a loving couple.

In China's long feudal society, men and women pay attention to giving and receiving kisses, exaggerating that "there are no clouds in the sky and no rain, and there is no matchmaker on the ground". There are many descriptions in the "Book of Songs", such as "I am in a bad period, and my son has no good matchmaker", "How to take a wife? Bandit media are not allowed", it can be seen that the history of media has a long history. In fact, the Vake people have a special status and role in the process of marriage, from the proposal to the marriage, almost everything is indispensable to the figure of the Vake people, if men and women do not talk about the matchmaker for life, not only will not be tolerated by the family society, most of them will also end in tragedy.

A variety of titles for matchmakers in ancient China

The matchmaker occupies an important position in the Chinese marriage system, and Mencius placed "the order of the parents and the words of the matchmaker" in an equally important position. The natural economic form of feudal society makes people's labor, education, and entertainment limited to the family, "the voice of chickens and dogs is heard by each other, and the people do not interact with each other until they are old and dead", so they are very separated from each other, and parents do not know who is in each other's family. Therefore, even if the children in their own family have grown up, they do not know which family needs to marry a daughter. Feudal customs have caused people to be shy on the issue of courtship, and it has become one of the important characteristics of feudal social customs to get a spouse not to speak out in public.

Regarding the history of the evolution of matchmakers, "The History of Chinese Marriage" believes that "matchmakers have the nature of intermediaries, and they existed immediately in the era of buying and selling marriages; The marriage of buying and selling has evolved into a bride marriage, and the intermediary who buys and sells his wife and daughter has also evolved into a matchmaker, so it is difficult to have a surname, and he relies on the media to communicate with each other in order to spread the word of marriage, or that is, to 'make'. "The Book of Songs" has "how to take a wife, the matchmaker must not be", it can be seen that the matchmaker has become an important condition for marriage as early as the Western Zhou Dynasty. Judging from the six ceremonies of the marriage procedure stipulated in the "Wedding of the Celebrants", from adoption, name questioning, najib, and recruitment to invitation and wedding, there is no link that can leave the matchmaker. "So men and women know their names by media, and they do not pay without media; The man has no matchmaker and cannot have a wife, and the woman has no matchmaker and is old and does not marry". There is also a "law for marriage, there must be a matchmaker" in the "Tang Law Discussion", and the matchmaker must be used for marriage, which has become a legal condition for marriage.

Vake: In this elegant name "The Book of Poetry": "How is Vake? If you can't take a wife, how about taking a wife? Bandits are not allowed. "Meaning, how do you cut off the handle of the axe? It is impossible without an axe; How shall you marry the wife? Not feasible without a matchmaker. "The Mean": "Hold Ke to Vake." Later, he called the matchmaker "Vake" or "Vake". Call the matchmaker "Zhike". For example, Song Wu Zimu's "Dream Lianglu Marrying": "The two families of its Vake people reported. Post on a later date. ”

Baoshan: This refers to a guarantor who is as stable and reliable as a mountain. For example, in the 119th chapter of "Dream of Red Mansions": "He said that the second master is not at home, and the eldest wife is the master, and there is an uncle who is the protector." Therefore, in the old days, it was also called "Baoshan".

Iceman: Please delete this vulgar work in the "Jin Shu Suo Zhen Biography", there was a man named Suo Zhen in the Jin Dynasty, who was good at interpreting dreams and predicting good fortune and misfortune. Once, a man named Ling Huce had a dream in which he was standing on the ice and talking to a person under the ice. I don't know what the signs are, so I want to interpret his dreams for him. Suo Zhen analyzed the plot of the dream, that is, said to him: "The ice is yang, the ice is yin, and the yin and yang things are also: the scholar is like a wife, the ice is not wet, and the marriage is also." Jun is on the ice, talking to people under the ice, for yang and yin, and the medium is also. Jun should be a matchmaker, and Bingpan got married. Later, Ling Huce really acted as a matchmaker for a son who was too guarded, and happened to say that the marriage was completed. Therefore, "Iceman" has become synonymous with "matchmaker".

Matchmaker: matchmaker, the second surname is conspiratory; Concubine, it is said to consider the two surnames. One said that the male Yuan and the female concubine. "Mencius Teng Wengong": "If you don't wait for your parents' orders, the words of the matchmaker, you can peep through the holes, and follow each other over the wall, then your parents and the people of the country will be thieves." ”

Yue Lao: Tang people recorded that Wei Gu, a Tang Dynasty person, passed through Song City at night, and met an old man sitting on his bag and checking the book to the moon. I asked what books were examined. Answer: The marriage of the world. And he asked what is the use of the red rope in the bag? Answer: To tie the feet of husband and wife. Although the enemy is a foreign land. Once this rope is tied, it is unavoidable. Legend has it that this old man is the god in charge of marriage, so he uses "the old man of the moon, the old man under the moon, and the old man under the moon" as another name for the matchmaker.

Matchmaker: Tang Dynasty Yuan Zhi made "The Legend of Yingying", writing that Zhang Sheng and Cui Yingying fell in love, and Cui's maid Red Lady set up a match, so that the lovers eventually became married, and Wang Shifu of the Yuan Dynasty adapted it into a miscellaneous drama of "The Legend of the West Chamber". Since then, "matchmaker" has become another name for matchmakers.

Momiji: This is also known as a love story. In feudal society, women from good families were always selected by the people in the palace to serve the imperial concubines, princesses, and princes. These palace maids spent their years in the lonely palace and could not be happy. During the Tang Dynasty, there was a palace maid named Han Cuiping, who was in the deep palace, but longed to get normal love in the world. At the risk of his life, he inscribed a poem on the autumn leaves, so that the autumn leaves could spread to the outside of the palace with the water of the imperial river. There is a scholar who picked up the red leaves of the inscription poem by chance, and was moved by the romance in it, and also inscribed the poem on the red leaves, and passed it to the palace by flowing water. Both of them are in love, but they don't have the chance to meet. Later, it was also a good fate, and 3,000 palace maids were released in the harem, and the two lovers finally met in the people. Later, they asked Prime Minister Han Yong to be their matchmaker and became a couple. Han Cuiping sighed with emotion, and wrote another poem: "A couplet of good sentences flows with the water, and ten years of romance is full of nostalgia." Today, he has become a friend of Luan Feng, and he knows that red leaves are a good medium. Since then, people have been called matchmakers and Momiji.

(End of chapter)