Tongyangxi

What it was

Researchers of Chinese marriage call this arrangement a minor marriage, because the future bride enters her husband's household while both children are still young. That differs from a major marriage, where the bride only arrives at her husband's home on the wedding day itself. Most often a family that already had a son took the girl in, and the pair were betrothed from childhood, but not always: some families adopted a daughter first, believing this would help the wife bear a boy. The Hokkien name sim-pū-á translates roughly as little daughter-in-law, since sim-pu means daughter-in-law and á is a diminutive ending. The Mandarin term tongyangxi spells out child, raised, daughter-in-law, and serves as the usual Chinese rendering of the English phrase child bride.

Poverty and cost

The custom belonged above all to poor and rural households. A well-off family showed its standing by wedding a son in grand style, but the bride price of a major marriage could be crushing, sometimes close to a year's income, and a family that could not pay risked leaving no descendants. Adopting an infant girl cost little beyond food and clothes, and it promised even the poorest son a wife when he grew up. Birth families gave daughters up because a girl who married out would not look after them in old age or carry on their line, while a future daughter-in-law would stay and do both. So a household often took in an infant girl while handing over a daughter of its own.

The wedding itself

The match was made in childhood, but the wedding itself waited until both the young man and his bride had passed puberty. What it looked like depended on the family's means. A better-off household could stage a banquet as grand as any major marriage. Others held a small family ceremony. At the simplest end, one account describes nothing more than a bow before the ancestors, then a small reshuffle of the family's sleeping places. Because the pair had grown up side by side, the rite confirmed a bond formed years before, when the girl was first brought into the household as a small child.

Why unions failed

These marriages broke down often. Anthropologists explain this through the Westermarck effect, the idea that children raised closely together from an early age do not usually grow into partners who desire one another. Social attitudes matched: minor marriage was generally looked on with pity and read as a sign of hardship, since nobody chooses to wed a person they have lived beside like a brother or sister. Families did not pick it from preference. They used it because poverty left them few ways to secure a bride, and the arrangement's frequent failure was the price of that security.

Law and ending

Mainland China outlawed the custom after the Communist revolution of 1949, and the New Marriage Law of 1950 forbade it outright. In 1953 the committee applying that law ruled that an unmarried adopted daughter could pick her own husband whatever her two families had agreed, and that one already wed could seek a divorce. In Taiwan the 1950s brought a legal tangle: a shim-pua girl registered as an adopted daughter, and her intended husband as an adopted son, made the pair step-siblings in law, which barred their marriage, and the Judicial Yuan reviewed the rule three times to let such couples wed. The custom faded as Taiwan grew richer, while compulsory schooling sent these daughters out of the house and gave many a way to resist or escape.

How Tongyangxi is kept

In a shim-pua arrangement, the adopting parents took in a young girl, often an infant, to be the future wife of their son. Her birth family handed her over, sometimes while also giving up a daughter of their own, and sometimes in the hope that the adoption would bring them a son. The girl grew up beside her betrothed as a sister in all but name. After both had passed puberty a wedding was held, ranging from a full banquet to a simple bow before the ancestors. She then stayed on as daughter-in-law, supporting her parents-in-law in old age and bearing the family's descendants.

When and where

The match began with an adoption in the children's earliest years, and the betrothal dated from that moment. The wedding itself took place only once both bride and groom had passed puberty, so the arrangement ran through the whole of their childhood. Sources name no season or lucky date; timing followed a family's means more than the calendar.

The custom is documented for pre-modern China and for Taiwan, where the Hokkien name shim-pua comes from. It crossed class lines but was most at home among poor and rural families, where a major marriage's bride price was out of reach. It disappeared from mainland China after 1949 and from Taiwan by the 1970s.

What Tongyangxi means

To the families who kept it, the arrangement was less a romance than a form of security. A daughter-in-law raised from infancy would remain in the household, tend her parents-in-law in old age and carry the line forward, things a daughter who married out could not do. Letting a daughter go, meanwhile, spared her birth family the cost of raising and marrying her. Some also believed that taking in a shim-pua girl improved a wife's chances of bearing a son. The custom meant lineage insurance rather than chosen partnership.

Who takes part

• The adopting parents: took in a young girl and raised her as their son's future wife
• The birth parents: gave up a daughter, sparing the cost of raising and marrying her out
• The shim-pua daughter: grew up in her future husband's household and married into it after puberty
• The son: was betrothed in childhood and wed the girl he had grown up beside

Then and now

The custom has ended. Mainland China outlawed it in 1949 and the 1950 New Marriage Law forbade it, with a 1953 ruling letting adopted daughters choose their own partners and married daughters-in-law divorce. In Taiwan, rising prosperity made the arrangement pointless, and compulsory schooling opened a world outside the home from which many girls escaped. It was gone there by the 1970s.

Questions people ask about Tongyangxi

See also

Chinese pre-wedding customsThe traditional betrothal rituals of the Book of Rites that prepare a Chinese marriage.Marriage marketPublic spaces where families gather to find spouses for their children through listings and brokers.Shanghai Marriage MarketParents pin written profiles of their unmarried children to strings in a Shanghai parkAuspicious wedding datesThe selection of lucky times for a ceremony based on astrology, numerology, and tradition.

Good reading and sources

• Tongyangxi on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Wedding customs differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.