A Study on the Interpretation and Evolution of Vocabulary in Ancient Chinese Ghost Marriage Customs

The custom of ghost marriage in China has a long history, and the vocabulary related to ghost marriage has also undergone a process of change. The words of QianZang and JiaShang in the Zhou Dynasty used characters related to death, reflecting the importance placed on funerals. The Han Dynasty’s expression of the meaning of ghost marriage includes the word “Hui” which emphasizes the importance of marriage relationships, indicating the social atmosphere of valuing weddings in the Han Dynasty. The emergence of the words of YouHun and MingHun from the Six Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty conveys the meaning of ’marriage in the underworld’, reflecting people’s view of ghost marriage as a continuation of life. After the Song Dynasty, vocabulary with the meaning of ghost marriage continued to combine the concepts of another world and marital relationships in both meaning and word formation. It can be seen that the vocabulary expression of the custom of ghost marriage, from being related to death in the Zhou Dynasty to reflecting marital relationships in the Han Dynasty, and finally to the explicit use of the word marriage in the Tang Dynasty, truly reflects the cognitive changes of ancient people towards ghost marriage customs from funerals to weddings.