EXPANSION AND EXTENSION IN HAKKA SOCIETY
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general rule. Unlike the Punti population, among whom it was customarily expected that groom and bride were total strangers to each other,40 the Hakka go-between arranged a meeting on a selected day at a tea house in a market town. The boy and the girl each brought along their 'friends', which presumably meant mainly the age-mates of their respective major lineages. The parents were not present on this occasion. If the couple consented, the boy's parents selected an auspicious day and informed the girl's family at least a month in advance of the date of the wedding.
The bride's family now started to arrange the dowry, which mainly consisted of clothes, at an amount that was supposed to be sufficient for her entire lifetime, and which was maintained under her control after the marriage. If it could be afforded, the dowry also contained some jewellery.
At the wedding the bride was transferred from her native village to her future one by means of a sedan chair. This ceremony is supposed to have limited the area in which a marriageable girl was to be found, as in this mountain district it would be difficult for a bridal procession to move too long a distance. Most wives of the valley seem to have been recruited from the surrounding mountain villages and from the Three Fathoms Cove area. Big Stream Village also has had many wives coming from one particular village in the Lam Chuen Valley in the hinterland of the Tai Po Market. It was also pointed out that in 'old times' marriage connections stretched as far as the border town of Sha Tau Kok and Sham Chun Market in Chinese territory.4 Plum Grove Village and Grass Field Village have frequently had marriage connections with the Sai Kung area. Some of the community members working overseas took secondary wives in the country they were working in.42
Adoption of infant or child brides into the household was also very frequent, as this was a more economic solution for poor people who had not then to feed an extra mouth until the girl was of marriageable age and provide a dowry for her. In both cases the woman maintained the surname of the clan of which she was born a member.
At the present-day go-betweens are not used. The youths make their own contacts during work and recreation. Bonds of