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(a) Kit fat (*) marriage. This is the traditional form of marriage and assumes that the parties were single and unmarried beforehand. Essential features are exchanges of horoscopes etc. beforehand by the respective families, negotiations by a go-between, signing of the red paper of betrothal, bridal chair (or taxi) from the bride's home to her groom's, feast at groom's house to announce the fact of marriage. It is not usual to omit any of these details, of which the red paper is perhaps the most important. However, there are occasional cases where the red paper is replaced by a certificate signed by both parties and by witnesses to the ceremony.
(b) Tin Fong (**) marriage. Where one of the parties to a kit fat marriage dies or is formally divorced, the surviving spouse may subsequently contract another formal marriage which is quite distinct from concubinage. It carries all the force of a kit fat marriage.
(c) Concubine. A concubine has a recognised legal status under Chinese custom and should not be regarded as an immoral plaything. Although a rich man, apart from his kit fat wife, may take more than one concubine in a fashion that leaves little doubt as to his uxorious mettle, one of the commoner purposes of taking a concubine is to provide the sons that the kit fat wife has perhaps failed to produce. The introduction of a concubine into a household is normally a formal process involving due recognition by the family and friends. It is an open matter, like marriage, and implies nothing indiscreet. As far as possible, husbands try to provide separate households for a wife and a concubine in case they do not get on well with each other. Attempts to claim status as a second wife, a level wife (p'eng tsai) or any other variation, should be discounted. Some experts state that by custom a Chinese is monogamous. As a rule he has only one customarily recognised wife or principal spouse, any other women with whom he co-habits being either a concubine (in the Chinese customary sense) or a kept woman.
(d) Kept women, i.e. women who regularly live with a man without being kit fat (*) or tin fong (**) wives or a concubine, are most frequently met amongst refugees from China.