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Bushi Zhengzong · The Orthodox Tradition of Divination
Golden Counsels · Marriage
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
Marriage
A man and woman joining in marriage accord with a bond determined before. The Zhu and Chen families’ union rests on an allotment formed long ago.
Without the Old Man under the Moon, who could know husband and wife then? Without Fuxi, how could one recognize good or ill today?
To harmonize a married pair, first determine yin and yang.
Yin and yang misplaced makes harmony of qin and se zithers hard to expect. Inner and outer both moving must bring household turmoil.
Six Combinations is easy and favorable; Six Clashes is difficult and unfavorable.
Yin with yang, yang with yin, especially favors the joining of threads. Self combining with Response, Response with Self, finally accomplishes the planting of jade.
Reading note: The supplied final clause stops after 之. Its jade-planting image is retained without inventing a lost object or ceremony.
In seeking the birth-date document, how could Response moving or empty be suitable? In discussing betrothal gifts, how could Snake or Brothers at Self be fitting?
Response generating Self means willing consent to marriage. Self controlling Response means forcing a marriage through strength.
If the day combines and Self and Response are of harmonious like phases, the matter is accomplished through someone’s help. If Parents moves while Descendants is in Tomb or Extinction, the marriage is sought for an heir.
Wealth and Officer moving into combination means private intimacy before public marriage. Self and Response changing into Void means initial success and final regret.
Six Combinations with moving images receiving penalty or injury must bring much obstruction. Self clashing but supported by the day will have an advocate.
Ghost controlling Self confirms how hard it is for the woman behind the green window to marry. Useful combining with Body reveals how easily the wedding feast can be held.
If Wealth and Ghost have no penalty or harm, the couple must be harmonious. If documents moves in command, offspring must be sparse.
If in one palace, there should be friendship between the families. With a threefold combination, they have previously had the familiarity of meeting.
Wealth or Ghost in Void is a great taboo for marriage. Yin and yang properly placed is truly bound to Heaven’s mandate.
Response Wealth and Self Ghost must mean the wife leads and the husband follows. Response Ghost and Self Wealth cannot avoid the wife taking the husband’s authority.
Disharmony among brothers’ wives comes only from the Officer line moving adversely. Disharmony with parents-in-law comes from the Wife position crossing or heavy.
Parents combining with Wealth means a future New Terrace affair. Self at the Wife position means no intention later of supporting the elders.
Reading note: New Terrace retains the verse’s named classical allusion rather than supplying a new marital event.
Ghost empty and Wealth hidden must mean a widow before she has crossed the marriage threshold. Moving Wealth with Tiger must mean a widow wearing mourning.
Self and Response both empty makes a lifelong joined-tree bond hard to fulfill. Wealth and Officer appearing repeatedly means becoming newly married once again.
If the husband has talent, Officer occupies Birth. If the wife is unattractive and awkward, Wealth falls in the Tomb or Storehouse.
A strong destiny permits expectation of prosperity. A declining time makes advancement hard to expect.
Wealth combining with Wealth brings two gains from one undertaking. Ghost changing into Ghost brings reversal after reversal.
Brothers moving with Dark Warrior requires guarding against a scheme of robbery or fraud. Response empty with documents hidden means no one yet presides over the pledge.
Two Parents rising together must mean competing pledges. Two Officers both moving begins a competition to marry.
The day meeting combination with Parents means the joining of marriage cups has already been set beneath the Three Stars. Self receiving generation from Wealth ultimately brings a dowry in a hundred carriages.
Reading note: The wedding image 百兩 is rendered as a hundred carriages, not a monetary weight.
To arrange a matchmaker, discuss the intervening lines.
If it generates Response, it is connected with the woman’s family. If it combines with Self, it must have a kinship connection to the man’s household.
First examine the hexagram images’ yin and yang to decide male or female. Next examine the lines’ movement and stillness to infer older or younger.
To discuss poverty, wealth or status, examine life and destiny. To judge attractiveness or unattractiveness, test temperament and character.
Vermilion Bird with Brothers habitually gains profit between the parties. Self and Response clashing or combining means someone has asked that person to act as matchmaker.
Both intervening lines moving must mean several Old Men under the Moon competing over the pledge. Both intervening lines empty must mean no one conveying good will for the ceremony.
Self and Response at odds rely on the go-between’s words to make agreement. An intervening line under control can accomplish nothing, however ornate the speech.
Wealth and Officer clashing or controlling instead brings blame from within the arrangement. Self and Response generating or supporting must bring a generous benefit from it.
Good or ill in one hexagram requires examining its subtle turns in detail. Only then can a lifelong couple know reunion and harmony to the end.
This chapter concerns only a man asking about marrying a woman, or a woman asking about marrying a man. Practitioners now fail to distinguish its details. In choosing a son-in-law or daughter-in-law, marrying off a sister or taking a wife for an elder brother, they do not judge by the Useful Spirit. They indiscriminately make Officer the husband and Wealth the wife, greatly misleading people.
The chapter itself says that discord among brothers' wives comes from Officer moving, and discord with parents-in-law comes from the Wife position crossing or heavy. These two statements provide evidence. Students should infer from the Useful Spirit's favorable condition, rather than indiscriminately discuss Wealth and Officer.
Reading note: The supplied 嫂 relationship is retained through taking a wife for an elder brother. No different relative is substituted.
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