hūn

marriage

HSK 4

Evolution

婚 in bronze script
Bronze · ~800 BCE
婚 in seal script
Seal Script · ~200 BCE
婚 in liushutong script
Liushūtong · ~1600 CE
Modern
dark history

Woman (女) + dusk (昏). In ancient China, marriages were arranged by “snatching the bride at sunset” — a practice called 昏礼. The character literally encodes the time of day kidnappings happened. The word for dusk (昏 hūn) and marriage (婚 hūn) are still homophones.

Components

女 ancient form
woman
dusk

Related Characters

Further Reading

25 Characters With Wild EtymologiesGuide

Appears in Stories