Six Etiquette
• Proposal: When an unmarried boy's parents find a potential daughter-in-law. They then located a matchmaker whose job was to assuage the conflict of interests and general embarrassments on the part of two families largely unknown to each other when discussing the possibility of marriage.
• Birthdates: If the potential daughter-in-law's family did not object to the proposal the matchmaker would then compare the couples' birthdates. If according to Chinese astrology the couple is compatible they would then proceed to the next step.
• Bride price (Betrothal gifts): At this point the bridegroom's family arranges for the matchmaker to present bride price (betrothal gifts), including the betrothal letter, to the bride's family.
• Wedding gifts: The groom's family will then send an elaborate array of food, cakes, and religious items to the bride's family.
• Arranging the wedding: The two families will arrange a wedding day which will bring the most luck to the couple, again based on the Chinese calendar mythology.
• Wedding Ceremony: The final ritual is the actual wedding ceremony where bride and groom become a married couple, which consists of many elaborate parts

o Wedding Procession: The wedding procession from bride's home would march to the groom's home. The procession consists of a traditional band, the bride's sedan, the maids of honor's sedans (if there are maids of honor), and bride's dowry in the forms other than money.
o Welcoming the Bride: The wedding procession of the bride's family stops at the door of the groom's home. There are ceremonies to be followed to welcome the bride and her wedding procession into the groom's home, which varies for locale to locale.
o Actual Wedding Ceremonies: Equivalent to exchanging vows in the west, the couple would pay respect to the heaven and earth, paying respect to the groom's parents, paying respect to each other.
o Wedding banquet In Chinese society, the wedding banquet is known as xǐ-jǐu, literally joyful wine), and is sometimes far more important than the wedding itself. There are ceremonies such as bride presenting wines or tea to parents, spouse, and guests.
Before modern times, women were not allowed to choose the person they married. Instead, the family of the bride picked the prospective husband. Marriages were chosen based upon the needs of reproduction and honor, as well as the needs of the father and husband.
 
Traditional divorce process
In traditional Chinese society, there are three major ways to dissolve a marriage.
The first one is no-fault divorce. According to the legal code of Tang Dynasty (618-907), a marriage may be dissolved due to personal incompatibility, provided that the husband writes a divorce note.
The second way  is through a state-mandated annulment of marriage. This applies to when one spouse commits a serious crime (variously defined, usually defined more broadly for the wife) against the other or his/her clan.
Finally, the husband may unilaterally declare a divorce. To be legally recognized, however, it must be based on one of the following 7 reasons:
• The wife lacks filial piety towards her parents-in-law. This makes the parents-in-law capable of breaking a marriage against both partner’s will.
• She fails to bear a son.
• She is vulgar or lewd/adulterous.
• She is jealous. This includes objecting to her husband taking an additional wife or concubine.
• She has vile disease.
• She is gossipy.
• She commits theft.
Obviously, these reasons can be stretched quite a bit to suit the husband and his family. However there are 3 clearly defined exceptions, under which the unilateral divorce is disallowed:
• She has no family to return to.
• She had observed a full 3-year mourning for a parent-in-law.
• Her husband was poor when they married, and now is rich.
The above law about unilateral divorce was in force from Tang Dynasty to its final abolition in the Republic of China's Civil Code (Part IV) Section 5, passed in 1930.

Polygamy
This section discusses the social and legal aspects of polygamy, mostly polygyny (one man, multiple women), in traditional Chinese society. The traditional culture does not prohibit or explicitly encourage polygyny (except as a way to obtain male children).
The scope of practice is limited by the number of available women, as well as the financial resource of the man, since he has to be able to support the women. Therefore polygyny is mostly limited to parts of the upper to middle class; while among the rest of the population monogamy can be regarded as the norm. Historical written records is probably skewed with regard to the actual prevalence of polygamy, since the elite can be safely assumed to be overrepresented in them.

Sororate marriage
Sororate marriage is a custom in which a man marries his wife's sister(s). Later it is expanded to include her cousins or females from the same clan. The Chinese name is 娣媵 (娣=younger sister,媵=co-bride). It can happen at the same time as he marries the first wife, at a later time while the wife is still alive, or after she dies. This practice was frequent among the nobility of Zhou Dynasty, with incidences occurring at later times.

 Multiple wives with equal status
• Emperors of some relatively minor dynasties are known to have multiple empresses.
• Created by special circumstances. For example, during wartime a man may be separated from his wife and mistakenly believe that she had died. He remarries, and later the first wife is found to be alive. After they are reunited, both wives may be recognized.
• Qianlong Emperor of Qing dynasty began to allow polygamy for the specific purpose of siring heirs for another branch of the family. Called "multiple inheritance", if a man is the only son of his father , and his uncle has no son, then with mutual agreement he may marry an additional wife. A male child from this union becomes the uncle's grandson and heir. The process can be repeated for additional uncles.

Beside the traditional desire for male children to carry on the family name, this allowance partially resolves a dilemma created by the emperor himself. He had recently banned all non-patrilineal forms of inheritance, while wanting to preserve the proper order in the Chinese kinship. Therefore, a couple without son cannot adopt one from within the extended family. They either have to adopt from outside (which was regarded by many as passing the family wealth to unrelated "outsiders"), or become heirless. The multiple inheritance marriages provided a way out when the husband's brother has a son.

Concubinage
Women in concubinage  are treated as inferior, and expected to be subservient to the wife (if there is one). The women were not wedded in a whole formal ceremony, had less right in the relationship, and may be divorced arbitrarily. They generally come from lower social status or were bought as slaves. Women who had eloped may also become concubines since a formal wedding requires her parents' participation.
The number of concubines is sometime regulated, which differs according to the men's rank. Emperors almost always have multiple royal concubines.
A somewhat different form of it is the so-called "two primary wives". Traditionally, a married woman is expected to live with her husband's family. When the husband has to live away from his family, however, she has to stay with her in-laws and take care of them. A man who thus suffers chronic separation from his wife, such as a traveling merchant, may "marry" another woman where he lives and set up a separate household with her. Due to the geographical separation, the second woman often regards herself as a full wife for all practical matters, yet legally this marriage is not recognized, and she is treated as a concubine. In China specifically, in cases where the primary wife fail to have sons to prolong the family name, a secondary wife is allowed by law via the sing-song girls concept.
This practice has influenced the recent surge of polygamy in mainland China. Since the opening of China's border in the 1970s, businessmen from Hong Kong and Taiwan started setting up "secondary wives"  in the mainland. Since then the practice has spread to local affluent men.
According to Chinese criminal law, married people who leave home to live with their lovers are considered to have committed bigamy.

Polyandry
Polyandry, the practice of one woman having multiple husbands, is traditionally considered immoral, prohibited by law, and uncommon in practice. However, there are instances in which a man in poverty rents or pawns his wife temporarily.