The marriage customs of the Hui nationality in Ningxia complement the formation of the origin of the Hui nationality in Ningxia. It is not only a part of the rituals of life for Muslim believers, but also the product of the combination of multi-ethnic customs. In the process of adapting to and transforming the environment, people have formed local cultural characteristics. Therefore, the marriage customs of the Hui nationality are also a concentrated reflection of the regional characteristics of Ningxia in folk life, carrying many ethnic and regional cultural characteristics and rich cultural matters. Hui elders often call holding a wedding for their sons "unloading the burden", believing that this is a "lifelong event" and the responsibility of the elderly. The marriage event is included in the wedding agenda, including the procedures of proposing marriage, looking at the family, blind dating, congratulations, marrying, reciting nikah, setting a banquet, playing with the parents-in-law, making trouble in the bridal chamber, recognizing the elder and the younger, and returning to the door. Setting a banquet is the climax of the wedding. Ningxia Hui people generally call holding a wedding or a happy event "setting a banquet" or "banquet". Banquet songs are the "family songs" improvised by "singers" at wedding banquets. They include wedding songs, "needlework" to praise the newlyweds, "narrative songs" to thank relatives and friends, and humorous "wine songs". Banquet songs are the essence of Hui wedding culture. Their words are elegant and healthy, their tunes are beautiful and smooth, and their content is extremely rich. They have the function of creating a festive atmosphere and imparting education. They are a valuable source of original material for studying the history of Hui nationality and music. Hui wedding customs are unique because of banquet songs. At the same time, the inheritance of Hui wedding customs from generation to generation has enabled the preservation and inheritance of many Hui art forms. Hui marriages contain both religious content and folk culture content. With the development of the times, Hui wedding customs have been influenced by modern social trends, and some traditional wedding customs have gradually faded out of people's lives. Today, the banquet songs that have been sung for a long time in Hui weddings are gradually disappearing from the wedding customs, making Hui wedding customs lose their characteristics and brilliance. Therefore, protecting and inheriting Hui wedding customs and banquet songs is to protect the cultural genes of the Hui people and to cherish the national art. Hui marriage is greatly influenced by Islam. The Koran stipulates that girls are "out of childhood" at the age of nine and boys are twelve, that is, the end of adolescence, and they can get married. Therefore, the phenomenon of early marriage is more serious in areas where Islam is popular. In terms of the scope of intermarriage, the Hui people restrict the marriage of brothers and sisters who are born with the same mother. At the same time, they implement strict one-way ethnic endogamy, that is, Hui men can marry women from other ethnic groups, but Hui women must not marry men from other ethnic groups. After mutual contact and understanding on various occasions, Hui young men and women think that the other party is their sweetheart. Then the young man will frankly tell his parents the truth, and then ask the respected elders in the tribe to introduce him to the girl's family to ask for marriage. If both parties are satisfied with the marriage, the next step is to choose an auspicious day for the engagement ceremony. Engagement Hui marriage starts with engagement. The matchmaker goes to the girl's family to propose marriage. The girl's parents usually do not express their opinions. They wait until the Hui festival for the man and woman and their parents to see each other. If they like each other, the girl will accept the gifts such as Fu tea sent by the man's family brought by the matchmaker before the next Juma Day. On the day of engagement, the girl's family divides the Fu tea sent by the man's family into several small pieces and distributes them to relatives, friends and neighbors, and gives the future son-in-law gifts such as clothes, hats, shoes and socks sewn by the girl herself. According to custom, the auspicious day for engagement is mostly chosen on the night of "Juma Day" (Friday). The boy's parents, accompanied by respected elders and relatives and friends, bring 1,000 yuan of betrothal money, 800 kilograms of noodles, 1,000 betel nuts, a pair of bracelets, cakes and other gifts to the girl's family, and the girl will personally receive and accept the gifts. This means that the man and woman are willing to become lifelong partners. After paying the "female card silver" (bride price), the parents of both parties will agree on an auspicious day for the wedding. Giving betel nuts to neighbors, relatives and friends is to announce the marriage to the public. The woman uses the "female card silver" provided by the man as a dowry and for the wedding. Noodles are a way to show respect to the woman's parents. The wedding is also held on the "Friday". The wedding is held according to Islamic rituals. Three days before the wedding, the two families use canvas to build a large umbrella-shaped temporary fence house on the open flat ground in front of the house. On this day, they call it "making a pot", which means washing hair. The bride will go from house to house to invite women from the whole village (mainly young women) to her house to wash their hair. Two days before the wedding, both men and women must bathe their whole body, commonly known as "big and small ablutions". In the afternoon of the same day, young men and women in the village will feast the bride and groom respectively (women invite the bride and men invite the groom). At the same time, the old women of the village are invited to dress up the bride. In the evening, the bride and groom each receive guests in their own "welcoming hall". The banquet is arranged in pairs to show that the newlyweds are married in pairs. At the banquet, young people sing and chant Islamic teachings until late at night. This day is called "Adouge". The day before the wedding is called "Yao" by the Hui people. On that day, the bride's family slaughters cattle and sheep, sets up a banquet, and entertains the guests who come to congratulate. According to custom, the guests give the bride cash, daily necessities and hall decorations. In the evening, the bride dresses up again (da ghusl) to show that she is clean and free from filth, and warmly invites the guests to drink tea and have fun. The wedding is held in the early morning of an auspicious day: the groom's family sets up a "dinner" to entertain the guests and give them betel nuts. After the morning ceremony, the guests go to the groom's house to give gifts. After the "dinner", a welcoming team composed of young friends, the groom's brother or uncle goes to welcome the bride. The bride wears a black veil and a wedding dress, and cries loudly to say goodbye to her parents, brothers, sisters, relatives and friends, and follows the welcoming team to the groom's house. When the welcoming team returns home, everyone goes out to greet them. The bride entered the gate of her husband's house surrounded by neighbors and relatives. Then the groom's family invited the imam to preside over the wedding ceremony. After dinner, the groom, accompanied by the groom and the matchmaker, went to the bride's house to pick up the bride in a sedan chair (or on horseback or on foot). When they arrived at the bride's house, the door was closed. The groom came forward to knock on the door on behalf of the groom and said some congratulations and thanks. After the door of the bride's house was opened, the groom and others could enter the bride's house. The bride's family was very warm and polite to the people who came to welcome the bride. When they had tea, they asked the groom to sit at the table, and served three betel nuts and three sugar teas to entertain the bride's welcome and the accompanying guests. After the tea, a dish of cold beef slices, a bowl of cold chicken and a fish were served. When the fish was on the table, it was known that the bride's welcome could take the bride away. At this time, the groom and the matchmaker negotiated to let the groom stand up and salute the bride's parents, let the bride sit in the sedan chair, and then set off. The elder brother or younger brother of the bride will hold the pole of the sedan chair of the bride and send her for a distance before returning. Some will send her all the way to the groom's house. After the bride arrives at the groom's house, two elderly women will open the curtain of the sedan chair and feed her a small bowl of red rice mixed with pine nuts, melon seeds and sesame seeds, which means to give birth to a son soon and have many children and grandchildren. After the bride finishes eating and gets off the sedan chair, she is supported by two girls to enter the house. The bride holds (het) (selections from the Quran and Hadith) in one hand and money in the other hand, which means to pray for God's blessing and bring happiness and money to the groom's house. At this time, the groom greets the bride at the door of the new house. After the bride enters the bridal chamber, she distributes the wedding candy wrapped in red paper brought from her parents' home to the people who are congratulating her. Then the guests are entertained. Generally, eight bowls of beef are served, with eight people at a table, and sometimes a few side dishes are added. During the banquet, there are special people to add rice to the guests, and the service is very thoughtful. At 3 pm, the groom's family will hold a banquet and invite the imam and villagers to read "Nikah" for the bride and groom, and hold a religious ceremony for the wedding. The wedding ceremony is relatively simple - the bride and groom wear prayer hats (male wears white hats, female wears veils), sit facing the imam, and the imam asks the man and woman whether they love each other. After receiving a positive answer, the imam recites "Nikah" and solemnly blesses the bride and groom to live in harmony and grow old together. Then, the groom spreads a piece of red silk on his knees and receives the gifts and food such as pounds of red dates, peanuts, candies and betel nuts thrown by the imam. These gifts and food are distributed by the groom to the children and the crowd watching. The wedding ceremony is usually held in the evening, with red candles shining brightly in the main hall, where parents, relatives and guests of both parties sit. The wedding ceremony is hosted by the Imam. He first asks the bride and groom whether they are willing to be married. When they get a positive answer, he recites the "Happiness Sutra" in the Quran, then grabs the pine nuts, melon seeds, red dates and other fruits on the table and throws them to the bride and groom, and asks the bride and groom to catch them with their lapels. After the wedding fruits are scattered, the Imam gives a teaching speech to the bride and groom, educating the newlyweds to respect their parents, love each other, be honest and hardworking, and not do illegal things. At the same time, he also tells some of the Hui people's customs, history and beautiful traditions. At the end of the wedding, under the presidency of the Imam, everyone thanks Allah together. That night, the groom warmly entertains all relatives, friends and neighbors with wedding candies, wedding tea and auspicious meals. People also give speeches, sing songs, play games and congratulate the success of the wedding. The feast ends at dawn in the east. The man has to give gifts to the woman's family, and the woman has to return gifts to the man's family. This form is called "Gua Dali". The gifts that the man sends to the woman's family include meat, fruits, and decorations. Meat and fruits are for the woman's family to entertain guests, while decorations are for the bride to dress up. These gifts are sent to the woman's family by the imam. The woman's return gift is usually the bride's dowry, such as furniture, clothes, bedding, daily necessities, etc., which are sent to the man's home by the bride's brothers on the day they receive the man's gifts. On the day of the wedding, the man's family will paste big red wedding characters and couplets. A passage written in Arabic (Koran) is hung in the middle of the main hall wall, and Arabic banners are on both sides. Early in the morning, the man's relatives all kneel in the main hall to listen to the imam kneeling to recite (Koran) and pray for the blessing of Allah. After the reading, the chief of the wedding banquet will entertain the imam. After the wedding, the groom's family entertains the imam and guests with tea and glutinous rice. The next day, the bride gets up early in the morning, cleans the front and back of the house and the nearby streets and alleys, then buys a sheep or duck with her own money to cook a sumptuous meal for the whole family, and gives the shoes and boots brought from her parents' home to the groom's parents, brothers and sisters, indicating that she will be a member of her husband's family from now on, and hopes to be welcomed and live in harmony. The bride will return to her parents' home. On this day, the bride's family will host a banquet for relatives, friends and guests, and the bride and groom will meet the bride's relatives and friends. That night, the bride and groom will return to the man's home. The third day is called the return door, and the bride will return to her parents' home alone for a short stay. At this point, the wedding is over.