Page 324 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A-Z 317

A toggle in the form of a mushroom

expresses the wish that both father and son should become high officials. Even today, it is
customary among the Mongols for a man who has been having intercourse with a girl, to
give her a belt when he is leaving her. If the girl turns out to be pregnant she is ‘married
by means of the belt’, and henceforth she will take the name of her lover, as will her
child.
In South China, sashes are often worn in preference to belts, and are made out of cloth
rather than leather. At wedding ceremonies, ‘exchange of belts’ symbolises the marriage.
This corresponds to the old Chinese custom of the ‘girdlecloth’ which the mother

fastened to a bride’s girdle when she was moving into her husband’s house. She removed
it in the marriage bed, and it was subsequently returned to her mother to be washed (i.e. it
should be bloody!). Here also, the act of touching the girdle signifies the consummation
of marriage.
If a man wanted to take such useful things as a fan or a writing
brush along with him, he fastened them to a cord which ran through his
belt or sash and was secured by a toggle. These toggles were in use until
the beginning of the 20th century and are often very fine examples of the
Chinese miniaturist’s art.