ABSTRACT
As a rule, the day after the wedding a Bai bride goes back to spend about a week with her parents. Later, the bridegroom follows to meet her and they return to their new home together. In the rare cases where the bridegroom moves to the bride's house after the marriage, then he goes to spend the "honeymoon" in his original home for several days. When the time is up, the bride fetches him back to her village. But since I had no parents, we decided not to bother with this custom. In our case, we didn't even have a day of rest. The following morning my new wife's first order for me was, "You put all the animal droppings together in a bamboo basket. Carry them to our vegetable garden. Smash them. Wait for me. I'll come to show you how to spread them."
