📖 Meaning
A grown girl should be married off. It is the traditional Chinese saying that once a daughter reaches adulthood, she ought to be wed in a timely manner. The phrase reflects the old societal expectation that a woman's marriage was a natural and necessary milestone of life.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom is a variant of the more commonly seen phrase 女大当嫁 (a grown girl ought to marry). It belongs to the same folk tradition as 男大当婚, 女大当嫁, which held that when children reached a marriageable age, it was the family's duty to arrange suitable unions. No single classical text is credited as the definitive source; rather, the expression circulated widely in vernacular speech and Ming–Qing vernacular fiction. It embodies the long-standing patrilineal custom that treated a daughter's timely marriage as both a social obligation and a parental responsibility.
💡 Example Usage
女儿今年已二十有六，女长当嫁，做父母的也该为她操心了。
Our daughter is already twenty-six; a grown girl should marry, and as her parents we ought to start thinking about it.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 女长当嫁
- Pinyin: nǚ zhǎng dāng jià
- Literal Translation: girl, grown, should, marry
- Category: Lifestyle
- Characters: 4