“门当户对”有深意（南旭东译）

“门当户对”的由来

Origin of the matching of households                                 

门簪有方形、长方形、菱形、六角形、八角形等样式。门簪的图案多雕以四季花卉，四枚的门簪以春兰夏荷、秋菊冬梅多见，两枚的门簪多雕以“吉祥”等字样。

  The gate hairpin comes in the shapes of squares, rectangles, diamonds, hexagons, octagons, and etc. The gate hairpin was mostly carved with flowers of the four seasons, and a four-piece gate hairpin were most commonly carved with the spring orchid, summer lotus blossom, autumn chrysanthemum, and winter plum blossom, while a two-piece one mostly with characters such as "auspicious".

门档指位于门楣上方的圆柱形木雕，一般都是双数。皇朝时，门档规矩极其严格，五至七品官员两个门档，四品以上官员四个门档，十二个门档仅限亲王以上的大户才能用，即便皇亲国戚，不封王也不敢建三开门、嵌十二个门档。台阶也有严格规定，六、七品官员台阶不能高于二级，五品官员台阶不能高于三级，以此类推，台阶数目最高不能超过八级。九级代表顶点，所以只有皇上可以享用至尊的“九”。以前仕途上所谓的 “进身之阶”，即缘于此处。

The door shields (mendang) refers to the round wood carvings on the top of the door lintel which usually came in even numbers. In the imperious dynasties, two door shiels were allowed for the household gates of officials ranging from the fifth rank to the seventh, four for the four ranking officials and above, twelve for big households such as those of princes. But even royal households without princely titles did not dare to build a three-door gate set with twelve door shields. There were also strict provisions on the door steps. Two steps were for officials of the sixth and seventh ranks, three for the fifth-ranking officials, three for ..., and so on, but the total number of steps must not exceed eight as the number nine represented the top, the supremacy that could only be enjoyed by the emperor himself, hence the origin of the so called the "advancement steps" in the officialdom.

在民间，“门当”演变成大宅门前的石鼓，因百姓相信威武的石鼓能避邪，犹如泰山石敢当；置于门楣上的圆柱形木雕倒成了“户对”。短粗的“户对”，表达了百姓对男性生殖器的崇拜，意在祈求人丁兴旺。后来门档户对就演变成世俗社会衡量男婚女嫁双方条件的常用语。

Among the ordinary households, the door shields evolved into drum-shaped stone blocks in front of the gate as the ordinary people believed that the gigantic blocks could prevent evil as the rock from Mountain Tai. The cylindrical wood carvings on the door lintel evolved into "hudui". The short and thick "hudui", an expression of people's worship of the male's reproductive organ, was designed to spray for a prosperous line of descent. Later, "mendang and hudui (matching of households)" evolved into a common phrase used by the secular society to measure the mutual conditions of a pair of man and woman considered for marriage.