Fúxī 伏羲 = a legendary monarch
Nǚwā 女娲 = his sister, who accidentally created humans
After he had taught people how to use nets to fish and to hunt and had taught them how to divine with the eight trigrams (as we saw in a different story), the good monarch Fúxī 伏羲 (reign 01a-1) established a capital at Chéncāng 陈仓 in Shaǎnxī 陕西 Province, and later moved it to Wǎnqiū 宛丘 in Hénán 河南 province (reign 01a-1).
There he lived with his sister Nǚwā 女娲, who had created humans from clay in a different story.
Both Fúxī and Nǚwā rejoiced to see the happy humans peacefully leading their lives in joy and innocence. But one day Nǚwā noticed that the younger humans were engaging in unrestrained and excessively joyful intimacy, which contravened morality and good taste, and which, while joyous, didn’t seem very innocent —in fact not innocent at all. So she went to her brother Fúxī and urged him to put a stop to this.
Following Nǚwā’s suggestions, Fúxī drew up rules for marriage. He invented surnames so people could keep track of who was in which family. Then he prohibited pre-marital sexual relations as well as marriages between people in the same family. He also prescribed the rites to be performed to establish a marriage, including the money and presents that needed to be exchanged. And he required that marriages be decently arranged by appropriately prudish matchmakers and not left to anything so foolish and immodest as “falling in love.”
Because these provisions were originally devised by Nǚwā, she is credited with inventing marriage and ordered family life, and she is honored as the patron goddess of matchmakers under the name Nǚméi 女媒 (“female broker”) or Gāoméi 皐媒 (“riverbank broker”).
(Certain lewd persons write Gāoméi 皐媒, “riverbank broker,” with the homonymous and superficially similar characters 睾媒, “testicle broker.” That is , of course, outrageous, and matchmakers are right to take offense at such crass, schoolboy humor.)
Although the goal of surnames had been to identify families and prevent indecency among the young, Fúxī found that the surnames had the additional advantage of facilitating tax collection. Since he was emperor, facilitating tax collection seemed like a very good idea —even better than preventng indecency— and the idea was much appreciated by emperors ever after.