Chou Collection, Lower Volume
Radical: Woman (nǚ)
媾
Kangxi Strokes: 13
Page 268, Entry 28
Guangyun (Dictionary of Sounds and Rhymes), Jiyun (Compilation of Sounds and Rhymes), Yunhui (Collection of Rhymes), and Zhengyun (Correct Rhymes) all record the pronunciation as gou.
Shuowen (Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters): A second marriage.
Zuo Zhuan (Chronicle of Zuo): Only our State of Zheng has requests, as in former marriages and unions. Note: A wife's father is called hun; a remarriage or subsequent union is called gou.
Also means favor.
Book of Odes (Shijing), Cao Feng: That man, he does not fulfill his favor.
Also means to combine. Identical to the gou in the I Ching (Book of Changes) passage regarding the union of male and female essence.
Li Bai poem: The creative force combines the primal talisman, the union of essences ascends the spirit.
Also means to reconcile.
Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji): Lou Chang said: It is better to send an important envoy to seek reconciliation.
Strategies of the Warring States (Zhan Guo Ce): Written as jiang.