Chinese characters are the carrier of Chinese national culture, and Chinese civilization can live endlessly, and Chinese characters have contributed greatly. Therefore, Chinese characters are closely related to ancient culture.
In ancient marriage, one word was essential, that is, "marry", which is a knowing word, and it can be simply divided into "taking a daughter" and taking the other's daughter as a concubine.
However, how to "take" it involves a whole set of cultural system of marriage customs, which is closely related to the emergence and development of ancient marriage customs in China.
First, what is "marriage"
The square shape of Chinese characters gives people a strong visual feeling, and there is a high degree of consistency and correlation between form and meaning.
The word "marry" in Shuo Wen Jie Zi points out that "take women, take them from women".
What is the origin of the word "take" that frequently appears here?
We still have to read Shuo Wen Jie Zi, which means to capture. Zhou Li further explained that it means to capture the left ear, that is, the ancient people cut off their left ear when capturing wild animals or enemies. This is simply a war term.
"Take" is a compulsory action, so it must resort to force, so it is extended to take, take and take it for yourself. Getting married is a joyous event. Why did the ancients use such bloody words?
It turned out that there was a "marriage robbery" at that time. This is a kind of marriage that forcibly robs women by force, and then achieves the purpose of marriage.
Mainly in tribal or clan wars, women of hostile forces become the targets of plunder. At that time, it happened that the married people were mistaken for bandits, which shows that the people who robbed the marriage must be armed to the teeth and how often it happened.
Some scholars once said, "Take a woman and rob her." In the literature before the Han Dynasty, "marriage" was still written as "taking". It can be seen from the generality of these two words that marrying a woman was indeed an armed robbery in ancient times.
From the fonts of "take" and "marry", we can see the cruel fact of cutting off the left ear at that time, and we can also infer how frightening it is to get married at the beginning of coinage.
However, after thousands of years of evolution, it has become a great pleasure in life to marry in modern times. The evolution and twists and turns of China's ancient marriage customs, among which the changeable situation, mixed sadness and joy, is jaw-dropping and eye-opening.
Second, the inheritance and transformation of ancient marriage forms.
With the development of human social civilization, primitive reproduction gradually branded with the imprint of civilization and developed into marriage, forming specific etiquette and customs. From the primitive society, we can see that China's marriage forms are divided into the following types:
1 Marriage form in primitive society
The first is primitive group marriage. That is to say, the men and women of the whole primitive tribe are husband and wife, and the children born only know the father, which is the form of marriage and family in the early days of primitive society. This marriage system existed before the Paleolithic Age.
Followed by blood clan group marriage. The first division was between tribesmen, and the rule was that men and women in the same generation were husband and wife, even brothers and sisters. Before the early Neolithic age, this kind of marriage system, when marriage entered the state of intermarriage.
The third kind is blood marriage. It is forbidden to intermarry with brothers and sisters of the clan. This form of marriage is mainly the intermarriage of brothers and sisters of different clans, which was formed in matriarchal clan society.
The fourth kind is pairing marriage. A man (woman) begins to have a relatively fixed and main spouse, and multiple unfixed spouses are allowed at the same time. Marriage forms began to appear relatively stable.
The fifth is monogamous marriage. With the development of productive forces, tools and other wealth gradually become family-oriented, making monogamous marriage become a marriage form that adapts to social development. At this time, the love between men and women germinated, and there were signs of civilization in human society.
With the development of society, the marriage system in primitive society gradually developed from male to female in form, and from unconscious promiscuity to conscious combination in content.
2. Marriage forms in slave society
At this time, men's rights in the family are increasingly enhanced, and women become domestic slaves. There are two main forms of marriage at this stage.
One is "remarriage", that is, the widow remarries to her husband's relatives.
Mainly, a man can marry an ordinary mother after his father dies; Or you can marry a widow or a widowed aunt.
One is "concubine" marriage, which can also be called concubine marriage system. Wives are divided into concubines, and children are different. This is a variant of polygamy. The concubines system of feudal emperors originated from this marriage system.
3 the form of marriage in feudal society
The marriage relationship between feudalism and slavery is essentially the same. However, by turning the ceremony into law, the marriage relationship has been strengthened and protected through laws and systems.
Marriage was mainly practiced in this period. Men and women get married through the employment process. The main content is nothing more than parents' orders, matchmakers' words, employment contracts or employment funds.
Employment marriage appeared in the Western Zhou Dynasty and became popular in China after the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. At this time, there was also a marriage of raising children among the people. Fostering marriage means that a woman is adopted by her husband when she is a child and gets married when she grows up.
In addition, there are classic employment marriages and gift marriages. Contract marriage is mostly a temporary form of marriage, and the husband of a poor family marries his wife to someone else for a living. Commonly known as "borrowing a wife to have children", the time limit is the birth of a child.
Bridal price marriage refers to the form of wedding smoke in which the emperor or other people give their women or others as wives. The kinship between nationalities in feudal period also belonged to this form of marriage.
The period of China's transition from primitive society to feudal society is also the process of China's ancient marriage custom culture from barbarism to civilization.
Third, the spiritual elements of ancient marriage custom culture
As a cultural form, marriage custom culture reflects some social concepts of China people to varying degrees.
1 the evolution of marriage concept
In the sense of traditional culture, China's views on mate selection, chastity and fertility gradually formed.
First of all, the concept of "appropriateness" has always prevailed. Especially in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, when there was no poverty in the top grade and no foot soldiers in the bottom grade, family status became the only criterion for marriage.
The second kind of matching refers to the combination of power and wealth. Families with lower status can marry top families with strong financial resources, and both sides get what they want. At this time, "the scale of financial employment" has become an optional marriage standard.
The third is a perfect match. Men only value "talent" and women value "appearance", which is a different collocation. At this time, "talent" and "appearance" became the standard of value judgment. In the traditional marriage custom culture of China, talents and beauties are the most recognized and praised.
Secondly, the concept of chastity is strict. Here mainly refers to the concept of sexual morality. In feudal society, the concept of chastity is the most important. Women have been educated by their families since childhood, and there are a series of norms in society to regulate their words and deeds.
Widows should be chaste not only before marriage but also after marriage, and remarriage was allowed before the Song Dynasty. However, since the Song Dynasty, the custom of "the hungry are small and the miscellaneous are big" has been advocated, and women's chastity has been raised to a frightening height, and widows can't stay out of it.
The third is the supremacy of the concept of fertility. China's traditional family ethics advocates a full house of children and grandchildren, and many children are blessed. There are two meanings here: having more children and having sons.
In ancient times, the importance of carrying on the family line was higher than other requirements. In order to carry on the family line, it is allowed to marry, divorce and take concubinage, and even widows can give up their honor.
2 the concept of the combination of patriarchal etiquette and law
Slave society is a society ruled by etiquette, which implements patriarchal clan system, confirms etiquette norms with "three cardinal guides and five permanents" as the core, and requires "husbands as wives".
Feudal rulers, on the other hand, began to use legal weapons, used "family law" and "marriage law" to restrain marriage relations, and continued to follow the patriarchal concept that was beneficial to them.
Their strategy is to rule and restrain people in the form of law with the concept of patriarchal clan system as the guiding ideology. The ancient traditional marriage custom culture mainly includes "Six Rites" before marriage. The order is Nacai, Wen Ming, Naji, Zheng Na, Invitation and Welcome.
Formal wedding customs mainly include paying tribute to the bride and undressing. The custom after marriage is divided into adult ceremony and adult ceremony. In addition to these traditional customs, there are many wedding customs and taboos, and the list goes on.
The governance system in ancient China was the combination of etiquette and law, especially in marriage. The legal relationship of marriage customs is mostly restricted and adjusted by etiquette norms, which can be regarded as a cultural ceremony or ritualized law.
According to the ceremony, "the husband is the wife." Therefore, the law stipulates that a wife must be absolutely chaste to her husband, and will be severely punished if she goes off the rails.
The purpose of marriage according to ceremony is to "carry on the family line". According to this law, arranged marriage is legal, and parents have absolute authority over their children's marriage. If men and women freely combine as "lewdness", they will be severely punished.
According to etiquette, there are three kinds of filial piety, and there is no queen. On this basis, the law recognizes polygamy as legal. According to etiquette, parents mourn for three years. According to the law, you can't take off your mourning clothes in advance, you can't marry, and even those who have given birth in these three years are guilty.
It can be seen that most of the legal provisions on marriage and family relations come from etiquette norms. Originally, some codes of conduct were written in the ceremony book, but they were codified and given the state coercive power. In this way, the traditional marriage customs are under the dual control of ceremony and law.
Four. abstract
As the only square Chinese character in the world, because of its unique ideographic meaning, we can also see some aspects of ancient marriage culture in the roots of "wife, concubine, woman" and so on, thus reflecting the marriage custom culture in China in a certain period.
Marriage custom culture is an important part of China traditional culture. In the unified national form of China, this tradition has a long history. Although there are various forms, their characteristics are different.
From ancient times to the present, the marriage custom culture has experienced a variety of modes in feudal society, such as group marriage and mixed living, Anemarrhena asphodeloides not knowing his father, and giving people away to rob their husbands at will.
Until the contemporary monogamy, all these are related to the social and historical conditions at that time, especially the economic conditions, which are both external and internal.