A Study On Infidelity And Verdict Reverse In The Yuan And Ming Dynasties

This thesis is about motif of infidelity and divorce in Chinese ancient opera works. Ever since buman beings came into a civilized society, the phenomenon of marriage, divorce and infidelity has become an inevitable existence. And this phenomenon is not confined to a particular period. It is a universal experience in human society. Literature is regarded as mimesis of real life, therefore, many papers have been written on research of infidelity and divorce in literary works.There are two sorts of this subject: one aims at blaming the unfaithful and sympathizing the deserted; the other aims at exculpating the disloyal one. But those scholars merely focus on one book, therefore, their research is not systematic.Through detailed paper work,, this article, in its four parts, disclose the various tendencies and features of infidelity and divorce in different phases. Part One discusses the operas about infidelity and divorce in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. These works fairly revealed the social life at that time: Once promoted to a higher status, a man tended to remarry a girl from a powerful or wealthy house, and abandon his wife who had shared his hard lot. The author criticized the unfaithful husband and made him suffer from retribution. This is, to some extent, critical realism to express the wish to punish the wicked and praise the good. This article discusses the causes of infidelity in the respects of history, society, women's position and marital status. Part Two elaborates operas about verdict reversing and infidelity during the end of Yuan Dynasty till late Ming Dynasty. The former exculpated the disloyal husbands by turning them into faithful lovers and ending the story with a reunion of husband and wife or one husband with two wives. In this way it dispelled the contradictions caused by men's rapid promotion in social position. The later in this period carried forward the tradition during Song and Yuan Dynasties, i.e. ending the story with a tragedy. This article discusses about the causes of these opera works in three phases: late Yuan Dynasty, Early Ming till middle and late Ming Dynasty, and late Ming Dynasty. The motif for the operas about verdict reversing in Yuan Dynasty was due to the cancellation of imperial examination system in Yuan Dynasty. The reason for the appeamce of verdict reversing operas in Early and Mid Ming Dynasty is the severe and appressive law system on scholars. And as neo-confucia-hism prevailed during that period, it would be natural that scholars should write operas about verdict reversing .In late Ming Dynasty, the corruption in the imperial court forced the scholais to expose. the evil and dark side of the soliety. They demonstrated their strong dissatisfaction in the operas about infidelity and divorce.Research on ancient operas about infidelity and verdict reverse help us understand the social situation better through these typical works. Moreover .people today are bound to face similar problems in love or marriage, with the development of market economic, deepening of the reform-and-open policy, and charge in people's economic status. That explains why these operas about infidelity and divorce also are instructive and enlightening to us today.