Researches On Marriage And Family At The Initial Period Of The Establishment Of Sociology In China

Since the Late Qing Dynasty and the beginning of The Republic of China, being influenced by Western Sociological Theories and the inner reform of social reform in China, a large number of reformist thinkers lashed out at the old marriage and family system, and tried their best the advocate reform in order to promote social civilization and prosperity and rapid development of the country. Therefore, academic circles all focuses on the research of marriage and family, resulting in a lot of influential sociological research outcomes. In this paper, through referring to the research outcomes before the establishment of sociology, it expounds the changes in marriage and family in our country at that time: concerning marriage, to seek for the spouse as companion of life became the top purpose of marriage, the age for marriage was increased comparing with that before; to marry at an elder age in urban area was gradually shown obviously, people promoted self-determined marriage and monogamy, the weddings got simple and economical and divorce gradually became popular. Regarding family, the scale of family gradually changed to be small; the remained large family was living together but with complicated relative relationship; the social status of husband and wife was tending to be equal; preference of sons than daughters had been changed slightly; urban residents paid attention to both nurturing and education and so on. Through analyzing the above issues, the paper tries to sort out changing process of marriage and family in China in the first half of 20th century and reveal the extensiveness and sociality of social reform in our country. All the researches and findings are of great significance for correct understanding of contemporary issues on marriage and family in China.