"taiping" Tang Dynasty Marriage Customs

It is a eternal theme of social sciences to study institutions ettquttes and customs of marriage. And it is one of important ways to penetrate into understanding and comprehending a ancient society to study matrimonial etiquttes and customs in all various historical periods of antiquity. Scholars of successive dynasties hardly ever payed more attention on Extensive Record in Times of Peace and Prosperity in which many hearsays and stories were collected and preserved that reflected social life of the Tang Dynesty with most characters of unofficail history.In this orticle, in order to have a clear understanding of the social life of the Tang Dynasty, taking î–´ tensive Record in Times of Peace and Prosperity as the major study subject and the angle of view. Combining other documentary materials, the author intends to look into entire process of how every etiqutte and custom formed and developed on the base of summarizing and discussing matrimonial etiquttes and customs of the Tang Dynasty. It is the basic idea of this article to recognize and understand the culture of matri monial etiquttes and customs in the Tang Dynasty by returning to original conditions of history and reappearing true situations. The article is divided into eight parts.In this article, the author investigates matrimonial etiquttes and customs of the Tang Dynasty carefully. The following points generalize major contents of this article:1. The marriageable age has a direct bearing on the ceremony of granting hat and donig hairpin. It is a good age for most womon to getmarried when they are fourteen or fifteen approximately at this time they should have the ceremony of doing hairpin. Although, it is hardly to see the concrete marriageable age for men recorded in documentary materials, most men got married when they had the ceremony of granting hat. At the same time the marriageable age is affected by environments of the times. When political situation is stable and the country is peaceful, it is timely for people to marry. Conversely, it is untimely.2. Having been affected by the idea of a family of power and influence since the Wei and Jin Dynasty, scholar - officials of upper levels in the Tang Dynasty were so fastidious about family status that they all hanked ofter forming an alliance by marriage with prominent families. The marriage based on family status led to luxury marriage. In order to seek connections with those in status, many scholer - officials not only payed a high price for dowry but also made wedding cermonies very extravagant and luxury, which resulted in social values degeneracy. While other people didn' t stress family status and wealth but regarded ability and knowledge as the first requirement for establishing marriage. It is the appearance of "marriage based on ability" that existed in the Tang Dynasty.3. It is same that establishing marriage requires a president people and a formal matchmaker in the Tang Dynasty just as in past dynasties. Meanwhile affected by open social values, some young people arranged their own marriage freely and a few parents held a enlightened attitude toward it. Maids of honour is a particular class in that right society. Many much - told tales about their marriages handed down with a red. leaf as the "matchmaker" on which a poem was inscribed. Establishmarriage by plunder still existed among some ethnic minorities in remot-ed districts in the Tang Dynasty. This is the matrimonial institution left over by the previous dynasty.4. It still preserved the ancient custom that wedding ceremony was held at night in the Tang Dynasty when ancient etiquettes were both carried on and changed. Although, the ancient six etiquttes still existed, practical contents of it changed very much. As to some etiquttes such as a bride' s paying a formal visit to her husband' s father and mother, it still followed the old system of Zhou Dynasty. Only in number of rites there are some differences.5. Owing to earring on and bringing forth new ideas in ancient etiquttes , there were rich an...