Research On Chinese Traditional Marriage Customs Documents

Marriage document, which is also recognized as the marriage certificate, serves as ritual, contractual, certificate information records where both women and men establish or terminate their marriage ties. The paper focuses on a traditional marriage customs documents. So the word "traditional" necessarily should be time-limited. Namely, from prior Qin dynasty when marriage document was first established to the early days when China’s first marriage was issued. traditional marriage document refers to those ceremonial, contractual, certificate information records which are often created in the process of conclusion or termination of their marriage ties. Nowadays, with regard to marriage documents, what we can generally deal with is marriage certificate and divorce certificate which is generated as a result of people’s law-restrained marriage, while in traditional society, it is principled by Neo-confucianism. Due to changes in the social system, the lower deterioration of social life, benefit-pursuit behaviors are increasingly intensified, benefit has become a major factor influencing marriage ties. Only when people’s act contrary to or beyond the marriage ceremony, or benefit-based act leads to disputes can law be involved to resolve the disputes, In this case, traditional marriage documents have acted as an important records in solving the problems. Affected by multiple factors as well as complex social systems of marriage customs, traditional marriage document now has been colorful.On the basis of current different types of marriage documents that can be easily seen, this paper explores the whole picture traditional marriage documents in order to better understand the characteristics and value of it. In the first part of this paper, the author, with a vertical perspective, describes the generation and development of traditional marriage document and has a clear mind on origins and development of it. The second part describes the types of traditional marriage documents and classification. based on each category, applications, contents and format etc. the author makes a detailed introduction in order to fully understand their internal structures. Third part describes the characteristics of the traditional marriage documents, with a perspective of science of document study,the author compares with others to further understand the characteristics of traditional marriage customs document. While in the fourth part, the paper describes the value of traditional marriage document, and makes a detailed introduction from varied aspects such as the value of document study, value of folklore, historical value, linguistic value, and value of ethics to attach the importance of traditional marriage documents and to utilize their full values.