The Research On Marriage Custom And Regional Differences In Sichuan Han Nationality Area Of Qing Dynasty

Marriage is a unique human behavior, which is produced along with the society development. In the process of marriage, human beings gradually formed a set of agreed rules, and that is marriage custom. The content of marriage custom is various, changing from times and regions. The different customs can reflect the local social and economic differences.During Ming and Qing Dynasties, social economy changed dramatically in Sichuan area. Sichuan population lost a lot after the war of the late Ming Dynasty. Therefore, the government had to consolidate its power by immigration. According to the activity of "Hu-Guang Fills Sichuan", a large number of foreign residents came to Sichuan. They not only fill the loss of population, but also brought new culture and customs. Thus, the Sichuan local custom took the color of immigrants. The immigrants injected new blood to Sichuan custom. The marriage of Han people who long-term lived in Sichuan basin commonly came in result of "Parents’ Order, Match-maker’s Canvasses", and followed six traditional steps. The marriage embodied the economic relationship and the sociological significance.This dissertation researches the marriage customs in historical customs geography, explores several marriage customs and regional differences in Sichuan Han Nationality during Qing Dynasty, and tries to analyze the factors of these differences. The detail statements are showed in the following three parts.Part I:introduction. The introduction includes the reasons of choosing this topic, the meaning in the research area, some conceptions, academic history review, the difficulties and methods of the research.Part Ⅱ:main pats of dissertation, including Chapter Ⅰ and Chapter Ⅱ. This part restores the basic situation of Sichuan Han Nationality during Qing Dynasty, and shows the customs of premarital contracting, wedding and after-wedding rituals. According to the characteristics of marriage customs, Sichuan area can be divided into three custom regions:first, Eastern and Northern, which reflect feature of "Jing-Chu Culture"; second, Western—high unity and small internal differences; third, Southern, which is featured as lots of quaint marriage customs. These three custom regions can be further divided into eleven sub-areas. In this part, the dissertation summarizes and compares the characteristics of the sub-areas, and then finds out the regional features.Part Ⅲ: the useful complement to the dissertation. This part analyzes the factors that cause the regional differences of marriage customs in Sichuan Han Nationality. According to the research, the characteristic of distribution is the result of nature and human factors. Nature factors include topography, geomorphology, and climate; while human factors are consist of immigrants, nations, administrative division and social ethos, etc.