Discussions On Dowry Objects(媵器) Of Zhou Dynasty

Dowry object is a kind of bronze ritual utensil made for marrying a daughter in ancient times. The character "ying"(媵) means "sending" in ancient literatures. It has various forms of writing characters in the bronze inscriptions, among which "zhen"(朕),"sheng"(賸) and "cheng"(塍) appear most frequently. This may indicate that it’s very popular for people to send treasure and land as dowries when they marry their daughters then. "Ying" can be used as a verb or an adjective to show aims or purposes in the bronze inscriptions.The development and decline of the dowry objects accompany those of the system of the accompanying concubinage(媵婚). There are three reasons why the system of the accompanying concubinage prevailed at that time:firstly, it can strengthen the status of legitimate wives and the blood groups; secondly, it is of benefit to expanding the scope of political union; lastly, it contributes to maintaining the family stability and unity. Between the end of the Spring and Autumn and the initial of the warring states, as a result of collapsing of the patriarchal clan system as well as the restriction of international situations, marriage practices died out gradually and so did the dowry objects. Dowry objects can be divided into narrow and broad definitions according to whether there is the character "ying" in the bronze inscriptions. There are several methods to judge the property of the dowry objects in broad definition, such as the relationship between the giver and the recipient, the style of the bronze inscriptions, the known state and clan names of the giver and the recipient, the unearthed situation and attendant utensils, the regularity that one dowry object is produced for two women and so on. The identities of the givers include father for daughter, mother for daughter, parents for daughter, elder brother for younger sister, younger brother for elder sister, nephew for aunt, aunt for niece and one for oneself. Water utensils and food utensils,which are produced to consolidate the political union in the form of marriage for one thing, and contain best wishes for children’s marriage for another, are predominant types in the bronze dowries. The higher percentage of water utensils may be related to the requirement of wedding ceremony and washing up or tidying oneself. The number of words of the bronze inscriptions usually ranges from a dozen to several dozens. The pattern is usually X(giver) produces X(recipient) X(types of the dowry objects), with blessing words behind.The types of the female appellation of Zhou Dynasty in the dowry objects are usually divided into surname(姓)only, surname and Shi(氏),name(名)or Zi(字)only and other special appellations. Female appellation is of great significance to the study of the surname and Shi of kingdoms. Let’s take Shi State(邿国)for example. We could ensure the property of the utensil is dowry object and exclude the probability of the surname "Jiang’’(姜)or "Zi"(子)by analysing female appellation in Shi gong dian Plate(邿公典盘).According to the analysis of ancient literature and the information of Xian ren tai Cemetery(仙人台墓地)in Changqing, Shandong, we know that there are two successive Shi State in history. By analysing the marriage between the emperors and the dukes in terms of female appellation, we can learn that the emperors of Zhou Dynasty once contracted alliances with E State(鄂国),Chen State(陈国),Fan State(番国),Su State(苏国)and so on. "Wang ji"(王姞),which appears in the bronze inscription of E hou Gui(鄂侯簋),is the wife of King Yi of Zhou(周夷王)."Wang zhong gui’’(王仲妫)in the bronze inscription of Chen hou(陈侯),wife of King Hui of Zhou(周惠王)in early Eastern Zhou. "Meng ji”(孟改)in Fan ju sheng Hu(番匊生壶),the wife of King Xiao of Zhou(周孝王),is the same person as "Fan ji’’(番改)in Wang zuo fan ji Li(王作番改鬲)."Wang bo jiang"(王伯姜)in the bronze inscriptions of Wang bo jiang is just "Jiang shi"(姜氏)in Cai Gui(蔡簋),the wife of King Yi of Zhou(周懿王).At the end of Western Zhou, with the royal family declining and the dukes rising, the kingdoms fought for consolidating political alliance. Therefore, there are more and more examples using marriage as diplomatic means, some kingdoms even broke the prohibition that women who shared the same surnames can’t get married among themselves. The dowry objects produced by Cai hou shen(蔡侯申)and Wu wang guang(吴王光),unearthed in Cai hou Cemetery(蔡侯墓),are just the examples of breaking such rules in this period. However, such marriage was not widely recognized, which acted as changing the conventional female appellations in the literatures and the bronze inscriptions. Though it was recorded in the literatures of Zhou Dynasty that "one can accompany the other from the same surname’s family into the same country as concubine while the different surname’s women can’t", yet there were still dowry objects produced for the women from the different surname’s family at that time. The dowry objects produced for women from the same surname’s family can not always be seen as father-for-daughter, they are likely to produce the dowry objects for women with the same surname from other countries as suzerains. The dowry objects produced for two women with different surnames are just the examples of "one dowry object produced for two women" as Yang Shuda says, the former is lawful principle wife while the latter is concubine. The methods of judging whether it’s niece or sister as concubine include the character "niece" or "aunt" showing the relationship between them and their ranking in the family in the bronze inscriptions.The research of bronze inscriptions is of great significance for us on female appellation of Zhou Dynasty, Surname and Shi System(姓氏制度),marriage relationship among kingdoms and the marriage system of Zhou Dynasty, however, there is not much research focusing on dowry object itself, not to mention the comprehensive research of it. Therefore, I’d like to throw away a brick in order to get a gem, attempting to have further research on dowry objects with the latest unearthed data and research, through which we could have a more in-depth understanding of dowry objects.