On The Marriage System Of Ancient China

In the historical trend of social change, Marriage system which just likes a bond,has throughout the survival and downfall of the human beings, because it has not onlycarried the development of individual and family, but also continued the multiply ofwhole human society. In the meaning of sociology, marriage system is not anindividual behavior any more; it is an event with deep social meaning. People can nottreat marriage as trifling matter because it has decided the stability or even thesurvival of every feudal regime. It is also the reason why rulers at every age nevertired of admonishing the marriage system, lay down the law to punish those marriagebehaviors which ran counter to the development of society.The norm marriage behavior of people is the premise to guarantee a stable marriage,because marriage is the important part of marriage system. In ancient China, rulershad enumerated the positive conditions and negative conditions of getting married indetail and on this account to guarantee the stability of marriage and to promote thedevelopment of society. Just like the description in QiFeng, Nan Shan of Shi Jingsaid,‘seek the wife only in compliance to parent’s wish and seek the wife only incompliance to the matchmaker’s wish’, it reflected the condition of marriage at thattime. This paper aims at drawing the outline of the framework of ancient marriagesystem by summarizing the marriage system of that age and to perfect the modernfamily law by drawing the lessons from the excellent part.This paper composed of three parts: Introduction, Main body and Epilogue.Introduction: seed the discussion of the marriage system of ancient China formain body with the summary of the marriage system in ancient China and theinspection of the essential conditions of getting married.Main body: this part composed of five parts. First part: from the historical pointof view, combing the ways of marriage such as: Capture marriage, The marriage withcost and the evolution of betrothal marriage to seed the analysis of the content ofmarriage system and legal basis. Second part: conclude the content of Chinesemarriage system and the legal basis on the basic of first part. This paper hold the viewthat marriage is not an individual behavior, it carries the social meaning of the multiply of whole human society, the legal basis of it is that the standardization ofmarriage will promote the stability of marriage so as to push forward the developmentof society. The third part: it reappears the marriage system of ancient China bycombing the positive condition, take the marriage age as an example and the negativeconditions, like no marriage within the same family name. The forth part: probe intothe etiquette and custom of marriage; expound the content of ‘Six Steps’ and thesignificance that marriage contract and pride price is for marriage. The fifth part: onthe full combing of the basis of ancient Chinese marriage system, scoop the excellentpart, perfect the active marriage system, for example, one of the taboos in ancientChina is that people can not get married if they are with physiological maladies or theage does not meet the legal age. Besides, the study on ‘the parents order and thematchmaker’s word’ will contribute to keep the stability of marriage.Epilogue: to sum up the whole article, this paper points out that the custom ofmarriage is closely connected to the development of time and society. Although theancient marriage system can not be copied, we can draw lessons from the excellentpart so as to build a more suited marriage system in modern times.