Adventures in Odyssey and Traditional Chinese marriage: Difference between pages
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Traditionally, '''Chinese [[marriage]]''' in Chinese societies (‘’hūn yīn’’,婚姻) has been an arrangement between families. Originally, Chinese culture allowed for romantic love and [[monogamy]] was the norm.
==Introduction==
Ideographically, ‘’hūn’’ (婚) is identical to ‘’hūn’’ (昏, literally means evening or dusk). In more ancient writings, though the former has the [[radical (Chinese character)]] ‘’nǔ’’ (女, literally means a female). This implies that courting couples meet in the evening. Similarly, ‘’yīn’’ (姻) is the same as ‘’yīn’’ (因). According to [[Zhang Yi]]’s (張揖) ‘’Guangya Shigu’’ (廣雅•釋詁), a [[dictionary]] for ancient Chinese characters, ‘’yīn’’ (因) means friendliness, love and harmony, indicating that correct way of living for a married couple. In [[Confucians]] thought, marriage is of grave significance both to families and to society. Traditionally [[incest]] has been defined as marriage between people with the same surname. From the perspective of a Confucian family, marriage brings together families of different [[surnames]], or rather [[clans]], and so continues the family line of the paternal [[clan]]. Therefore, the benefits and demerits of any marriage are important to the entire family, not just the individual couples. Socially, the married couple is thought to be the basic unit of society. In Chinese history there have been made times when marriages have affected the country’s political stablity and international relations. From the [[Han dynasty]] the rulers of certain powerful foreign tribes such as the [[Mongolians]], the [[Manchus]], the [[Xiongnu]], and the [[Turks]] demanded concubines from the Imperial family. Many periods of Chinese history were dominated by the families of the wife of the ruling Emperor. Thus marriage can be related to politics.
==Prehistoric Chinese marriages==
===Marriages in primitive societies===
In traditional Chinese thinking, when people in primitive societies, they did not marry but had sexual relationships with one and other indiscriminately. Such people were thought to live like other animals, and they did not have the precise concept of motherhood, fatherhood, sibling, husband and wife, and gender, not to mention match-making and marriage ceremony. Part of the Confucian "civilizing mission" was to teach people to respect the proper relationship between family members and regulate sexual behavior.
===Sibling marriages===
Sibling marriage, although forbidden in Chinese culture, was reported to a minor extent in very early Chinese mythology. There was a story about the marriage of [[Nüwa]] and [[Fu Xi]], who were once sister and brother respectively. At that time the world was unpopulated. The siblings wanted to get married but, at the same time, they felt ashamed. So they went up to [[Kunlun Shan]] and prayed to Heaven. They asked for Heaven's permission for their marriage and said, “if You allow us to marry, please make the mist surround us.” Heaven gave permission to the couple, and promptly the peak was covered in mist. It is said that in order to hide her shyness, [[Nüwa]] covered her blushing face with a fan. Nowadays in some villages in China, the brides still follow the custom and use a fan to shield their faces.
===Inter-clan marriage and antithetic marriage===
In Chinese society males should not marry females of the same surname. This is seen as [[incest]] and there is thought to be a threat that abnormal births might result. Marriage of a son to close relatives of his mother is not seen as incest. Different clan might have more than one different surname. Historically, there were numerous clans living alongside the [[Yellow River]] in the ancient China, like the tribe of [[Huang Di]] with the common surname Ji and that of [[Yan Di]] with the surname Jiang. Because marriage to one's maternal relatives was not thought of as incest these families sometimes intermarried from one generation to another.
Over time Chinese people became more geographically mobile. Couples were married in what is called an extra-clan marriage, or better known as antithetic marriage. This occurred in the midst of the [[New Stone Age]], i.e. around 5000 BC. According to modern Chinese scholars of a Marxist persuasion [[Matriarchy]] prevailed in society at that time, therefore husbands needed to move to, and live with, their wives’ families. Yet individuals remained members of their biological families. When a couple died, the husband and the wife were buried separately in the respective clan’s graveyard. Offspring would be buried with their mother. Antithetic marriage still happens in today’s China: In [[Yunnan]], males and females in the minority group known as [[Nakhi]] form temporary couples, and they call each other “Ahchu” rather than “husband and wife”. The male “Ahchu”s live and work in the home of the female “Ahchu”s.
===Maternal marriage and monogamy===
In a maternal marriage, a male would become a son-in-law who lived in the wife’s home. The husband would also need to change his surname into his wife’s one. This happed in the transformation of antithetic marriage into monogamy, which signifying that the decline of [[matriarchy]] and the growing dominance of [[patriarchy]] in the ancient China.
==See also==
*[[Marriage]]
*[[Chinese culture]]
*[[Confucian view of marriage]]
*[[Chinese wedding album]]
[[Category:Family]]
[[Category:Chinese culture]]
[[Category:Marriage]]
==Reference==
*"Amazing Facts of The Chinese Ancient Culture" by Ma Ching-kei and Chow Lei-ying, [http://www.pilotpublishing.com Pilot Publish Company Limited]. ISBN 962-397-717-4
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