Marriage custom in Zhou dynasty: the gradual improvement of marriage system

The Zhou Dynasty is a relatively complete period of cultural system construction in the history of China. At this time, social norms marked by etiquette and patriarchal clan system began to form, and the gradual improvement of marriage system also laid some principles for the development of later generations.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, the aristocrats of the Western Zhou Dynasty, from Zhou Tianzi, governors to ordinary aristocrats, generally practiced monogamy and concubinage. Qi Qi said that Zhou Wenwang's wife has a big badge, but she is a hundred men.

Shi Maochuan believes that a big family has ten sons, and all concubines should have one hundred sons.

If one girl and ten boys are counted, Zhou Wenwang has at least ten wives and concubines. The historical facts of this kind of marriage are also revealed in the tombs discovered in modern times in the Spring and Autumn Period of the Western Zhou Dynasty. In the tomb of Rujiazhuang in Baoji, Shaanxi Province in the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, a three-person joint burial tomb was excavated, and a group of monogamous tombs were found in the cemetery of Jinhou. The sources of aristocratic polygamy in the Spring and Autumn Period of the Western Zhou Dynasty are complicated, which can be summarized as: formal marriage through marriage etiquette, that is, the engagement of wives mentioned in the Book of Rites. From the Zhou Dynasty to the ordinary aristocrats, most of their wives got married through marriage etiquette. Sandy accompanied him when he got married formally.

De's betrothal gift is that a woman gets married and her daughter and sister get married. At the same time, the two vassal States with the same surname as the woman should each send a woman to get married. This is called the positive export, and the positive export should also be married by her. This is the so-called vassal marrying nine women. The marriage system was also reflected in the literary works at that time. In The Book of Songs, the women were so sad that they almost died with their sons. That is to say, those women cried because they were afraid of getting married. Elopement is marriage, that is, Ben is a concubine in the Book of Rites. Transfer, that is, father's death, son and wife and their common mother; Brother, brother, wife, sister-in-law; Uncle, nephew, wife and aunt. Under polygamy, the son of heaven can have six palaces, three concubines, nine concubines and eighty-one, and the princes have nine concubines, wives and concubines. Except for the princes of the emperor, ministers and doctors with lower status are all wives, and scholars are all wives. Only ordinary people are monogamous.

Because of the variety and number of wives and concubines, it is easy to cause contradictions within aristocratic families. In order to adjust these contradictions and overcome the disadvantages of polygamous marriage, some etiquette rules about the names and status of aristocratic wives and concubines were gradually formed in the Spring and Autumn Period of the Western Zhou Dynasty. First of all, the first wife is higher than the second wife and has the right to interfere in the affairs of the second wife. Secondly, I can't be the first wife, and my son can't enjoy the rights of the first son. Third, different from concubines. In terms of marriage, I have independent marital power, and I am attached to the woman of my first wife, so she has no independent marital power. After the death of the first wife, the second wife can legally take over. She doesn't have the name of her first wife, but she has the reality of her first wife, but my concubine doesn't have such power.

Polygamy of aristocrats in the Western Zhou Dynasty is not only a simple form of marriage, but also a social activity with political overtones. Patriarchal clan system is one of the important political systems in the Spring and Autumn Period of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The essence of patriarchal clan system is to politicize natural consanguinity and marriage as a link and means of political rule.

In the whole patriarchal clan system chain, the family is the most basic unit, and the status of the family largely depends on the size of the family population. The primary purpose of polygamy in the Spring and Autumn Period of the Western Zhou Dynasty was to ensure the continuation of patriarchal clan system and improve the status of the family. At the same time, Zhou established a nephew-uncle relationship with the princes with different surnames, called the monarch of the princes with different surnames uncles, and brought many princes with different surnames into the patriarchal clan system with Zhou as the head of the clan. Through marriage with vassal States with different surnames, vassal States establish in-laws and expand patriarchal relations, so vassal States with in-laws often become friendly countries; The nobles and vassals below the emperor strengthened their power in the patriarchal clan system by marrying nobles with different surnames, thus forming an alliance in the political struggle. In this process of expanding patriarchal clan relationship through marriage, it is very beneficial to choose polygamy.

In Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, before the popularity of employment marriage, there were several forms of marriage: predatory marriage, buying and selling marriage and exchange marriage. Predatory marriage refers to a form of marriage in which a woman is forced to be a wife without the consent of the woman and her relatives. "Book of Changes" records robbing marriage: this is like a donkey, a white horse is like a donkey, and bandits marry; Riding on a horse, bandits and bandits get married, ride on a horse and cry like blood, which means that the woman cries when she hears the sound of hooves. It turned out that it was not a robber, but a man who robbed the marriage. Buying and selling marriage is a form of marriage, in which a woman is treated as a commodity in exchange for her becoming a wife and concubine.

Exchange marriage means that parents exchange daughters for daughters, or men exchange sisters for wives.

The Zhou Dynasty was an era of etiquette creation, and a series of complete rules and regulations on etiquette and music were formulated from politics to culture, which was for the sake of Zhou rites. Zhou Li believes that the way of husband and wife is the beginning of human relations, so it has formulated a strict system for marriage, which is the establishment of engagement. The engagement marriage runs through the traditional times in China, and it is the only marriage form recognized by the Courtesy Law of the Dynasty. Getting engaged to get married is simply a man's engagement and a woman's engagement. The most important features of engagement are parents' orders and matchmaker's words. Engagement and marriage developed because it was natural for parents to handle their children's marriage according to their own views. However, although parents are the decision makers of their children's marriage, they need the work of intermediaries, so there is the saying of matchmaker, which means seeking, and matchmaker means considering the situation of both men and women and giving advice to both parents. The procedures of engagement, marriage and settlement are quite complicated, which Zhou Li explained in detail. Generally speaking, it is the link of receiving, asking for names, receiving, inviting and welcoming, which is usually called six gifts. Marriage must abide by these etiquette in order to be a legal, serious and formal union.

Na Cai is the first item in the wedding ceremony, that is, the marriage negotiation stage. The man's family was the object of discussion, so he went to the matchmaker to act as matchmaker, let the matchmaker hold a goose as a gift, explain his purpose and ask her parents for advice. Why do you want to hold a goose as a gift? Because the goose is a migratory bird, it must move from south to north, and the north and south are in harmony with yin and yang, and the goose is a gift, which symbolizes the harmony between yin and yang of both men and women. Among the six ceremonies, the goose is regarded as a greeting ceremony, except for the sign. In later generations, geese, ducks and chickens were gradually replaced due to the decrease of geese.

Ask the name. After the woman accepted the goose, she thought the man was suitable, so she wrote down the woman's birthday and gave it to the matchmaker to take it back to the man's house.

Naji. After asking the names, the man gave the birth dates of both parties to the fortune teller for divination with tortoise shells. After divination, if there is no conflict, the matchmaker will be sent to the woman's home for approval, and Najib will become an engagement exchange plan in the future.

Accept the tax. It is the bride price that later generations said, which means paying money before getting married. Is the key to marriage between men and women. Men and women who have never been recruited have this saying, no money, no money, no meeting.

Please invite. Also known as the ceremony of telling the date, the auspicious day for the man to choose to get married is first decided by the sorcerer's divination, and then agreed by both parents. The makeup urging of later generations evolved from the invitation period. Once the woman receives the auspicious notice from the man, she must prepare the dowry, and before getting married, send it to the man's house, arrange it properly and wait for the kiss.

Welcome to visit. This is the last of the six ceremonies. On the wedding day, a man must personally greet his wife in a ceremony. After the wedding, the bride and groom worship heaven and earth, temples and ancestors, and the marriage is formally established.

Surname is the earliest symbol of consanguineous identity in matriarchal clan society. After the establishment of patriarchy, including the Zhou Dynasty, the surname was a symbol of the family system. With a surname, people know which family they are descended from, such as Liang. Because Boyi contributed to water control and was sealed in Liang, his descendants are named Liang. At that time, some people took local names and country names as surnames, such as Cao, Lu, Song and Wei. Some take official names as surnames, such as Stuart and Sima, and some take occupations as surnames, such as Bu and Tao. Because surnames have a certain blood relationship, surnames have different social functions of marriage and race. In the marriage activities of the Western Zhou Dynasty, a strict system of no intermarriage with the same surname was implemented, which is a major difference between Shang and Zhou marriages. Although Shang stressed that the recent clans did not get married, there was only the restriction of V, but when Zhou Chengxian's marriage could not cross the Spring and Autumn Period, Lu still married his wife back from Wu. Because Lu was Zhou's fief and Wu was surnamed Ji, people at that time accused him of being a gentleman and being polite.

There are two considerations for unmarried people with the same surname. First, consanguineous marriage is physiological and not conducive to eugenics. It is not uncommon for men and women to share the same surname and come from different backgrounds. They are unmarried and have the same surname, for fear of being ill-bred. The other is politics. Unmarried people with the same surname make an alliance with nobles with different surnames, stabilize their power and expand the power of their own clan. At the same time, they maintain generational differences within this clan, and maintain hierarchical relationships such as respect and inferiority, old and young, and closeness, so as to avoid confusion and shake ethical norms.

After the establishment of patriarchal clan system, the status of women began to decline obviously. The ritual system stipulates that the state power and family industry are successively inherited by father and son, and so is the times. Because the blood relationship is calculated according to the paternal line, only the son, not the daughter, so every family attaches great importance to the birth of the son, but shows an indifferent attitude towards the daughter. The Book of Songs, Xiao Ya Sigan, says: People make beds for sleeping. Clothes carry clothes, clothes carry clothes.

That's where women are born and sleep. The clothes are installed, and the tiles are also installed.

Obviously, men are superior to women, and men are superior to women. Later generations called it the fun of playing tricks on boys and girls, and its allusions came from this.

The relationship between husband and wife means that a woman is subordinate to a man, and the wife of the son of heaven is called the son of heaven, which means that the wife of a warlord is called the wife, which means to help him be king, the wife of a doctor is called the woman, which means to be obedient to her husband, and the wife of a scholar is called the woman, which means to take care of housework. The relationship between husband and wife is subordinate to the woman first, and women's participation in social and political life is strictly restricted. The scope of men's and women's activities began to be clear: the ceremony began with the couple, for the palace, inside and outside. Men live outside, women live inside, the palace is closed, and the shovel is seized. Men are not allowed in, and women are not allowed out. Within the family, the husband and wife are mainly dominated by men, and the wife can't collect family wealth privately. After marriage, the family property, including the wife's marriage property, is dominated by the husband. As the Book of Rites says, sons and wives are selfless in their wealth, wealth and fields, and they dare not take personal leave.

Because the Zhou Dynasty was only when the marriage system was initially established, although the communication between men and women had begun to be greatly restricted, it was normal for men and women to freely communicate and fall in love under the influence of primitive society, unlike later generations, which was regarded as a scourge. Under such a relaxed background, it is more common for young men and women to communicate freely before marriage.

According to records, Shangsi Festival from February to March 3 in mid-spring and mulberry picking season in early summer are good days for young men and women to get together and fall in love. There are many poems that embody this free love scene in the national style of The Book of Songs. For example, Zheng has a creeping weed: there is a beautiful, young and graceful person who meets me and suits me; Zheng Feng: Zi Huisi, I am involved in Qin, I don't think about me, there is no one else, and I am crazy; Feng Wei Papaya: Give me papaya, and then give it to Joan. It's always good to report bandits.

In the social concept at that time, the so-called chastity did not form, and there was no place to discuss this issue in the Analects of Confucius. Confucius admired Zhou Li the most. His son died and his wife remarried to defend the country. Confucius did not object, indicating that chastity refers to the loyalty between husband and wife in the etiquette recognized by Confucius.