What are the references of the changes in the modern marriage system

I. Traditional Marriage under Feudal Rule

In traditional culture, marriage is not only a matter of the parties involved, but also a practical matter between two families or even two clans. Therefore, the formation of the family relationship between husband and wife to "parents' orders, matchmaker's words" as a criterion, men and women involved in the individual, basically no freedom of choice for their own marriage. The "orders of parents and words of matchmakers" are mostly based on the criterion of "family matchmaking" or the family's financial situation, and they do not care about the age, appearance, character, talent, or even the physical condition of the couple, let alone their feelings, so young men and women have no autonomy to speak of. Young men and women have no autonomy at all. Men and women may not have met before marriage, and their relationship after marriage is generally unsatisfactory, and traditional marriages that are not based on mutual love and affection have resulted in many tragedies. There are numerous examples of this in TV dramas and literary works. Many scholars in the late Qing Dynasty had failed first marriages.

Traditional marriages were characterized by early marriages and the practice of consanguineous marriages. In the late Qing society, early marriage is quite common, the general youth more than 20 years old before the end of the marriage, and even "there are 30 years to hold grandchildren, the relatives as a family celebration, the community thought that the people of Switzerland", young men and women get married to bring about the result of the body is easy to lust, parents can not give their children a good family education to the overall quality of the nation's influence. This has a great impact on the quality of the nation as a whole. Inbreeding, for various considerations, is very popular in remote areas and within the royal family, to the quality of the next generation laid a great deal of hidden danger, seriously affecting the quality of the nation.

China has a long history of feudalism, and Chinese women have always lived under the clan system of the Three Principles and Five Principles and the traditional ethic of male superiority and female inferiority, which basically deprived women of the full power of marriage. Concubinage, or the practice of having three or four wives or concubines, was an important part of marriage in the olden days, and it was also a manifestation of the differentiation between the rich and the poor in Chinese society and of the class system in the marriage system. The fact that men could withdraw from marriage and remarry, while women could not, was a violation of the humanitarian equality of feudal marriage.

II. Changes in the Marriage Situation from the 1911 Revolution to the Founding of New China

--Traditional Marriage System and New Forms of Marriage*** Existed

Marriage at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the new century began with a lively and boiling change. Accompanied by the Xinhai Revolution and the May Fourth Movement, a large number of progressive intellectuals launched a major critique of the old marriage customs. Under the guidance of the new concept of marriage, the dawn of modern civilization and freedom began to appear in Chinese marriage customs at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The impact of the Xinhai Revolution on the traditional marriage system was still considerable, and the new concepts of equality for all and emancipation of women brought by those who came back from overseas in the modern era had a great impact on the urban youth, and the overthrow of the Qing government's feudal rule also allowed many urban people to begin to change the old concepts gradually and to accept the new concepts of marriage and to begin to be the beginning of a new marriage system.

Young men and women began to fall in love before getting married. In the big cities to receive higher education, young people, by the influence of new ideas, the original old ideas were gradually abandoned, slowly emancipated nature, from the beginning of free love, but also to accept monogamy, of course, this is only a small part of the people. Remote villages and traditional families remained the traditional form. The marriage of Mr. Liang Sicheng and Ms. Lin Huiyin was arranged by two parents, Lin Jiumin and Liang Qichao. The formality of weddings became simpler and much less expensive. The procedures of the old-style wedding were extremely complicated, and the so-called "six rites" were standardized as the necessary procedures for the wedding. In the early Republic of China, many educated people strongly criticized this, especially before and after the "May Fourth", so the form of the wedding began to tend to be simple, "there are often borrowed hotels and youth clubs to get married, which is also a good phenomenon of the marriage from the simple phenomenon also". Rituals tend to be simple, abandon the old wedding customs

The red tape, but also the society tends to be civilized, a reasonable and specific performance, conducive to the change of social atmosphere, but also conducive to social progress.

The age of marriage of men and women has also begun to normalize, the phenomenon of early marriage has become less, people began to pay attention to their own education, career and revolution, the age of marriage from the original common 16,7 years of age to the early 20s, which is a significant progress in society, and is conducive to further improve the quality of the next generation.

Third, the state of marriage and the concept of marriage after the founding of the State

In the early years of the founding of new China, the country was just starting out, and there was an urgent need for a law to set up a new marriage system to serve as a new norm for marriages, and to carry out anti-feudal democratic reforms in the field of marriages and families on a nationwide scale to abolish the feudal marital customs that had existed in China for thousands of years. Thus, in the first few years of the 1950s, the Marriage Law, which was both politically charged and highly revolutionary, brought about sweeping changes in Chinese marriages. From its promulgation, "equality between men and women," "freedom of marriage," and "monogamy" were fixed in legal form. Monogamy became fixed in legal form, and the promotion of "freedom of marriage" began to appear in mainstream media propaganda, all of which had not been the case in the past; the founding of New China and the promulgation of the Marriage Law brought about qualitative changes in China's marriage system, and brought about significant progress. Just one year before the promulgation of the Marriage Law, French feminist thinker Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex was published. With this feminist "bible", Beauvoir expressed her respect for the Marxist view of women and her conviction that socialism would eventually eliminate inequality between men and women.

Of course, the institution of marriage was not static during this period.

Beginning in the 1950s with the "Anti-Rightist" campaign and ending with the "Cultural Revolution," China was in a period when politics was above all else, and politics became the theme of everything, including marriage. At that time, intermarriage between the so-called "Red Five" was a matter of course, and the so-called "Black Five", who were looking forward to changing their destiny, also hoped to marry with the "Red Five" without exception, in order to The so-called "Black Five" also hope to get married to the "Red Five" in order to obtain a status condition free from political persecution. Compared with the political conditions, people did not seem to have high demands on wealth and occupation. Perhaps in an era when the equalization of wealth and poverty had been institutionalized, any economic expectations seemed out of place, and even love was rarely expected. A lover, above all, should be a revolutionary comrade.

After 1978, political power and traditional moral **** with the construction of the social regulatory system is increasingly loosened, so that the people in the middle of the feeling of real and overwhelmed. Less excessive political burden, people's marriage back to simple love. 1981, the new "Marriage Law" promulgated, the "breakup of feelings" as a requirement for divorce, so it seems that the Chinese people began to realize that love is also quite important things in the marriage. Weddings have also kept up with the trend of openness and economic development, new couples wearing suits and wedding dresses, wedding banquets are getting bigger and bigger, the wedding business has also embarked on a rapid development of the road.

However, after entering the new millennium, this is an era of increasingly blurred norms, with the post-80s entering marriage one after another and becoming the main force of marriage in this period, when marriage is colored by the distinctive personality of the post-80s - in China, some people's love has begun to spread in the form of "anarchy" as Russell said in "The Marriage Revolution" more than half a century ago. As Russell said more than half a century ago in The Marriage Revolution, "Love is an anarchic force, which, if left to itself, will not rest within the limits prescribed by law and custom." Meanwhile, as materialism and libertinism swelled, the decision to marry began to be laced with more considerations unrelated to love?

Fourth, Summary

The institution of marriage and family refers to the normative system of marriage and family relations recognized by a certain society and generally accepted and followed by the people, and it is a part of the superstructure of the society, which is always determined by the development of the economic base of this society. It can be said that the changes and development of the economic base fundamentally promote the change of the marriage system and the concept of marriage, of course, this is not the only factor.

While we can't predict the future of the institution of marriage accurately, we

And the development trend will tend to be reasonable and perfect. It cannot be said that it will be ultimately determined by the economic base,