Chapter 2 Section 1 The Origin and Development of Human Marriage
Marriage life is an important part of human social life, and a way for human beings to reproduce and continue.The marriage customs of any nation are not only the product of certain historical conditions, but also contain the common course of the development of human marriage from low level to high level.In order to help correctly understand the various forms of marriage and family of brotherly nations, it is necessary to briefly review the process of the occurrence and development of human marriage.
The form of human marriage and family is a dynamic historical factor, which develops with the development of society.Since the existence of human beings, it has roughly experienced two historical stages: group marriage and individual marriage.And before group marriage there existed a period of promiscuous sexual relations commensurate with the transition from the animal state to the human state.This was determined by the living conditions of humans (ape-man 3 million years ago) at that time.At that time, ape-men could only use stones and sticks, but they faced severe competition for survival. The only advantage they could survive was the unity of the group.Therefore, only by successfully eliminating the animal jealous instinct in the relationship between the sexes, can it be possible to realize the greatest evolution in nature-the leap from ape to man.
There is no direct evidence for this extremely primitive state of the relationship between the sexes.But there are many clues in Chinese and foreign myths and legends. "Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals Relying on the King" said: "In ancient times, there was no king, and the people lived together in groups. They knew their mothers but didn't know their fathers, and there was no difference between relatives, brothers, husbands and wives." Husband of one's own mother; Hindu mythology also says that Brahman is matched with his daughter Saravas.In the ancient Greek book written in the 8th century BC, it is said that Gaia, the mother of the earth, matched her son Uranus, the god of heaven, and gave birth to six boys and six girls.The myths and legends of several ancient civilizations coincidentally reflect a picture of the interbreeding of human ancestors. It should be said that it is not a coincidence, but a dim memory of people's barbaric world.
With the development of productivity, primitive people began to have a certain division of labor. The energetic young and middle-aged people often went out to collect and hunt, while the experienced old people stayed in their residences to make stone tools and grind bone tools.This allows men and women of the same age to have frequent contact, thus gradually excluding the relationship between the sexes of the next generation.This is the initial restriction on the relationship between the sexes, and it produces the first form of marriage in human history-group marriage.
The first group marriages were consanguineous group marriages.It is characterized by the implementation of intermarriage within the consanguineous group, and the exclusion of gender relations between different generations.That is, brothers and sisters of the same generation, that is, spouses in marriage.For example, the Han, Yi and other ethnic groups in my country all say that they are descendants of Fuxi brothers and sisters through marriage.The academic circles generally believe that consanguineous group marriage existed in the ape-man stage.At that time, human beings were able to use fire, lived on hunting and gathering, and lived in a group life of primitive communism.People's living units are called "blood family communes", or "blood communes".
The further development of human marriage and family is to gradually exclude marriages between brothers and sisters, and then gradually exclude all marriages between matrilineal blood relatives.That is to say, from blood group marriage (intra-clan marriage) to clan group marriage (extra-clan marriage).This huge progress led to the evolution of human physique from ape man to Homo sapiens; human social organization also developed from a blood commune to a matrilineal clan commune.
Clan exogamy began as a pair of gregarious marriages, that is, a man from clan A matched with a woman from clan B, and vice versa.But it is not an individual marriage, but a group marriage based on the clan.The development trend of clan group marriage is: the scope of intermarriage gradually expands and the object of intermarriage gradually narrows.Generally, it develops into a ring marriage.This kind of marriage system is found in Australia, Africa and Asia. Its essence is a one-way cousin marriage, that is, the uncle's daughter must marry the aunt's son; the aunt's daughter must never return to marry the uncle. The family is the daughter-in-law, so more than three intermarriage groups are needed to form this marriage system.The son-in-law and husband-in-law races of the Jingpo ethnic group in my country are the legacy of ring marriage.
Clan exogamy eventually led to pairing marriage conceived in group marriage gradually replacing group marriage.When the couple living together tends to be stable, it means that the group marriage has transitioned to pair marriage.This happens in the late period of the matrilineal clan.However, pairing marriage is still surrounded by the custom of group marriage. It is an unstable individual marriage. The pairing family composed of both spouses also lacks independent economic life, and is still attached to the matrilineal family commune.That is to say, in the first dual marriage, the man married off, and the woman married into her husband, and lived with her matrilineal relatives for life.In the stage of paired marriage, women have the same right to divorce as men and women, and remarriage is not difficult for both parties.
Pairing marriage adds a new member to the family: in addition to the biological mother, it also establishes the biological father.With the development of productivity, men's labor has become more and more important in the family economy, and the head of the family has gradually changed from women to men.And the most shocking change is: from a woman marrying a man to a man marrying a woman, and then from a pairing marriage to a monogamous system, from a matriarchal system to a patriarchal system.
When monogamy first emerged, it was not associated with individual small families, but contained within patrilineal family communes composed of the direct descendants of a single male ancestor.After the further development of production and surplus products became a regular phenomenon, the initial class differentiation of human beings also occurred.The patrilineal family commune then evolved into a patriarchal slavery family.At this time, the status of the wife plummeted, and she became a tool for the husband to have children.The monogamous patrilineal family in which a man marries a woman became a common form of marriage and has continued to this day.
History shows that in the classless primitive society, the human marriage and family system has undergone many great changes, and has experienced the development from chaos and disorder to consanguinity group marriage, clan group marriage and pairing marriage.But one thing is common, that is, the relationship between the sexes is generally equal.However, since the development of private ownership, subverting the original communism and forming a class society, monogamous families with men as the main body have been in a relatively stable state.This creates an illusion that monogamous individual families are an ancient and eternal phenomenon.In fact, it is not only very different from the marriage history of human beings, but also far from the actual national marriage customs in our country.As mentioned above, due to their specific historical conditions and uneven social development, the ethnic minorities in our country have various marriage customs, which constitute an important part of the Chinese culture.
Generally speaking, the vast majority of ethnic groups in our country practice monogamy in which a man marries a woman.At the same time, there are also uxorilocal marriages among some ethnic groups.In addition, among ethnic groups such as Tibet, Pumi, Monba, and Lhoba, there are polyandry and polygamy. The latter - polygamy, is widely popular among most ethnic groups that practice monogamy. It has become The privileges of the upper class and the wealthy were also a remedial measure taken by some families without heirs.But in either case, polygamy means that women have been reduced to child-bearing tools.In polygamy, except for a few sisters or mothers and daughters who recruit one husband together, resulting in matrilineal inheritance, in most cases it is father-son inheritance.
Among the ethnic groups such as Dulong, Nu, Lisu (lisu Lisu), Jingpo, Wa, Ewenki, Oroqen, and Lahu (huhu) who retained the original commune system, the transition from paired marriages and paired families to monogamy has not yet been finalized .The dual family was originally included in the extended matrilineal family, and some extended to the early patrilineal extended family.
The Mosuo people in Yongning District, Ninglang (langlang) County, Yunnan Province, had a feudal lordship system before liberation. However, due to the leap in historical development, the matriarchal clan passed the patrilineal clan and slavery, and directly entered the feudal lordship system. , their family marriage still retains the original form of marriage in which men do not marry and women do not marry. Their production and living units are not families based on marriage, but matriarchal families purely tied by matrilineal blood. It does not include men and women. member's spouse.
The matriarchal family is a single-line blood organization. Once a woman marries a husband, a dual family is formed.Several couple families of the same matrilineal family form a matrilineal family commune.Among the Lahu people in Yunnan, there used to be a huge matrilineal family commune consisting of 25 couples.
It was with the birth of the couple family that the marriage ceremony came into being.Because it is already necessary to announce to society, and society is also required to respect the birth of a new family.In the state of visiting marriage, people hold the coming-of-age ceremony, and they are naturally involved in the married life. It doesn't matter whether they are married or divorced, and there is no need to hold any ceremony.The marriage ceremony of couple families is still very simple. The Lahu man brings simple farming tools to marry the woman, and the wedding is held.Among the Axi people of the Yi nationality, the man goes to work with the woman in the fields, which means that their marriage has been established.With a marriage ceremony, divorce also requires certain procedures, and the beginning is also very simple.In the Dai nationality, the party who proposes to divorce hands a pair of wax strips to the other party.The Blang tribe can part ways by cutting a wax strip or chopping a stake.
In many ethnic groups, such as Wa and Wa, the transition from pairing marriage to monogamy is accompanied by the change from the residence of the wife to the residence of the husband, and then the change from matriarchy to patriarchy.This change was not accomplished overnight. In the process of mutual growth and decline between the emerging patriarchy and the declining matriarchy, various customs opposed to each other have emerged, such as walking marriage and marrying; escaping marriage and robbing marriage; home; sexual freedom before marriage and trial of brides, etc.Although matriarchy relied on the power of tradition and resisted patriarchy in various forms, patriarchy undoubtedly took the initiative in history and left the mark of their victories in the folklore of many nations.Such as changing the tradition by changing the habit of naming, the Dulong and Blang people changed the joint name of mother and child to father and son in the not-too-distant past.In the history of the Gelao, Zhuang, Gaoshan, Dai and other ethnic groups, there has been a peculiar "birth man" custom, that is, when the wife gives birth, the husband immediately climbs up on the delivery bed to imitate the posture of women giving birth and breastfeeding. To show that the baby is indeed his own.This dramatic means of strengthening the blood relationship between father and son has been found in many peoples of the world.The customs of "judging the bride" of the Pumi nationality and "wearing a fake shell" of the Buyi nationality reflect that the patriarchy is the master of the matrilineal legacy, and it does not hesitate to use force to force women to submit.Under the patriarchal system, marriage forms such as buying and selling marriages, exchange marriages, and house transfer marriages emerged as the times require.
Buy-and-sell marriages often appear in the form of dowry, which was originally a compensation provided by the man for the woman’s loss of an adult labor force. A man is unable to marry a wife for life.Their limited choices are service marriages in which they use their own labor to pay for their wives or exchange marriages in which sisters are exchanged for wives.For the ruling class, marriage is a political act, an opportunity to expand power through new marriages, and being well-matched is naturally the primary condition for choosing a spouse.
In either case, women have been reduced to objects of exchange and sale, they have lost their independent personality, completely lost the right to free marriage, and can only be manipulated by others.Even if her husband dies, she is still a chattel of her husband's family, and she must "transfer housing" in her husband's family and is not allowed to marry outside.Even a man's marriage depends on the orders of his parents and has no autonomy.
The various forms of marriage mentioned above: from random visiting marriages to arranged business marriages; from polygamy to monogamy, these coexist in our country's national marriage customs. It is like a gallery of genre paintings and a museum with countless collections.Here we will see: Some ethnic groups have free marriage and love, while more are arranged by their parents; The noise continued; some men married women, while others married women.In any case, the marriage customs of all ethnic groups are permeated with tradition and mass, and are restricted by social and historical conditions, so that they contain distinct ethnic characteristics and local flavor.Through the marriage customs of the nation, it will be possible to understand the context of social history from one side.
The forms of marriage and family of all ethnic groups in our country are in the process of development. After 1949, the monogamy system of all ethnic groups has been improved on the original basis, and it will continue to develop until the real and complete equality between the sexes is realized.With the progress of our society, new types of families with equality between men and women and happiness are appearing on the land of China day by day.
Notes:
Notes: