Chapter 31 Section 8 The Feudal Marriage and Family System in the Tang Dynasty

The core of China's feudal marriage system is the power of husband and family (including patriarchal power). It is entirely for the purpose of carrying on the family line and offering sacrifices to ancestors, so it is centered on the family rather than individual wishes.Marriage is established entirely to the exclusion of the will of the children. "The order of the parents, the words of the matchmaker" is the legal form of feudal marriage.Parents, grandparents and other respected relatives have the right to officiate marriages in accordance with the law.Young men and women decide to live their own lives, which is regarded as a scandal that insults public morals and disgraces the family. Not only will they be punished, but they will also be forced to separate. The custom of "for the law of marriage, there must be a matchmaker" existed in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and it has become a legal system in the Tang Dynasty. Marriage that violates the law, the matchmaker must also bear certain legal responsibilities.

Feudal etiquette has various restrictions on marriage: one is that people with the same surname are not married.The law of the Tang Dynasty stipulated that those who married with the same surname would be sentenced to two years in prison, and the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties also inherited this rule.Second, relatives are not allowed to marry.The third is that the good and the poor are not allowed to intermarry. A slave marries a beloved as his wife, and he is punished for one and a half years.In addition, there are regulations such as no marriage for superiors and inferiors, no marriage for clan wives, no marriage for adulterers, no marriage for senior relatives, no remarriage for wives when their husbands are in mourning, and no remarriage when parents are imprisoned, etc.

There are two main conditions for the establishment of feudal marriage: one is the right marriage.Intermarriage between men and women of different classes is prohibited.According to the law of the Tang Dynasty, slaves and maidservants who marry their beloved as their wives privately are considered robbers.Even within the ruling class, there is a deep concept of family status, and if the family is not of the right family, intermarriage is not allowed.The second is the amount of property.In feudal society, marriage was practiced by engagement and marriage, and the marriage was considered valid only after the dowry or bride price was paid. In fact, it was a marriage by sale.

Tang Law has extremely unequal requirements and regulations on the issue of divorce for husband and wife.There are three forms of divorce.One is "giving up a wife", or "divorcing a wife".This is the most statutory form of divorce.The Tang law followed the Han law's "seven outs and three outs" (or "seven outs and three outs"). If a wife has one of the following seven situations, the husband has the right to abandon her.These seven situations are: neglecting parents-in-law, childless, adulterous, jealous, ill, talkative, and stealing.Among these seven items, except one related to the personal character of the theft, the other six items are related to the interests of the family.For example, if you have no children, you cannot pass on the family line. The so-called "there are three kinds of unfilial piety, and it is the greatest to have no offspring" means this.Another example is that it doesn't matter about the parents-in-law, there is no objective standard, it all depends on the parents-in-law's happiness.In order to fulfill the filial piety of the parents, the husband can divorce his wife even for trivial matters.During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Liu Qiao's wife, Wang, drilled a hole in the wall to hang things, and accidentally let the wall soil fall on the bed of her mother-in-law Kong, who was displeased, and Liu Qiao immediately divorced his wife.Lu You and his wife Tang Wan in the Southern Song Dynasty were also victims of the "seven outs" system.The so-called "three don'ts" refer to the following three situations in which a wife cannot be divorced: she insists on the funeral of her uncle or aunt;Another form of divorce is "yijue".If a husband commits assault, adultery, or murder against his wife's family, or the wife against her husband's family, it is considered that the relationship between husband and wife is broken, which constitutes a natural condition for divorce. Regardless of the original intention of the husband and wife, they must divorce.The third form of divorce is "harmonious divorce", which is equivalent to the divorce by agreement in modern times. "Laws of the Tang Dynasty Household Marriage Law" stipulates: "If a couple is not in harmony with each other but reconciles with each other, they will not sit down." "If you don't sit down", you will not be punished.This provision has a positive effect on alleviating women's suffering.Under the feudal patriarchal rule, "harmony and separation" are actually rare.Regardless of the form of divorce, women have absolutely no freedom to divorce unilaterally.The woman's request for divorce is considered to be against the rules and morals of a good woman, and it cannot be tolerated by society at all.A wife can only "marry a chicken and follow the chicken, marry a dog and follow the dog" and "stay the same forever". Even if she is abused by her husband and his family, she can only endure it.

The laws of the Tang Dynasty affirmed the feudal patriarchal system in legal form. In a family, the son must obey the father, the younger brother must obey the elder brother, the wife must obey the husband, and the whole family must obey the parents.The head of the family is the most respected male in the family, who has a great deal of power, and the legitimate rights of the children are ignored. Feudal law stipulates that the humble children have various obligations to their elders, the main one is the duty of support.Failure to fulfill one's obligations is "unfilial piety", and unfilial piety is one of the "ten heinous crimes", which should be punished with the most severe punishment.The relationship between a husband and a wife is also a relationship of respect and inferiority. A wife must be subordinate to her husband. If a wife sues her husband, it is a crime of "violating justice".The name refers to the name, and the righteousness refers to the friendship. The crime of "violating righteousness by name" is a crime stipulated by feudal law for the behavior of humble children suing their elders.

In a word, the laws of the Tang Dynasty confirmed the feudal marriage and family system and the feudal ethics relationship by means of legal coercion, and its purpose was to maintain the feudal ruling order.