A Study Of The Evolvement Of The Female Marital Role In The Lisu Ethnic Community In Nujiang

The relations of lisu ethnicity and other minorities, influenced by rheir mutual interaction in the history, the relatively closed geographical location and traffic conditions of border areas, all formed the tradition of marriage within the family of lisu ethnicity.Based on the analytical paradigm of gender, this dissertation investigated social division of labor, gender role and marriage customs of lisu people, raised that lisu women were labors and birth resources in the family, so they were seen as the family assets, and their marriage matters were controlled by their family. As "Family Assets", women were transferred from her father’s family to her husband’s family. Women had little autonomy in their marriage.Reform and opening up step by step gradually made the frontier national regions change from closed to open, also changed lisu people’s way of life in nujiang. Family had lower control towards women because of the gradual popularity of the social concept of equality of men and women as well as women got paid by participating in social work. In the last two decades, under the background of a wide range of marriage squeeze in China, more and more women migrated from frontier minority areas to the mainland through marriage. Under the male marriage squeeze, lisu women became the scarce resources. Their marital autonomy, freedom of marriage choice were greatly enhanced. For lisu women, they made use of marriage squeeze to accomplish a total evolvement of female marital role. The analysis is based on abundant field research cases, listing the embodiment of this evolvement from80’s in last century, discussing the impact of this evolvement upon the marriage value and the development of the Lisu community.This paper argues that, the changes of lisu women’s role, from "Family Assets" to "Scarce Resources", is the adjustment process of lisu women’s rights in marriage, status and autonomous ability under the social change. In traditional marriage, the runaway behavior of lisu women against arranged marriage, as well as their variety choices under independent environment nowadays, women’ marriage strategies have demonstrated the value of lisu women’s marriage principle:the pursuit of the satisfaction of needs first. From lisu women’s marriage choices, we can see that their personal happiness and self-realization are regarded better than the overall value of their family. Therefore, the lisu women’s marriage choices are always adjusting their ideal life. Under the social changes and the marriage squeeze, lisu women’s behaviors such as get married out of her ethnicity, returned back to her villiage, divorce, remarriage or have the groom live with her family after the marriage, are the images of their marriage concept as well as the adaptability of their cultural gene in modern lifestyle.The main body of this dissertation is made up of five chapters. The first chapter is a summary of the history, the economic and social condition of the traditional Lisu community, with an analysis on the traditional social gender, summarizes that Lisu women were "family assets". The second chapter studies the social context of the coming into being of the modern Lisu women and their marital role as "scarce resources" from aspects of the Christian enlightening, the economic and social development after the Reform and Opening-up, and marriage squeeze. From the fact that modern Lisu women has more marriage options, such as marriage outside the community, backward moving, divorce, remarriage, uxorilocal marriage and so on, chapter three demonstrates that as scarce resources, Lisu women have a bigger say in marriage and more options are open to them. Chapter four discusses the impacts of this evolvement upon the whole Lisu community in aspects of notion of marriage and subsequent behaviors. It is believed that nowadays the Lisu community recognizes women’s freedom and independence in marriage, and in collective conception complies with this evolvement of the female role in marriage. Chapter five demonstrates the impact of this evolvement upon the male group of the Lisu people and analyzed the female marriage principle from the value of their cultural roots. Chapter five also discusses the connection between the evolvement of female marital role in the Lisu community and female development. The dissertation comes to the conclusion that the evolvement is generally an active adjustment to modern society while generating a few negative social outcomings. It is pointed out that the changes of lisu women’ role reflect the awakening of women’ self-awareness, also reflect the current gender differences on the allocation of social resources. In the end, the article puts forward some constructive thoughts from the view of the harmonious development of both sexes.