| The smell and odor are not simple biological reactions of the body,but rather influenced by the culture,and implies social values.Under some special situation in Chinese society,underarm body odor is defiled and misunderstood.It is subject to discrimination and exclusion in intermarriage,and even developed to be the social stigma for the whole family's reputation in some places.This stigma is diffused to more people by ways of intermarriage and hereditary and so on.Thus,it not only brings the damage to the reputations of some families,but also makes them be discriminated and isolated by other groups of people on intermarriage.In Hechuan County of southern Shanxi,country communities make the discrimination towards underarm body odor evolve into the stigma to a family's reputation in society.The stigma and prejudice are further fermented and strengthened among acquaintances in social environment and they are internalized in the practices of intermarriage,which are represented in the situation that "Gendi" is regarded as the prior condition and primary criterion for intermarriages.In accordance with innocence,ignorance,suspicion and guilty of the nature of "Gendi" which is regarded as the family reputation,the people in Hechuan County were divided into four marital levels.Under the constraints of this concept,the behavior of intermarriage represents a certain degree of marital isolation within or without the levels.Such hierarchy of marriages seriously affected and prevent the intermarriage and communication between different groups of people in society,and it causes serious injury towards many people's emotions and marriages,leading to some malignant social events.For considerations of the family reputation,marriage and the offsprings of intermarriage,the families which have the advantages of "Gendi" commence the stigma of "Gendi" and isolation of intermarriage to the lower marriage ranked families.While the latter are trying to change the situation of discrimination of their families' "Gendi" through intermarriage with the the top ranked families.As for intermarriage,dominated by the concept of "Gendi",people in different marital levels start prevention,supervision,isolation,competition,connections,rupture and a series of numerous,complex and subtle behavioral strategies of intermarriage.The author mainly adopts thematic description,interpreting the behavioal logic of people,describing the ethnographic of social realities about marriage hierarchy and marriage isolation in Hechuan County of southern Shanxi,and showing a local case of body odor discrimination in Chinese society.The thesis consists of eight parts:Introduction:This part mainly includes the reason of selecting this topic,the related literature review,research significance,research ideas,academic ethics and other aspects.Chapter I:Community background and field process.The author respectively introduces three main fields of the villages' basic overview of Hechuan County,Huangyuan Village and the nearby Shiyuan Village,and describes the basic features of rural life,the author's experience in the fields and the research strategies.Chapter II:The stigma of body odor and the concept of "Gendi"."Gendi" is the keyword to select marriages in Hechuan County and it is inextricably linked with the taboo of body odor in local people's intermarriage.This chapter analyzes the stigma issues of underarm body odor in Chinese society,illustrating that odor is used to construct the boundary of social classes in different cultures.Meantime,the author turns the attention to Hechuan County of southern Shanxi,through the expressions of the local vocabularies,to explore that how the locals generate such attention towards "Gendi" because of the cognition and prejudice of "body odor".Chapter III:Generation and strengthening of marriage hierarchy.This chapter starts from the analysis of the regular pattern of the diffusion of "Gendi"in Hechuan county,dissertating how the locals regard "Gendi" as the center of generating marriage hierarchy.With this concept,the people in the different marital levels have different concepts of intermarriage and marital situation.The marriage within the level is to be seen as normal,while cross-grade intermarriages may intermingle the boundaries between different levels,causing more families to suffer the stigma of "Gendi".At the same time,the different groups hold fast to the principle of "Gendi" for different mentality,and co-strengthen the marriage hierarchy of Hechuan County.Chapter IV:Inquiry about the mentality and practice of "Gendi"."Inquiring about 'Gendi'" is an inquisitive means of investigation and evaluation mechanism.People regards the results of the investigation and judgment as an important reference for marriage.This chapter presents the main content and procedures of "inquiring about 'Gendi'",showing the specific implementational process of this behavioral practice and the social psychology behind such behaviors.Chapter V:The social situation of stigma and of people who are suffering the stigma.Due to the complex social psychology,the families with good"Gendi" have the right to speak of the "Gendi".They not only expand subjective imaginations and vilification towards the families which are suffering the stigma,but also carry out deliberately picky and private ridicule,and implement marriage isolation and exclusion towards them.In this chapter,around the three families which are suffering the stigma,the author describes their marital situation in reality when they are undergoing marriage isolation.Chapter VI:The coping methods and intermarriage strategies of the families which are suffering the stigma.This chapter focuses on the families which are suffering the stigma of "Gendi",analyzing their psychology when they are coping with the stigma imposed by others,as well as their intermarriage strategies for changing the current situation.The inequality of the right to speak and the difficulty of intermarriage in reality make the people who are suffering the stigma pay attention to the techniques of controlling information,in order to change the situation of suffering the stigma.What's more,they take some special measures to change the realities of marital situation and enhance the status of marriage.Conclusion:Refining and induction on the basis of reviewing the main part of this paper.Because of the anthropologist's sense of responsibility and realistic concern towards the hometown,the author analyzes some social factors that may lead to the changing of the current situation of marriage isolation in Hechuan County,and investigates the value of the case studies of marriage customs in Hechuan County for the study of the institutions of anthropological marriage and the study of the analogous groups that are suffering the stigma.By analyzing the deficiencies of the institutions of marriage in current Chinese society,the author illustrates the possible contribution of the case of marriage customs in Hechuan County.The phenomenon of the body odor stigama and the marriage isolation in Hechuan County is a microcosm of social discrimination of underarm body odor in Chinese society.Therefore,we need to afresh people's cognition and expression about underarm body odor to be scientific.Meantime,people who are suffering the discrimination need the understanding,tolerance and mutual respect from people in the whole society.In the author's hometown Hechuan County,Jiyuan City in Henan,Shaanxi Province and other regions,people's behavior of intermarriage are dominated by the concept of "Gendi".Furthermore,many people's emotions and marriage are still influenced by the old concept of "Gendi".However,individual's protest cannot shake the rules that followed by the whole society,which can be regarded as a tragedy of contemporary society.It is hoped that the author's academic care and practical concern can promote mutual tolerance and communication between different groups and make people see a ray of hope to change this unreasonable phenomenon.And it is also hoped that this situation can cause the concern of scholars who can put forward reasonable solutions countermeasures. |
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