| Menshi taboo is a social phenomenon in which people in northwestern Henan focus on the body odor of intermarried subjects before intermarriage activities and avoid intermarriage with people with body odor and families.In local society,Menshi not only refers to individuals with body odor,but also to the blood and marriage relationship between family and body odor in a certain sense.Families and individuals who involved with Menshi are regarded as a special social category in the local area,subjected to certain discrimination and differential treatment in daily life,and are excluded from the scope of regular intermarriage.In addition to being a taboo in choosing a spouse in intermarriage and avoiding those who have acquaintances in the selection of intermarriage objects,the local society has also formed a generally accepted negative meaning for Menshi.Personal body odor diseases are associated with family style,morality and other social evaluations.A series of institutional arrangements and identification patterns for the Menshi and those families who have Menshi are formed.This paper starts with the unique taboo in Jiyuan’s local society,and investigates it as a local social institution through field work and the collection of local chronicles,historical data and literature.This paper sorts out the local social,historical and cultural background of the Menshi taboo institution and the body odor disease in Chinese social history.Relevant cases are combined to present the operation mode of the various elements of the Menshi taboo institution.Operations of the identify influenced by the institution,and the exchange network of Menshi in the local society are researched.The origin of Menshi taboo and the process of institutionalized social construction is analyzed,and their development and changes are discussed.The historical and cultural context of the local society is the basis for the formation and operation of the Menshi taboo institution.The disease and significance of body odor in Chinese society is an important factor in the formation of the taboo against body odor.These two background factors provide a unique institutional environment in the local society for the Menshi taboo institution.This paper uses the institutional analysis framework of W.Richard Scott to analyze the content and operation mode of the Menshi taboo institution.In his summary of the existing research schools in the institutional theory field,Scott extracted the three major analytical elements: institutional regulative,normative,and cultural-cognitive elements,and "In a perfect institutional analysis framework,three elements cooperate with each other and play a role together...The institution has the function of promoting stability and forming meaning.The three elements of institution provide a flexible framework to guide behavior and resist changes.”This paper analyzes the operation of cultural-cognitive,normative and regulative elements of the Menshi taboo institution.The shared cognitive structure and meaning,the formation of normative institutions and values,and the implementation of punitive rules are discussed based on their combination with the data collected in the fieldwork.The actual operations of the Menshi taboo institution in the local society are presented through a series of related cases.Firstly,the cultural-cognitive element is the basis of the Menshi taboo institution.It constructs a series of social facts of Menshi,classifies people based on the status of Menshi,and produces categories with or without Menshi.Supported by the shared local cultural symbol institution,a unified cognitive model,common concept and action logic for the subject of Menshi are formed.The cultural-cognitive elements classify people according to the standards of the subject,and form specific institutional arrangements for different categories.The related knowledge of the Menshi taboo and the negative meaning of the Menshi are embedded in each actor’s mind through a shared cognitive framework.The rule of Menshi taboo--not to marry someone with Menshi--has become a social fact generally recognized and accepted by the local society.The negative meaning of Menshi,the evaluation of the people involved with Menshi and its influence to their family is accepted by people as a legitimate concept.The concept of Menshi that exists as a custom taken for granted not only plays a role in intermarriage selection,but also has an impact on all aspects of daily life.This paper analyzes the relationship between funeral customs and Menshi taboo in local society.Activities such as "guarding the graves" in traditional funeral rituals are related to the meaning of preventing the tombs from being polluted by the Menshi and maintaining the purity of the ancestral graves.By showing a case of the funeral disturbance in the public grave caused by the Menshi helps better understand the role of cultural-cognitive elements of the taboo institution in the construction of the local shared cognitive framework.Secondly,based on the meaning given to Menshi by the shared cognitive framework,the normative elements of the institution provide a set of normative system for the Menshi taboo institution,including the values for the Menshi and the code of conduct for pursuing the clean state of it.Menshi will cause negative impacts on the family,such as lowering social evaluation and affecting the normal intermarriage of members.Out of the pursuit of family interests,maintaining the family’s "Menshi-clean" status has become the goal of every person that has not been involved with Menshi.To achieve this,people need to take precautions against possible objects in intermarriage by inquiring and being particular about Menshi and other behavioral norms.The normative elements of the Menshi taboo institution rely on discourse.The goal and behavioral norms of "Menshi-clean" can be expressed,transmitted and achieved by the Menshi taboo discourse.These discourses are private,verbal,and moral.They are the embodiment of the moral meaning of the taboo of Menshi.At the same time,they also reflect the power relationship between the Menshi categories.The display of three Menshi-related youth marriage cases show that the normative system of the Menshi taboo strictly restricts people’s behavior patterns when involved in them.Youths with different Menshi identities have corresponding responsibilities and obligations,and are restricted by the corresponding norm expectations.The normative elements establish the behavioral norms and values of the Menshi taboo,and urge people to internalize the normative system to achieve the effect of observing them.Thirdly,the regulative elements of the Menshi taboo institution determine the rules of action,supervise people’s compliance with the rules,and punish violations of the rules.The basic rule of the Menshi taboo institution is that families without Menshi should avoid intermarriage with families with it.Such rules form a consensus in people’s minds based on a cultural-cognitive basis.The influence based on the normative system is generally internalized by people as a code of conduct for compliance.The role of regulative elements is to punish violations of the rules.Punishment measures include “Family contagion": Divide the family that violates the rules into the category of Menshi,and "unexplainable": Families infected by Menshi cannot get rid of the influence associated with it.This evasive punishment method has a strong effect in local society.In order to avoid being punished,all actors must pay more attention to the Menshi situation of the target intermarriage family on the basis of norms to prevent their own family from being involved in the Menshi affairs.From the presentation of a case of family-related infection,it can be found that the focus of the family’s infectiousness lies in the stigmatization of family identity,rather than the blood inheritance of body odor.Under the influence of regulative elements,those who are not involved with Menshi strictly abide by the requirements of the taboo in order to avoid the destructive impact of personal behavior on the family.The operation of the Menshi taboo institution will restrict and influence the actors in the local society.The actors are not “puppets” who passively implement the requirements of the institution under its influence.Instead,they form strategic actions of the operation of Menshi identity information based on factors such as interests,identities,and concepts.This paper analyzes the operation activities of local actor’s identity information under the influence of the institution,and conducts a series of actions taken by people in local society to maintain their innocence identities and investigate the identity information of others due to the Menshi taboo.The "Menshi information exchange network" formed by the operation of Menshi information is sorted out and analyzed.On one hand,the information operation of the actors is the consequence of the constraints of the various elements of the institution,on the other hand,it is also a social practice action with active significance.The various elements of the institution need the cooperation of actions,the generation of classification and meaning,the internalization of goals and behavior norms,the supervision and enforcement of rules and punishments are all achieved in the process of the operation of the Menshi identity information.The three elements of the Menshi taboo institution interact with the local social actors’ identity information operation strategy,which plays an important role in the stable and lasting operation of the Menshi taboo institution in the local society.Institution does not appear out of nowhere.As a social reality,the Menshi institution needs to be constructed by society as its current status.This paper analyzes the origin of the Menshi institution and the process of its institutionalization.By combining the historical and cultural background of the local society and the analysis of the similar taboo in intermarriage selection in traditional societies,it can be considered that the Menshi taboo is a "tradition" that was "invented" in a relatively recent period.The historical social institution of good and cheap,and foreign non-marriage provides a similar template for the prohibition of marriage.The ethnic and cultural meaning contained in body odor provides the original source of legitimacy for the origin of the taboo.In the process of clan popularization of the local society in the middle of the Qing Dynasty,intermarriage taboo against persons and families with body odor were gradually promoted to all families in the local society as a code of conduct within the family,and became the mainstream requirement for intermarriage selection.Any order and convention needs to be institutionalized in order to have a long-term and stable influence.The construction process of the Menshi taboo institution is mainly under the influence of cultural-cognitive elements,as a cognitive framework and behavior mode generally accepted by the local society.The negative meaning of Menshi affairs,the segregation of intermarriage to the family,and the negative influence of Menshi on the family have become social facts that people take for granted.This shared cognitive basis affects the decision-making of actors in local society.Pursuing the goal of innocence and avoiding the behavioral norms that are affected by the Menshi,along with the shared meaning framework,is imitated and accepted by people.Under the influence of the discourse related to the Menshi taboo,a set of normative facts is gradually formed and exists objectively.The process of transformation is passed between generations,and is generally internalized by people into behavioral norms and values.It guides people’s actions,thus completing the social construction of the Menshi taboo institution.In the conclusion part,firstly the operation of the three elements of the Menshi taboo institution is summarized,the relationship between the three elements and the connection with the local context are discussed.It’s attempted to respond to the analytical effectiveness of Richard Scott’s institutional analysis framework from the relationship between the elements and the local characteristics of the institutional background.Secondly,the origin process of the Menshi taboo institution is sorted out.By combining the background factors such as the history,culture and social mentality of the local society,the reason of the strict Menshi taboo formed in Jiyuan and surrounding areas are explored;Finally,in conjunction with the analysis of the changes in the Menshi taboo in contemporary society,the way to deal with the "backward" and "traditional" factors in our society is discussed and the practical problems of traditional changes are responded. |
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