Han-Tibetan Intermarriage In Sichuan Tibetan Areas In The Modern History Of China

Intermarriage features prominently in the relationship annals between Han and Tibetan. For instance, Tang Dynasty saw the marriage between the princess Wen Cheng and the king of Tubo while today is witnessing a large number of intermarriages between Han and Tibetan people in the Tibetan areas. This way of national mixing has never stopped. Sichuan Tibetan areas have always been important places of activities for both Han and Tibetan people. It is a natural thing to see intermarriage between them right here. Both of them have made their respective contributions to the development of this area. Since the end of Qing Dynasty when the hereditary chieftaincy was abolished in Chuanbian, quite a number of Han people converged here and national differences began diminishing gradually. Many of this group of Han people married the local Tibetan people. Taking Kangding in the period of the Republic of China as a case for study and combining ethnosociology, this thesis is intended, by analyzing the intermarriage during that period, to analyze the important role of intermarriage in promoting national mixing.In their long-term social interaction, Han and Tibetan people have drawn upon each other's strengths in the process of assimilation and mixing. Intermarriage between two nationalities is the most direct and fundamental form of national mixing, communication and mergence as well as a direct representation of harmonious national relationship. As early as in Tang Dynasty, princess Wencheng and princess Jincheng married to Tubo one after the other, pioneering the intermarriage between Han and Tibetan people. Afterwards, Han and Tibetan keep frequent contacts with each other and they are interdependent in the political, economic and cultural fields. Cultural interaction helps to reduce the constraint on intermarriage between two different nationalities. In particular, the long-lasting harmonious coexistence between Han and Tibetan people and their basically identical religious belief provide favorable conditions for their intermarriage.Over the years, the ethnosociology research unilaterally focused on a single minority since it was influenced by the ethnology research. Moreover, the research also concentrated on the highly centralized areas of that minority while overlooking the ones where multi-nationalities live together. Therefore, the research fields are quite limited. Based on a historical perspective, this thesis tries to combine the traditional method of field survey with social statistic analysis to demonstrate and analyze the intermarriage between Han and Tibetan people in Sichuan Tibetan areas. By combining the western ethnosociology theories and practices with China's reality in this thesis, the author of it intends to give a specific case for relevant research of national relationship in contemporary China. Meanwhile, it is hoped that this thesis will facilitate the research related to social and historical changes by comparing the national relationship in different communities and different areas. This thesis is focused on studying the intermarriage between Han and Tibetan people in Sichuan Tibetan areas in modern China because intermarriage has both the merit for research and its practical significance for studying nationality-related issues. Besides, it can provide historical references for the national relationship between Han and Tibetan in modern times, thus promoting the national unity, cultural preservation and economic development in western China and maintaining the stability and growth in Tibetan areas.