The Inheritance And Evaluation Of Marriage In Tang And Song Dynasty

In this thesis, we make a comparison of the marriage between Tang and Song Dynasty and illustrate the similarities and differences of the evaluation through specific examples. Therefore we can understand Tang and Song dynasty from another angle. Tang Dynasty was an open period in ancient China, while Song Dynasty was a highly developed commodity economy era in ancient China. In the history of marriage, Tang and Song Dynasty were in the main period of marriage transformation. With weakness of birth background concept and depth of wealth concept, marriage has developed from"people can not married between gentry and common family"to"marriage is not districted by different family backgrounds"and women's chastity concept has experienced a complex changes. These changes were inseparable from the development of the whole society. The imperial examination system was established in Tang Dynasty and got more mature in Song Dynasty, at the same time all the walks of the society experienced with new changes. All of these resulted in the special characteristics of the marriage in Song Dynasty: the standard of a woman choosing husband transformed from"family name"to"office"; the luxury marriage was still in popularity; the marriage between noble and common families was appeared; marriage system tended to be conservative; marriage ceremony was simpler and the charity concept became much stronger. We can understand the new traits of Song Dynasty'marriage and the differences between Tang and Song Dynasty from the contract between marriage concept and marriage custom, thus we can look more deeply to the development of Tang and Song Dynasty. The first part of this thesis talks about the inheritance and evaluation of the marriage in Tang and Song Dynasty from five aspects.The respective traits of the marriage in these two dynasties intrinsically linked to their own social backgrounds including political, economic, cultural and diplomatic factors and so on. It is discussed in the second part: First,changes in economic development is the basis of marriage. With development of commodity economy and depth of wealth concept, the history of marriage in Tang and Song Dynasty were different. Second, with weakness of birth background concept, marriage has developed from"people can not married between gentry and common family"to"marriage is not districted by different family backgrounds".At the same time, the marriage between noble and common families was appeared. Third, in the political and diplomatic aspects, the government pushed ahead with conciliation in Tang Dynasty. But, that was opposite in Song Dynasty. As a result, the marriage policies in Tang and Song Dynasty weren't the same. Finally, the imperial examination system was established in Tang Dynasty and got more mature in Song Dynasty, at the same time all the People's values experienced with new changes. Marriage concept and system deeply influenced the development of the imperial examination system.In different period and stage, ancient China marriage brought new system and concept which was different from the previous system or the inheritance of the previous system. The new system was also changed with the transformation of society that provided a possibility to the following system and concept. Ancient marriage concept and system deeply influenced the development of modern marriage culture. Therefore, the main idea of the last sector is that only keeping a scientific understanding and critical inheritance attitude towards ancient marriage culture, can we promote the development of modern marriage and realize the harmonious marriage in harmonious society. Only in this way, can we multiply the marriage culture to generation and generation.