Home Ceremony Of The Song Dynasty And Systems And Practice

This dissertation shows comprehensive research about the constituting and practice of family rituals in the Song Dynasty.The Zongfa(Clan Law and System) presented for a long period before the Tang Dynasty. And because the social structure did not change enormously at the same time, the contradiction of the social transformation and the custom was not intensified. But the war in the Five Dynasties period (907-960) decimated the social structure, and it also demolished the traditional etiquette and custom.The Confucians during Song time, such as Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi, Zhangzai, Sima Guang and Zhu Xi, wanted to reestablish the Clan Law and System. They wrote the text of etiquette and custom, for The Family Rituals of Zhu Xi as an example, for all social estate. The etiquette system, which include detailed rituals, such as Guanli (The Capping Ceremony), Hunli (Weddings), Sangli (Funerals), and Jili (Sacrificial Rites), and the principles of ritual, that many family precepts were involved, became terseness in the Song Dynasty. The extension of the influence and practice of family rituals changed in Song Dynasty, they were implemented from the neo-Confucians to ordinary people. Although the neo-Confucians pay palatial energy on the publicity of the family rituals, not all the people followed them.The constituting and practice of family rituals in the Song Dynasty was a classic case of lizhi (Ruling by Rites), it reflect the relationship of the custom and rites in the social transformation period.