The Study Of Wedding Thinkings Of Confucianism In Pre-Qin Period

The pre-Qin Confucians had changed the wedding of Zhou dynasty at two points: firstly, they enhanced the position of husband and wife in wedding; secondly, they increased the degree of grand wedding. The reasons of both changes are as follows: Firstly, the pre-Qin Confucians’understanding about human relationship had changed. Differentiating with the standards—ties of blood and relationship between superior and subordinate—of human relationship in Western Zhou dynasty, pre-Qin Confucians established their human relationship net with the standards ties of blood, relationship between superior and subordinate and righteousness. This kind of human relationship net put husband and wife as the first place, and it was interconnected among relationships. Secondly, with the change of understanding about human relationships, the pre-Qin Confucians were pay more attention to the wedding’s functions to human relationship, people’s life, the society and the culture. By these functions, the wedding was useful to be used to rectify human relationships and to promote good custom.The pre-Qin Confucians converted their cognition about human relationship and functions of wedding into two ethical principles, namely, love and respect. And they used the two principles to connect and expound the rituals of wedding. By this way, the wedding thinkings of pre-Qin Confucians were put into practice. While their thinkings were not put into practice in Chinese traditional wedding institutions, on the contrary, they were similar with the change of Chinese traditional wedding custom. This might demonstrate the truthful aspect of the wedding thinkings of pre-Qin Confucians. In modern society, the theory of human relationship between pre-Qin Confucians and modern society are very similar, and the wedding principles raised by pre-Qin Confucians can satisfy people’s multiple needs to wedding. So the wedding thinkings of pre-Qin Confucians can play a role in modern society.The purpose of this paper is to find a upward root for Chinese modern wedding, and the root can be described as follows:First, the whole wedding should embody the main principles of love and respect. Except the two main principle, the wedding can embody other concepts, such as filial piety, environmentalism, and so on. Second, the reason to use the both principles is because that the purpose of wedding is to establish the relationship of husband and wife, so it need "love", and the wedding has positive functions to human relationship, people’s life, the society and the culture, so it need "respect". Third, what decide the value of wedding is the human relationship theory—human relationships are established by the standards of ties of blood, relationship between superior and subordinate and righteousness, thus the relationship of husband and wife is at the first place, and every relationship is connected with others. This kind of wedding thinkings is established from the above basic pre-Qin Confucians’human relationship theory to downward. The basic human relationship theory and the principles of wedding are accord with those in modern society.