The Study On Disciple Etiquette Before Yuan Dynasty

Disciple etiquette in Ancient China is the words and deeds specification, which is about serving parents, respecting for elders, dressing and diet, respected by the children in daily life. As the basis contents of the ancient Chinese etiquette education, disciple etiquette deeply affected the formation and circulation of traditional Chinese etiquette, and thus had a tremendous impact on the formation of the character of traditional Chinese culture.Disciples etiquette in the pre-Qin period had formed a relatively complete system, and depending on the application object, the disciples etiquette system was divided into two parts:serving elder and correcting oneself. Serving elder, like parents, teachers and other elders, aims at training the younger generation to be humility to elders by learning a series of etiquette. What the younger generation has to learn is in order to achieve the purpose of "comprehend proprieties". Correcting oneself is mainly to set the standard for the individual’s own etiquette, aiming to cultivate the "gentlemen" of Confucian ideal. The essence of these etiquette is to maintain the patriarchal hierarchy, which is based on the kinship. From the records of the subsequent literatures, the changes and improves of disciple etiquette were mostly based on this system.In the pre-Qin period, there was already a big difference in etiquette between the men and women. Viewing of the records of the literatures in disciple etiquette, the number of the words about men is larger than the women’s. However, comparing the extent of the constraints, the female disciple etiquette’s constraint extent is far stricter than the male disciple etiquette’s. By combing the relevant literatures, the thesis mainly divides female disciple etiquette into four aspects:feminine virtue, feminine words, feminine appearance and feminine responsibilities. The essence of the female disciple etiquette is to make women weak, humble, dutiful and chaste, which is in order to make women at home and being hard-working for their husbands in all their lives. Reforming by Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, especially after Zhu xi connected "heavenly principles" with the traditional "principle of feudal moral conduct", the restrict of female disciple etiquette became more and more rigorous. In the Ming and qing dynasty, it tended to be extreme.The disciple etiquette contains all aspects in disciples’daily lives, it must be subjected by the impact of the changes in the social lives and varied a lot. There are three main factors affecting the changes of disciple etiquette:lifestyle changes, religion and culture, as well as the ethnic integration between the minority and Han.From the Qin Dynasty to the end of Song, especially in Confucianism becoming China’s feudal society orthodoxy, the marrow of disciple etiquette, such as "filial piety for the first","respect for teachers", formed a series of Chinese nation’s fine tradition, which is inherited from generation to generation. After the Song Dynasty, with the improvement of paper-making technology and the development of the printing industry, the number of the works about disciple etiquette was greatly increased, the content was more completed and the details became more perfect. The nature of these works was still the inheritance of the ancient Chinese Confucian ethical thought. It was consensus of ancient Chinese education that in order to make young generation live in a right way, they should be educated in their childhood. Because of this traditional idea, disciple etiquette education got a chance to develop and improve continually.