The Method Of Ancient Chinese Canon Hire Marriage History

As a unique marital phenomenon in Chinese history, pawning and hiring wife has been forbidden by law since Yuan dynasty. Being a modification to marriage by purchase, it originated together with the spring-up of pawning right system. On one hand, it bears a greater attribute of economy than sale of marriage for the fertility has been used to the greatest advantage. On the other hand, as a pattern of polygamy it coexists with another pattern of polygamy, i.e. the system of one husband one wife and many concubines, which was recognized by the government. In those provinces of a remarkable proportional difference between the male and female, the lowest class of society (male) had no choice but polyandry.The author of this paper sorts out the phenomenon of pawning and hiring wife (Section Ⅰ of Chapter Ⅰ) as well as the related regulations (Chapter Ⅱ) in chronological form. This paper will focus on the varietal patterns and regional distribution (Section Ⅱ of Chapter Ⅰ) during Ming and Qing dynasties and thus draw a tridimensional picture of pawning and hiring wife. Chapter III is to analyze the different attitudes by the official governments between the legislative and judicial level, which has reflected different value orientations held by legislator and judiciary (mainly on the Zhou and County level).In Chapter Ⅳ, the author picked up four meaningful topics to probe into. For example, did a so-called permanent contract on wife-purchase hold a permanent effect? Why is some cognitive notes in the name of pawn, while bore the attribute of renting? Are all wives passive and victims during the temporary marriages? Will an illegal pawning marriage be recognized by the clan? Is the child born after pawning regarded as adulterine? Did he hold the right of inheritance?Finally, the author summarized the social reasons causing the bloom of pawning and hiring wife. In ancient China, propagation, the most important social function of marriage, acted a great part both in legal and illegal mercenary marriage. Marriage by pawning and hiring is the marital form that reflected the concentration of chaos and contradiction.