Research On How The Regional Environment Affects The Ghost Marriage

The ghost marriage has been a folk custom in China for thousands of years. With social development and civilized advancement, civic values and patterns of life has witnessed great changes. As a part of traditional civilization, the ghost marriage, to some extent, hampers the development of civilization. This gradually leads to a social issue, twisting the common affection. For instance, the demand in the ghost marriage has given rise to murdering people, stealing corpses and trading corpses recently. On account of the worsened condition, we are responsible to explore the primary cause and thus help the common people and the government to define the ghost marriage and judge its effects.The ghost marriage as a folk culture is embodied with regional characters on a national scale. This thesis describes a regional research on the ghost marriage. Based on plenty documents and in-depth rural surveys, the thesis introduces the traditional culture, economy and ghost marriage ceremony in Hongdong and analyzes the current marriage situation from the aspects of geography, folk culture and traditional values. Finally, the author concludes how the regional environment affects the existence and evolution of the ghost marriage.The thesis is composed of six chapters, with four chapters as the body. The first chapter as the introduction describes the purpose and meaning of selected topic, the reason of selected research spot, research contents, mentality and relevant document research. The second chapter mainly explains how the ghost marriage evolves and develops. In this chapter, the ghost marriage is carded according to its history and development, which helps understand its regional features. This provides some grounds for regional research on the ghost marriage.The third chapter develops a research on Hongdong case of the ghost marriage. The primary cause of prevailed ghost marriage in Hongdong is deeply analyzed after researching on the current situation, detailed ceremony procedures and the folk attitude toward the ghost marriage.The fourth chapter is the main part of the thesis, namely how the regional environment affects the ghost marriage. Combined with the case in the third chapter, the thesis deeply analyzes the current marriage situation from the aspects of geography, folk culture and traditional values. This serves as a theoretical ground for the fifth chapter and the main purpose of this thesis, helping the common people and the government to define the ghost marriage and judge its effects in a better way.The fifth and sixth chapters are the conclusions. Based on the former chapters, the thesis defines the ghost marriage more deeply and gives several suggestions to deal with it.