The Study On The Marital Relationships Concerning The Voluminous Family Novels In Ming And Qing Dynasties

Before Ming Dynasty, the family novels had witnessed a simplified relationship betweencharacters. And Ming and Qing Dynasties seen the creation of classics like The Golden Lotus,Marriages to Awaken the World, The Fragrance of Orchid, A dream in the Red Mansions, TheLamp on the Forked Road, which are all representatives of describing the family daily life andthese novels are what we recognize as family novels.The Golden Lotus, Marriages to Awaken the World, and The Lamp on the Forked Roadall center the family life as their theme, focusing on the description of family internalcontradictions and disputes. In this sense, we call them family novels. Most of them do notinvolve the theme of love but deal with the domestic problems, thus reflecting the ways of theworld, and its main purpose is to expose the darkness and and ugliness in the society.As for The Fragrance of Orchid and A dream in the Red Mansions, they both more orless involve the theme of love,which can be exemplified by the instances of the love storyabout Xue Baochai and Lin Daiyu in A dream in the Red Mansions,and the romance betweenYan Mengqing and Geng Lang in The Fragrance of Orchid.The author will categorize the marital relationship in these five novels into two types.One is embodied by The Golden Lotus, Marriages to Awaken the World, and The Lamp on theForked Road, which all concentrate on the marriage in the underprivileged social groups; theother is reflected by The Fragrance of Orchid and A dream in the Red Mansions, which depictthe aristocratic marriage.The family relationship with marriage as the link has always been filled with all kinds ofcontradictions. Husband and wife bear the brunt of these contradictions. And husband-wifecontradiction can be divided into two categories: one is the gap between them,which may becaused by the weakening and diminishing of love, the inharmony from concubines, thedivision of properties and titles among children. The second type of contradiction is regardingthe long-lasting contradiction between husband’s mother and wife.In these novels, the contradictions between husband’s mother and wife could beindirectly witnessed between Mrs. Xing and Madam Jia, Mrs Wang and Madam Jia, MrsWang and Li Wan. The obvious contradictions include those between Lady Xing and Wang Xifeng, Xue Su and Madame Di.The woman, whether lives in a rich or poor family, all has to be constrained by themale-centered family system and she has three identities, namely as a daughter, wife, andmother. Some women are the victims of the feudal family system, who are devastated by thefeudal ethical code such as Yan Mengqing and Lin Daiyu.Some are the supports of the family system, such as Xue Baochai. Some are unwilling tosuffer mediocrity, thus dismantling the feudal family system, such as Pan Jinlian, and Xue Su.These three types of women are all struggling in the strict patriarchy. In order to get relieffrom this system, some turn to religion,and the most typical religion is Buddhism, but thevanity of Buddha can hardly suppress human’s nature.The revelation that a woman enters into the marriage bond, conforms to the system ofpatriarchy, and is ravaged to death both physically and psychologically severely criticizes thepersecution from the patriarchal society upon a woman’s marriage and destiny, thus triggeringthe contemplation abut the discussion and thoughts concerning the women in the ancienttimes. In this way, the author hopes to provide some lessons for today’s marriage,whichcenters on materials and money.