On Female’s Love And Marriage Life In The Western Zhou Dynasty And The Spring And Autumn Period

As an important aspect of social life, female’s love and marriage life reflected thehistorical features of the society during the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring andAutumn Period. Manners run through the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring andAutumn Period, which was created by Zhou Gong. Manners affected the female’s role,responsibility, rights and obligations in the love and marriage life, indicating thechanges about the female’s social status. The male and female’s and the patriarchalsociety’s mate selection criteria, the principles of marriage, and the marriageconditions in Western Zhou Dynasty were all influenced by Manners. There weremany political marriages in the nobles due to the special social background in theSpring and Autumn Period. In addition, the female also had the freedom to ask fordivorce although the divorce initiative basically predominated by the male. It was justnot obvious when they compared with the male. The monogamous had become themainstream of marriage form in the Spring and Autumn Period. The so-called noble"polygamy" phenomenon should be precisely called "monogamy multipleconcubines". In a word, a series of changes had taken place in the Manners whichwere originated from the Western Zhou and the Spring and Autumn Period, becausethe country’s leadership had changed. In the meantime the social status of women hadalso slightly changed. But because the essence of the Manners had no fundamentalchange, this change was called the micro type. But it did not mean that the female hadno freedom at all in the love and marriage life, although the female’s status was ratherlow. On the contrary, their role in the social life, love and marriage life, and familylife, is incomparable by the female of the future generation.