Changes In Marriage Customs Of The Rural After The Establishment Of The P.R.C

For a long time, marriage, fertility, funeral activities constitute the basic content offarmers. As to marriage customs that is closely related to the farmers, shows the standard ofpeasants’ material life and spiritual life from economic condition, consumption concept andlegal concept, knowledge level, family values and so on. After the founding of the People’sRepublic of China, the rural social productivity develops constantly, that vigorously promotesthe countryside modernization process, and that changes the farmer’s production-mode andlife-style, and that also affects their ideology and custom. In all kinds of customs and habits,the rural marriage custom is a kind of unique cultural phenomenon, to a large extent itschanges can reveal the development of rural culture characteristic and the change trajectory offarmers’ values under the background of the social changes.Considering the village conditions, research funding, investigators and other aspects, theauthor selected the L village in the Guanzhong area as a detailed investigation site. Based onthe characteristics of the social development of the Guanzhong area, the author made adynamic description for the changes of the rural marriage customs according to the division ofthree main periods that are the period of before the Cultural Revolution period, the CulturalRevolution period, the period of after the reform and opening-up.Traditional marriage etiquette is also called "six rituals", which refers to the sixetiquettes of the whole marriage process, including proposing, inquiring, selecting anauspicious day, sending dowry, setting a wedding date, marrying.As a form of folk custom,marriage customs has some characteristics of continuity and stability. The continuation oftraditional marriage customs displays mainly in four aspects,such as parental involvement andsupport, holding the wedding ceremony, feting relatives and friends, bowed down to parents and so on. It can be found that the main functions of the traditional marriage customs havehonoring parents, bearing the adult ceremony of young men and women, informingneighborhood, adjusting the family’s social network, strengthening the kinship，striving forthe readiness time for young men and women, and expressing the intentions of fertility.Rural marriage customs, however, at the same time of keeping the traditional six ritualcustoms on the whole, also had some changes along with the changes of times and thefarmers’ values.This is mainly manifested in the following aspects: The marriage program hassimplified from the traditional six etiquettes to proposing, engagement, marrying, returningto the home of a bride’s mother. The choice of marriage object evolve from by parents’ orderand match-maker’s word to by giving priority to the will of young men and women. The roleof Engagement has been weaken, the setting of the wedding date has been more rational. Thecontent and form of wedding have been diverse and personalized. The mutual relations ofpersonal type lost their sense gradually. Wedding banquet chef and chores workers changedfrom the helpers of personal type to employees.And the tables, chairs and tableware alsochanged from borrowing the neighbor’s to renting the hotel’s. Of the marriage customs, somefolly backward norms have been gradually weakened and discarded, which have beenreplaced by civilized healthy thoughts and actions. And these changes of rural marriagecustoms have a close relationship with the status of the material conditions, the changes ofpolitical situation, the progress of cultural concepts and the changes of social factors.At the same time, the changes of the rural marriage customs exist reactions on thedevelopment of rural economy, politics, culture. First of all, the changes of marriage customsinfluence rural consumption level and structure, the planting scale of cotton and thedevelopment of household sideline production. Second, the changes of marriage customsaffect people’s attitude to public affairs and handling, the implementation of married andfertility policies. In the end, to a certain extent, the changes of marriage customs promote theunderstanding of people to the traditional undesirable customs and abandon, cause thechanges of family values, also have certain influence on the release of people’s individualneeds, and inspire people to pursue the privatization of marriage and family life, thesimplification of human relationship.