The Research Of Marriage Custom Transitions Of Hunan Zhangjiajie Tujia Nationality

Marriage is a miniature of a nation’s historical development. By studying the marriage culture, we can better understand the historical development, so the marriage culture studies have become important research areas for ethnology. During the long historical process, Tujia ethnic minorities have formed unique set of wedding etiquette, which becomes an irreplaceable part of history and culture of Tujia nationality. In the thesis, from the ethnology viewpoint, Zhangjiajie Tujia habitation----Shiyanping Village in Wangjiaping town with rich Tujia traditional wedding features is selected as the survey region, and field investigation method of anthropology is used. Combined with literature, the author tries to understand Tujia marriage form and wedding ceremony, inquiry the performance and the causes of Tujia wedding changes. In addition, aiming at the problems faced by Tujia marriage custom, the author proposes her own reflection on protection and inheritance of Tujia marriage custom, which is expected to play a role on protection and construction of contemporary intangible cultural heritage. Hence, this thesis is divided into the following six parts.The first part is the introduction section. First of all, reasons of topic selecting and research significance are introduced. Then the customs forms, causes of customs changes, effects of marriage customs changes are surveyed, and the content, ideas, methods and other aspects of this thesis are also introduced.The second part involves general survey of the field. The field of Shiyanping Village in Wangjiaping town of Zhangjiajie is taken as the research objective. Historical overview, natural environment, ethnic composition, population distribution, economic life and other aspects are also investigated.The third part relates to the research on the traditional marriage customs of Tujia people in Zhangjiajie. Under the influence of Tujia people’s traditional ideas about morality and marriage, marriage customs in Zhangjiajie are presented as forms such as freedom marriage between men and women, the same surname marriage, cross-cousin marriage and uxorilocal marriage. And performance for the marriage ceremony becomes relatively elaborate procedures like marriage by matchmaker, compute horoscopes, wedding lament, ancestors comfort, bridal sedan chair and the return of a bride to her mother’s home on the third day of the wedding. Tujia people have also formed their unique marriage concept, including: single-minded and be loyal to one’s spouse, respect the mutual willing, engagement is just a family, pay attention to virtue and morality.The fourth part deals with the study on modern marriage customs of Tujia nationality in Zhangjiajie. This chapter is analyzed from the aspect of marriage forms and marriage concept. For the marriage rites, the author chooses the whole marriage process of a newly married couple in Shiyanping Village as the basis. Supported by the interviews, descriptive analysis is done for the marriage ceremony of pre-marriage and post-marriage. As far as marriage concept, considering the above wedding ceremony, the author analyzes it from the aspects like marriage age, love values and mate choice criteria.The fifth part focuses the study on the changes and reasons of marriage customs of Tujia nationality in Zhangjiajie. Having compared the traditional marriage customs and modern wedding customs, the author confirms that Zhangjiajie marriage customs of Tujia people whether marriage forms, marriages ceremony or marriage concept are changing as time goes by. For example, monogamy has become the dominant marriage system, the forms of the same surname marriage and cross-cousin marriage are less and less. The marriage ceremony also tends to be simplified. The reason is that it is mainly influenced by the ecological geographical conditions, cross culture, national policies and regulations and other factors.The sixth part is the research on the protection and inheritance of contemporary Tujia marriage custom culture. The thesis holds the view that the Tujia marriage customs under the impact of today’s market economy faces the problems of how to handle properly the relationship between protection and inheritance issues. Due to these issues,the author puts forward countermeasures for protection and inheritance of Tujia marriage custom culture.