The Evolution Of Marriage Ethics And Its Causes Of The Early Period Of The Republic Of China From The Perspective Of Western Learning Spreading Eastward

In the early period of the Republic of China,the social transformation of our country led to the emergence of a new style of marriage life and the evolution of traditional marriage ethics which lasted for thousands of years.It is not only shows the changes and laws of our marriage system and culture,but also reflects the changes and laws of our traditional society and its ethical value.It is not only convenient for us to understand the meaning of marriage and its ethical connotation,but also can measure social changes and observe the social transformation of our country.Our traditional culture emphasizes the suppression of human desire by "natural reason".In our traditional marriage,we regard "broad succession and descendants" as "natural reason",personal preferences of marriage parties as "human desire","door to door" as a widely accepted criterion for spouse selection.In our traditional society,love and marriage are dualistic opposites.Freudianism fully affirmed human nature and widely spread in the early Republic of China,at the same time,interpreted love as human instinct,affirmed and respected the meaning and value of love,broke the dual opposition between love and marriage,young men and women persistently pursued a happy marriage based on love,and the motive of marriage showed a trend of love.Chinese traditional culture has the characteristics of group identity and family standard.It regards people as human beings and their existence.Marriage is not a personal matter.The quality of individual marriage is related to the interests of the whole family and even the clan.The right to decide on marriage is controlled by feudal parents and follows the orders of parents and matchmakers.In the early period of the Republic of China,the introduction of individualism,which recognized the dignity and value of individuals,affirmed their rights and advocated the spirit of freedom,cleaned up the family-based doctrine in traditional Chinese society.The transfer of marriage decision-making power from feudal parents to marriage parties showed a tendency of autonomy."Rite" is an important means to maintain social order in our traditional society.The basic spirit of "Rite" is to distinguish between nobility and lowliness,to rank superiority and inferiority,and to maintain hierarchical system.The marriage morality of our traditional society under the regulation of "courtesy" esteems the rank of superiority and inferiority.The husband esteems the wife and inferiority runs through our traditional marriage as the basic principle of our traditional marriage ethics.In the early period of the Republic of China,the values of equality between men and women in western countries were deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.It was a deep cultural mechanism for the transformation of the traditional marriage ethical principles of men's superiority to women's superiority and husband's superiority to wife's inferiority to the basic principles of marriage ethics of equality between husband and wife."Ritual" is a kind of ethical norm with inherent unity with "face".The national psychology of "face" will inevitably lead to the worship of etiquette in traditional culture.Face worship and etiquette worship together create the ritual and legal marriage in the traditional society of our country.At the beginning of the Republic of China,pragmatism morality,which emphasized convenience and practicality as the criterion of judging right and wrong,guided the change of marriage etiquette in our country.Civilized marriage,which was consistent with the spirit of pragmatism,replaced the complicated marriage of etiquette and law in our country.Marriage etiquette was simplified and thrifty.The change of marriage ethics in the early Republic of China was not the result of the self-development of Chinese traditional culture,but the product of the cultural exchange between China and the West.During this period,Western culture showed strong cultural potential,while Chinese traditional culture showed weak culture,but it had typical characteristics of inclusiveness and rich connotation.The main form of cultural exchanges between China and the West was the eastward spread of Western learning.The introduction of Western learning profoundly influenced Chinese traditional culture and induced the evolution of marriage ethics.Chinese culture failed to shake the historical inertia of western marriage ethics.