Culture Observation From Conversion Perspective

Dowry is one of the most important parts of marriage since ancient times with rich cultural significance and social connotation.And the dowry of Ningxia has distinctive national and regional characteristics.The administrative village Butai of Jiatang in Haiyuan county as the location of field work is selected which reserves relatively complete traditional marriage culture of Southern Mountainous Areas in Ningxia.The author collects a large amount of first-hand information by consulting the literature,field visits and in-depth interviews and analyzes the dynamic condition of the dowry in Butai from the time of the founding of the People's Republic of China to the present.It aims to explore underlying causes of cultural change of the dowry in Butai and delineate a more complete contour of the dowry culture of a village in Southern Mountainous Areas of Ningxia.The author discusses the dowry culture of Southern Mountainous Areas in Ningxia that mainly includes the following several parts.The first part describes the history,geography and humanity of the field work point Butai village and presents a first impression of means of livelihood,marital habits as well as intermarriage networks of the villagers.The second part depicts the development of betrothal gifts and dowry in different periods of Butai and emphatically analyzes the game relationship between dowry and betrothal gifts under the big background of the marriage consumption of betrothal gifts and dowry.Then the author gives a detailed account of types of dowry and the way and psychology of escorting in different periods of.Finally,the existing types of dowry in the village are classified according to the characteristics of the villager occupation and social status.The third part probes into the deep reasons for the change of the dowry inheritance in the village by expounding the effect of face view on dowry and characteristics of dowry of different social identities.In the conclusion part,the author summarizes acquired research achievements and finds family factor that hides behind the dowry,the economic value and emotional sustenance of dowry on women from the feminism perspective.