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Premodern Chinese Weddings and the Divorce of Past and Present

Premodern Chinese Weddings and the Divorce of Past and Present positions 9:3 Winter 2001 and lairs with nails and fists, then with clubs, and so on, step by step, with the weapons shaped by experience. Eventually they discovered verbs and nouns which enabled them to give meaning to their cries and feelings. From that point they began to give up war, to build towns, and to pass laws against theft, brigandage, and adultery.]1 Apart from a universal development of human civilization driven by technological discoveries, Morgan perceived a universal, linear development in marriage systems and family organization, from promiscuous matriliny during the stage of savagery to the patrilineal monogamy that characterizes the stage of civilization. Morgan’s Ancient Society (and its summary rewrite by Friedrich Engels in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State [1884]) gained a large following in the twentieth century among Chinese scholars who took up this outline of universal development of human civilization to write China, the new nation-state, into world history. The assumption of an objective, universal, linear development legitimated a transparent reading of historical evidence, be it archaeological remains or texts. Where Morgan cited Horace for his assumed memory of prehistorical times, Chinese scholars, too, turned to ancient texts for http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png positions asia critique Duke University Press

Premodern Chinese Weddings and the Divorce of Past and Present

de Pee, Christian
positions asia critique , Volume 9 (3) – Dec 1, 2001
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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2001 by Duke University Press
ISSN
1067-9847
eISSN
1527-8271
DOI
10.1215/10679847-9-3-559
Publisher site
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Abstract

positions 9:3 Winter 2001 and lairs with nails and fists, then with clubs, and so on, step by step, with the weapons shaped by experience. Eventually they discovered verbs and nouns which enabled them to give meaning to their cries and feelings. From that point they began to give up war, to build towns, and to pass laws against theft, brigandage, and adultery.]1 Apart from a universal development of human civilization driven by technological discoveries, Morgan perceived a universal, linear development in marriage systems and family organization, from promiscuous matriliny during the stage of savagery to the patrilineal monogamy that characterizes the stage of civilization. Morgan’s Ancient Society (and its summary rewrite by Friedrich Engels in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State [1884]) gained a large following in the twentieth century among Chinese scholars who took up this outline of universal development of human civilization to write China, the new nation-state, into world history. The assumption of an objective, universal, linear development legitimated a transparent reading of historical evidence, be it archaeological remains or texts. Where Morgan cited Horace for his assumed memory of prehistorical times, Chinese scholars, too, turned to ancient texts for

Journal

positions asia critique – Duke University Press

Published: Dec 1, 2001

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