School of Chinese Seminar
伴侶婚姻和中國古代夫婦情愛
Conjugal Love and the Chinese Companionate Marriage
Speaker: Professor Lu Weijing, University of California, San Diego
Time: December 15, 4:30-6:00pm
Venue: Room 730, Run Run Shaw Tower, HKU
Language: Putonghua
自二十世紀初的新文化運動以來，包辦婚姻被視爲中國傳统文化“落後”的象徵，是政府（包括國民黨政府）社會改革的重點目標。把傳统等同於落後是在中國特定的近代史環境下產生的，有其獨特的文化和政治内涵的話語。而它在整個二十世紀廣爲流傳的後果是，我們至今對中國夫妻關繫的歷史不甚了了。“伴侶婚姻和中國古代夫婦情愛”追索文獻中關於夫婦關繫的論述、情愛的文學再現、自身情感的表述，並結合“伴侶婚姻”的比較視野，對中國歷史中夫妻關繫的觀念和實踐以及歷史演變作初步的探討。
The argument that arranged marriage was a Confucian relic of oppression (of both women and youthful emotion) was put forth by Western observers scornful of the “Orient” and by radical Chinese intellectuals decrying Confucian tradition in the early 20th century. The viewpoint is problematic because it implicitly holds Western cultural premises up as universal truths and it assumes a pervasive and uniform impact of Confucian ideology on marriage. But if we examine literary representations and personal writings as well as moralist discourses, a range of ideas and practices can be detected. These records, along with a comparative perspective of companionate marriage, offer a different way of thinking about the meaning of marriage in imperial China.
Professor Lu Weijing is associate professor of history at the University of California, San Diego. Currently she is visiting Hong Kong Baptist University as a University Fellow. She is the author of True to Her Word: The Faithful Maiden Cult in Late Imperial China (Stanford, 2008), which won the Berkshire First Book Prize on Women’s History, and guest editor of a special issue on China for the Journal of the History of Sexuality (May 2003). Her current research focuses on family and marital practices in China from the seventeenth century through the nineteenth.
All are welcome!
