中西方婚俗文化异同分析.doc

大学毕业论文 题目：中西方婚俗文化异同分析 An analysis of similarities and differences between marriage cultures in the West and ChinaAbstractWith the mounting economic globalization, people on the earth, who come from different cultures, start more and more mutual communication. However, the differences between their cultures tend to trouble them. This paper analyses the similarities and differences between western and Chinese cultures from the aspect of marriage culture. Primarily, this paper introduced Chinese marriage customs and views, showing colorful traditional Chinese culture; the next part depicted western marriage customs and views, exhibiting the great connotation of traditional western culture; then it compared those two kinds of marriage cultures, and from this starting point, analyzed the similarities and differences between western and Chinese cultures; finally, based on results of analysis above, it went further-this part did a profound research on the reasons of those differences, especially the deep reasons, such as historical factors or religious causes, etc. Through detailed facts provided and comprehensive analysis, conclusions could be made that two marriage cultures have some similarities and many similarities, such as wedding ceremony, marriage views, etc.; and that is mainly due to their living situation, history, religion, and so on. Keywords: Western; Chinese; marriage culture; similarities; differences摘要 随着经济全球化的发展，各个文化圈的人们的交流也随之增多。然而，文化之间的差异往往会令许多人感到困扰。本文仅从婚俗文化的角度对中西方文化之间的异同之处加以简析。文章首先通过介绍中国婚礼习俗及婚姻观念，展示了绚丽的中华传统文化；然后介绍了西方婚礼习俗及婚姻观念，表现出了西方传统文化的深刻内涵；接着，比较出中西婚俗文化的异同之处，并以此为起点探讨中西文化的差异性和相似性；最后，以上文的分析结果为基础，进一步分析探究二者产生异同的原因，尤其是深层次的历史渊源和宗教影响等。在详细阐述事实和综合分析后，可以得出结论这两种文化共同点不多，但差异甚多，比如婚礼仪式，婚姻观念等；而这主要是因为他们居住环境，历史渊源，宗教信仰等的不同。关键词：中西方; 婚俗文化; 异同; 原因; 分析 ContentsI.Introduction1II. Literature Review2III. Comparisons between Chinese and Western Marriage Cultures4A.Monogamy4B. Allocation of housework5C.Agreement from family5IV. Contrasts between Chinese and Western Marriage Cultures6A.Contrasts of Wedding Process61. Wedding Preparations62. Wedding Ceremonies63. After the wedding ceremony8B.Contrasts of Marriage Views81. Status in a family82. Divorce rate93. Family relationships94. Conservative vs. liberal attitudes to marriage105. Communication methods11V.Reasons for Those Differences11A. Different living situations11B. The production methods11C.The structure of society12D. Views of values12E. Religion13VI. Conclusions13Works Cited15 2013年毕业论文An analysis of similarities and differences between marriage cultures in the West and China 第1页 共13页 2013年毕业论文An analysis of similarities and differences between marriage cultures in the West and ChinaI. IntroductionWith the mounting economic globalization, people on the earth started communicate with people who come from different cultures. Most often they fall in love with each other, and get married at last. However, the differences between their marriage cultures tend to trouble many people, even lead people involved feeling disrespected, while some are almost same, which eliminates many annoying issues. Besides the differences in wedding ceremony, the new couples may have extremely different marriage views from each other. A traditional Chinese girl may feel the doom is coming if her husband wants to divorce, while her husband may regard it just as a piece of cake if he comes from the West. Furthermore, though they will not give up their promises in the front of the emcee, it is no wonder that afterwards they will face a great number of marriage problems or family trifles. What about their attitudes towards it? There is also no doubt that people from different cultures will respond differently, sometimes surprisingly. For example, in some cultures, the father is man of the house, and seems unfriendly to others, so that if a boy from America wants to marry his daughter, he has to be accustomed to his indifferent attitude, because it doesnt mean he dislikes this boy. Dont be disappointed if the father doesnt open your gifts in front of you. Thats just not their style.Of course, the similarities between marriage cultures will serve a lot to their happy and harmonious life. For instance, some couples will have the same education views so that they can have common ideas of how to cultivate children. Similarly, they also will harvest a peaceful family if they have similar opinions on how to allocate the housework.Thus it is very necessary for us to have a study into the characteristics of respective marriage cultures, and analyze the similarities and differences between them.In this paper, the main point centers on the Western and Chinese marriage cultures. The Western culture just talks about English Culture Circle. The Chinese marriage just talks about traditional Chinese marriage culture. And the emphasis of this article will be put on the differences of marriage cultures, while similarities will only be briefly introduced. II. Literature ReviewMarriage culture is an ancient culture. As human stepped into the Stone Age, marriage culture has emerged, and then developed with history. This culture can reflect quite a few factors of a community culture, including their customs, habits, taboos, even thinking patterns, etc. In this field, many scholars aim to analyze the similarities and differences between marriage cultures in the West and China. Here the marriage culture includes not only the marriage process, such as wedding ceremony, but also marriage views. Besides, the author is also going to analyze the reasons for those differences and work out their distinctive thinking patterns eventually. Academic researches of those scholars will provide information and theories to support this analysis.Mr. Cheng Yuzhen has written a famous book about the complicated but interesting Chinese culture, including marriage customs. The book is named Introduction of Chinese Culture (2011), which has depicted many customs of Chinese marriage cultures, from the very beginning of our history to what it is today when our traditions are being struck by foreign cultures. In addition, it also illustrates some marriage cultures of minorities, especially Naxi ethnic which settle in Yunnan and retain many ancient customs. This book contains ample information for this part. Also, Mr. Ye Lang and Zhu Liangzhi have written a very great book introducing some typical Chinese cultures, whose name is A book of Chinese Culture (2010). It specifically describes the marriage cultures of Han people.As for characteristics of Western marriage cultures, some foreign experts have done this research and written some books and papers. Introduction to this topic can be found in a book called Introduction of Western Culture (2008) authored by Zhang Weidong. It briefly described a series of programs of wedding, such as proposal, engagement, wedding, honeymoon and so on. Also it explained the religious reason for several trivial matters but shortly and superficially. More materials are needed for this part. This book is quite helpful for this part. Another book-100-year History of Western Marriage Cultures (2000) written by an American Women Mary Windsor, also offered much information on this part. Additionally, information from Wiki will also contribute to this part.The researches about the central point in this thesis -similarities and differences between the two marriage cultures are not so fruitful. A book of Chinese scholar Hu Wenzhong whose name is Intercultural Communication Series (1999) has given many comparisons between different cultures. It has listed some differences in marriage cultures, and pointed out these are originated from their ancient tales, such as Ancient Greek and Roman tales. This book has a general outlook to intercultural communication, which offers scaffolding theories. Some other humanists works also will help with this topic, for instance, Chen Guoming, who has written Foundations of Intercultural Communication (1998). Academic analysis of reasons for those similarities and differences are fewer. Just as has mentioned above, the author plans to trace it original cause in their religion and myths. The Bible is the basic of analysis of this topic. Though it does not specifically write some stories about marriage, we still can find many marriage modes and customs, the most important-marriage views in Bible. In contrast, book Ancient Greek and Roman Myths (2012) collaborated by Yu Zuzheng and Liu Jia contains abundant stories centering on love and marriage, which has influenced European a lot, including those British and American. These books are classic works and are keys to answer those questions.Researches on the differences of deep thinking patterns between the two cultures are everywhere. For instance, an article titled An analysis of American Dream states the cause of American Dream holds an idea that Americans regard American as a new Eden, and themselves the blessed man like Jews in the Exodus, which means the Lord will protect them as he protected Jews in the Exodus-the Lord split the Red Sea and killed all Egyptians to save Jews. Therefore, Americans always consider themselves as World Officers and interfere in foreign nations. All those mean ones thinking pattern implementing deep, profound, and enormous impact on him. This finding inspired us to dig out the deep thinking patterns between different cultures, so as to understand each other better and avoid unnecessary mistakes. The book of Mr. He Tianjue-Real Chinaman (1998) revealed typical Chinese people.As for other existing research results about this subject in China, they are mainly from intercultural communication scholars, such as, Hu Wenzhong who has been mentioned above; Cheng Guoming，whose research is fruitful, has published an article titled Foundations of Intercultural Communication (1998), Taking Stock in Intercultural Communication：Where to Now (2005), and so on.And some international scholars has contributed to this subject as well, for example, Garcia, O& Otheguy, R. the name of whose book is English Across Cultures, Cultures Across English (1989) and Stewart, E. & Bennet, M., whose masterpiece is American Cultural Patterns: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (1991). Several very influential intercultural communication scholars also have done some work to this subject: Singer, M. Intercultural Communication: A Perceptual Approach (1995), which talks about how differences in thinking pattern impacts communication. Hofstede has done some surveys about world values among people from different countries, whose results are great references for this research. The author has already generally read all these books written by Chinese scholars, and part of these books written by foreign scholars. The author has learnt a lot from them and trusted that she can dig something new after reading all of them. On the whole, many of them place so-called human rights on a very high status; explain their high divorce rate is not attributed to their hasty attitudes toward marriages, and blame conventional even feudal moral views for Chinese tender heart when facing marriage crisis; some of them argue that nowadays Chinese men are more hypocritical than Western men, because they almost has one or more mistresses but always lie and cover the fact to support a hell family, while western people most often are not afraid of publicizing it and get freedom then. Some suppose those differences are the results of history, while some contend they are led by beliefs, even some pull Confucianism on the discussion table.Basing on these existing research results, the author will write this paper from five aspects as above, and centers on the differences between those two marriage cultures and the deep reasons of them. Besides, the author found that those results almost based on observation, instead of theoretical analysis. But from the authors perspective, they should think deeper, and the author will try to do so in order to find out something new through comprehensive understanding of their ideas. III. Comparisons between Chinese and Western Marriage CulturesThe similarities between those two cultures are not many, if any; they are also the basic characteristics of marriage. Here are several typical one.A. Monogamy. Compared with many countries in Africa, Arab and Southern Asia, this is truly a big similarity. Africans allow polygyny maybe resulting from their poor living conditions and unbalanced male-female ratio. For many people, finding a comparatively rich husband or wife is the only way to survive. As for Arabians and people in Southern Asia, they permit it due to the religion. Actually, in Afghanistan, a man can have four wives. In contrast, in China and the West, one man, one wife, vice versa, or the jail will welcome you. This makes it possible for such mixture marriages to talk about loyalty, and such families are more often than not provide better living environment to children. B. Allocation of houseworkChinese women were the “responsibility-takers” in ancient China. Although traditional Chinese culture is influenced by western culture largely, and has become more and more modernized and westernized nowadays; women start to join in work, and more and more men start to cook or wash clothes, but it is still mainly women that do housework. In the western, female and male are more equal than they are in China. But still, women are the masters of kitchen and laundry. Therefore, the time when womens job is only to stay at home, do housework and take care of children, has gone, though some of them still choose this lifestyle; but the age that husband also need learn housework has come. And western people have taken this kind of living model for the very beginning. So in a China-West mixed marriage, the couple will quarrel much about the housework.C. Agreement from family Every couple should get the permission from family, not only in China, but also in the West. Marriage is not just a matter of them, and it is concerned with two families. The marriage needs capital support from the family, unless you decide to cut off your tie. So usually a couple can not get married if their parents disagree, which makes tragedies like “Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai” and “Romeo and Juliet”.IV. Contrasts between Chinese and Western Marriage CulturesThere are still many differences between those cultures. The following are some typical ones.A. Contrasts of Wedding Process1. Wedding PreparationsFirstly, the preparation is still rather complex in ancient China nowadays. They have specific programs called Traditional Marriage Rituals”, which give us a spot of its complex preparation. According to Cheng Yuzhen(2011, 379), “traditional Marriage Rituals” include “letter of appointment”, “letter of discipline”, “letter of taking” and proposing a marriage, asking their names, fortune-telling, giving betrothal presents, choosing good day, and taking his wife home. They emphasize politeness very much, and have designed every step. The whole process is planned by their parents, and it is also they that decide whether they can get married. All of all are influenced by Confucianism deeply.Comparatively speaking, the preparation for traditional western wedding is much simpler, still more romantic. It usually consists of four steps. Both sides visit parents, then go to register, inform kinsmen and friends, and plan some relative details of wedding. Of course, those four steps are not so strict as Chinese wedding, but depends on specific situations 2. Wedding CeremoniesAs for wedding ceremony, Chinese usually kneel down to their ancestors before picking up the bride, then lead the row, lift the “bridal sedan chair” to brides home; after arriving at the bridegrooms home, the new couple need to bow three times; the first is to the god and the earth, the second the parents, the third each other, sometimes or in some places is to kinsmen and friends. After three bows, the new couple will be sent to the new house which is called Dongfang in China. Later, guests start the wedding meals. In order to stir up the happy and joyful atmosphere, the whole wedding will be accompanied with fireworks and happy music.In ancient western society, the steps of wedding ceremony are very strict and can not be changed. For example, the bride and bridegroom, the bridesmaid and the best man, their parents and friends all ought to get to the church on time. The bridegroom and the best man should stand in the front of the church and on the left of the priest. The whole ceremony is very serious and grave. They regard this ceremony as a process for shouldering commitments. They need to vow to each other for their love and sincerity. As to the wedding clothing, there is indeed big difference between Chinese and the West. In China, red represents happiness and joy, therefore the couples both wear red suits in the wedding. And there are usually many phoenix images on the brides clothes. The bridegroom is most likely to stitch a flower on the suit.However, in traditional Western ceremonies, white is the most common color, which they think of as the symbol of purity. Actually, white has been considered as the sign of happiness and joy since Roman Age. Hu Wenzhong wrote in his book Intercultural Communication Series (1999, 67): red in western peoples eyes usually is related to danger, warning or blood, such as word “in the red” means deficit, even red revolution connotates mockery at Communism. Then lets see the difference between the wedding banquets. In China, traditional We