中國古代の婚姻定齡思想

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In ancient China there existed the idea that people should marry at a definite age. The question whether the principle was actually put into practice or not seems to the author to be of great significance in clarifying the form and character of rural societies and religions in antiquity, as well as the nature of Chinese classics in which the principle is enunciated, In the Chou-li (Mei-shih), Li-chi (Nei-tse, Ch'u-li), Ch'un-ch'iu Ku-liang-chuan (12th year of Wen-kung), etc., the rule is stated that males should marry at the age of 30 and females at the age of 20. While this rule is generally reiterated in later works, we find in the Mo-tzu (Chieh-yung-p'ien) another tradition of the nuptial age of 20 for males and 15 for females. It is also said that in the Ch'un-ch'iu period the prince Huan-kung of Ch'i ordered males to marry at the age of 20 and females at the age of 15 (Han-fei-tzu), and Chu-chien, king of Yueh, in order to increase the population of his kingdom, punished parents if their sons were not married at the age of 20, and their daughters at the age of 17. A controversy thereafter developed over these conflicting rules. The age of puberty, however, according to the Su-wen, etc., was set in ancient China at 16 for boys and 14 for girls. Also the age at which Emperor Shun, King Wen, Confucius, etc., are said to have been married, as well as the age of marriage which was customary under the Han dynasty, contradicts the above-mentioed principles cited in the Chou-li and other sources. The reason that this idea of a definite nuptial age came into being is sought by the author in the institution of mei 媒 (match-maker). As early as in the Shih-ching, Meng-tzu, and Li-chi (Ch'u-li), we find the word mei, used for the custom which was prevalent in the Ch'un-ch'iu and Chan-kuo periods. In those days the mei seems to have meant not an offical, nor even a professioal, match-maker, but any person who peformed the function of go-between even temporarily. It was most likely because of the enthusiasm of later Confucianist scholars who attempted to reconstruct their idealized political system of the early Chou dynasty, that in the Chou-li the mei was discussed as a government official. A clue to the origin of this imaginary official, the author finds in the chang-mei 掌媒 (arranger of match-making), as seen in the Kuan-tzu (Ju-kuo-p'ien). The chang-mei was also an ideal institution which was supposed to take care of widowers and widows and marry them to each other. This institution must have extended its function in Confucian ideology, finally to control every detail of marriage and birth. Hence the principle of a definite age of marriage, side by side with that of a definite season for marriage. In pursuing these questions, the author criticized M. Granet's method of reconstructing the ancient religious life of China in the Fetes et chansons anciennes de la Chine, and presents his own method of dealing with Chinese classics for ethno-historical studies.
日本文化人類学会の論文

中國古代の婚姻定齡思想

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