From ‘Dream of Red Chamber’ to Explore the Marriage System

In Ancient China the father of the woman decided who that his daughter would marry. There was no agreement between the two fathers. The father would talk with an astrologer who had a birth chart on every child. By looking at the time and date of their births he would then decide whether or not they would be compatible for one another. The father when then make the decision whether they would marry, the daughter’s thoughts and opinion’s did not count.(9) The woman was required to be completely devoted to her husband. After the marriage a Chinese women was expected to bow to her new in-laws and offer them tea. This showed them that she now belonged to her husband’s family. It was required of her to obey her new

These ideas are an interpretation of what society views as concepts of marriage. One of the things I found to be interesting in the above list was the absence of the word love.

In the Victorian era, marriage was not as romanticized or fairytale-like as depicted in many novels of the time. On the contrary, love actually played a very minor role in the majority of matrimonies that took place. An engagement was entered into as one would approach a business deal, and there were some generally accepted rules and guidelines to follow.

Most females are not respected and are heavily pressured by their parents. Many Chinese women are expected to be in arranged marriages and are not respected in their family or the work-place. Woman that aren’t even born yet suffer from infanticide. If the parents came to find that they were having a girl from ultrasound- they would abort that child and try for a boy causing pre-birth ultrasounds to be banned. “Negative social consequences, particularly sex discrimination. With boys being viewed as culturally preferable, the practice of female infanticide was resumed in some areas shortly after the one-child policy took effect.” (Document E) “I hate to say it but the one-child policy should party be blamed for some social issues in youth today.” “She wished she has a brother or sister to share all the attention.” (Document F) This evidence supports the claim that the one-child policy was a bad policy because women have always been culturally no preferable, causing unborn females to be aborted.

The major movement regarding marriage in the eighteenth century was from church to state. Marital laws and customs, once administered and governed by the church, increasingly came to be controlled by legislators who passed many laws restricting the circumstances and legality of marriages. These restrictions tended to represent the interests of the wealthy and uphold patriarchal tradition. Backlash to these restrictions produced a number of undesirable practices, including promiscuity, wife-sale, and divorce.

Many people believe that marriage is important in this day and age, but it holds little significance compared to the importance of marriage in the Victorian era. In the Victorian era women were to get married to a man of the same or a better social status, be good wives, and be a mother to her husband's children. Very few marriages started with love, but a woman's life is not complete without being married. Over time, the role of married women has evolved a great deal and they now have rights and privileges. John Stuart Mill was one of the great thinkers of the Victorian era, and his essay The Subjection of Women tells how few privileges women had and that they were slaves to their husbands. He also says that women are their own people and

Firstly, the relationship expectations in Chinese customs and traditions were strongly held onto. The daughters of the Chinese

Another big part of the traditional Chinese wedding is the fact that concubines were allowed for the husband. A husband could indeed have more than one wife. As for women, if their husband died at a young age, they were not allowed to remarry; it was death penalty in case of remarriage.

Have you ever thought how something like marriage which can make you happy also can make you so sad? In the books The Awakening and Passing this is exactly what happens. Edna and Clare have similar characters in the sense that they are the one having affairs and having a rather uncaring husband. The time periods are different and so are the laws. Marriage shows to be slightly different from one book to the next.

Marriage is the joining of two people as husband and wives according to laws and customs. In our society today, women get married of their own free will and gain respect from their spouse. "A dream of the 21st century" is a story written by " Winnifred Harper Cooly". It is about a young women's dream. She imagines that women in the 21st century will have a better place in the society. Ideal marriages in the 19th century were very hard to achieve and most of the time, they were without true love. This short story portrays that women of that time would marry someone to overcome financial difficulties. It also describes the lack of respect between the married couples.

One of China’s most popular love comedies, The Story of the Western Wing (Xixiang Ji) by Wang Shifu (1250-1300) dramatizes a scholar-and-beauty romance. Zhang Sheng, a promising student, and Cui Yingying, a beautiful maiden, meet in a temple, fall in love at first sight and after a series of thwarted attempts, they end up happily marrying each other, after the student has passed the civil exam as the top one, of course. Among the five books of The Story of the Western Wing, Book III stands out in the very middle of the whole play with interesting characteristics in terms of both theatrical features and thematic complexity. First of all, while dan and sheng share most of the

The family structure has traditionally been the basic unit of Chinese society, where women have long been given the task of the continuation of the society 's core values, in their roles as wives and mothers. While the expected values have evolved with time, from the imperial period to the Communist revolution to the modern day, this responsibility for women has

Here, officials would examine each girl on the basis of her appearance, birth background, values and beliefs; though they were many cases in which concubines were selected in other ways. Question 3: What role did concubines play in Chinese society during this time? (5 marks) Once selected, concubines entered a good life, though it was marked by competition and significance of rank. There was much to be gained from having a higher position. Benefits ranged from earning a higher salary and receiving better food and accommodations to having more intimate relations with the emperor and a better likelihood of becoming the mother of an heir.

China is world’s most populous and fastest emerging economy that is seen as a continent in it instead of being part of Asia. In recent years, developed nations have been surprised by the acceleration of development in country that they give examples of success stories based on China’s market. Apart from China’s sophisticated with complex economic and political system, China also demonstrate interesting trends in several different prospects of society that are often neglected by intellectuals. There main focus is always on economic and political reform, But in this essay main focus is on the china’s population and the cultural rituals of family, gender and marriage. To add more, further elaboration will be addressed on the changing trends

The figure he modeled that was the reaction of the struggle for freedom and democracy in the embryonic stage of capitalism. In A Dream of Red Mansions, Cao Xueqin portrayed the love tragedy among the feudal nobilities, like Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu, as well as other young men and women, which described the idea that all sentient beings are produced by the skandhas in the social life. So that it shines with brilliant masterpiece of realism as a mirror of that time. Based on the description of immersed in love, the author intends to tear away the dark social reality which is covered by prosperity to express the new ideal of life. From the perspective of the whole and the macro, Pride and Prejudice and A Dream of Red Mansions are both very profound to expose and criticize the darkness hided in the social reality. Especially in A Dream of Red Mansions, it involves all areas of the feudal ruling class, including politics, economy, ideology, culture, law and ethics. Eventually, it attacks the feudal system