- 上一篇：合作原则视角下中美访谈节目对比分析
- 下一篇：查尔斯•弗雷泽《冷山》的生态女性主义
4 Conclusion 12
References 14
On The Differences between Chinese and American View of Marriage--from the Perspective of the Banquet and the Modern Family
1 Introduction
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a socially or ritually recognized union or legal contract between spouses that establishes rights and obligations between them, between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws. Inpiduals may marry for several reasons, including legal, social, emotional, financial, spiritual and religious purposes. This caused different views of marriage. However, there are many types of views of marriage in the world and each of them has their own characteristics. And American view of marriage is the most representative one among them. Therefore, it is of significance to study the differences between Chinese and American view of marriage.
The difference between Chinese and American views of marriage is an important part of Chinese and American intercultural differences. Therefore, we can better understand the intercultural differences and make a better intercultural communication. Besides, the research also reviewed the previous study of the differences between Chinese and American views of marriage. This paper looks into the movie The Banquet, and attempts to analyze the differences between Chinese and American marriage.
2 Literature Review
There are many researchers who have done study on the differences of marriage between Chinese and Western people. Zhao (2013) published an article titled “On the differences of Chinese and American marriage values from the perspective of cultural dimension”, in which he claimed that marriage includes four elements: sex, economy, offspring and husband and wife’s rights and obligations. Xiao (2011) stated that the difference of the central concept of Philosophy have caused the difference of Chinese and American’s marriage value in his book titled “Comparison of the values of marriage between China and America”. Marriage in America is an inpidual value of marriage, Marriage in China is a collective value of marriage. In United States, they like novel and extreme life manner. And the Chinese people advocate the doctrine of compromise, in other words, doing the things harmoniously. According to the book named “On the differences between Chinese and American value of marriage from the perspective of Wedding Banquet”, written by Hou (2013), He believed the differences between Chinese and American value of marriage is reflected in three aspects: the purpose of marriage, the standard of spouse selection of marriage, the wedding ceremony. In the book “The Chinese and Western wedding culture” written by Wan(2013),he stated that the differences between Chinese and Western marriage value also include the relationship between spouse .In the traditional Chinese marriage，the husband tends to lead a dominant position. While western people believe there should be an equal relationship in marriage. Fei (2015), in his article “The differences between Chinese and Western value of marriage from the intercultural perspective with Great Expectations as an introduction”, pointed out that the cause of the differences of women’ status in marriage is that the western women are more likely to pursue the spirit of freedom and welfare. And Chinese women tend to become a good wife and kind mother, and strive to become the recognized women.
Moreover, Yang (2011) found that the differences between Chinese and American value also reflected in the attitude towards porce in his book “The differences between Chinese and American value of marriage from the intercultural perspective”. American believes that marriage is a personal problem. They believe that porce is a positive way to deal with the problem of marriage, while Chinese people related porce to the issues like social relationship, the attitude of others and the support of children, and they believe porce is one of the major failures in their life. Besides, in the article “On traditional marriage differences between China and Western world with Four weddings and one funeral as an introduction”, Li (2011), pointed out that the differences of Chinese and American marriage values have their own historical reasons. The formation of American marriage value is under the influence of Christianity, while the marriage value of China is formed under the influence of Confucian culture. Coincidentally, Chen (2012) also discussed in his article “On the differences between Chinese and Western marriage value from the perspective of Confucian culture and Christianity” about the influence of the Confucian culture and Christianity on the Chinese and American marriage, She believed that the influence is reflected in the marriage ethics, marriage ceremony, marriage values.