王夫之的婚姻倫理觀

Abstract

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.

王夫之（1619-1692）字而農，號薑齋，晚年隱居於湖南衡陽縣的石船山。故學者均稱其為船山先生。夫之雖未從名師求學，卻自幼從兄父輩苦讀，十四歲考中秀才，二十三歲考中舉人。曾積極抗清，南明亡後，則更名隱居，潛心講學著書。遺著一百多種，四百餘卷。(撮要取自內文首段)

Wang Fu-chih [1619-1692] was one of the three prominent scholars in the early Ch’ing period [1644-1722]. He was a philosopher of voluminous literary output. For him, the sequence of human relations is ordered by Heaven. The relationships between ruler and subject, father and son, and husband and wife are the most important of the five human relationships that Mencius mentioned, other relationships are extensions of these. He held that it is the function of propriety to determine the due that each individual should receive—the means by which human relations are regulated. The iaws that govern the primary human relationships are the three cardinal guides and the five constant virtues. These are the original basis of propiety, referred to as the unchangeable proprieties. However, the ways in which these laws are to be applied are changeable proprieties. This paper is an attempt to elucidate Wang Fu-chih’s ethics of marriage. In doing so, a systematic study of his understandings of the objectives of marriage, the command of the parents and the good offices of the matchmakers, the procedures for contracting a marriage, divorce and remarriage, widowhood and chastity, and concubinage are provided. Wang Fu-chih had tried his best to follow the unchangeable proprieties in order to regulate the institution of marriage. However, he also launched his greatest effort to work out what changeable proprieties could be applied to a situation; the proprieites were very different from the time when the three cardinal guides and the five constant virtues were established. (Abstract taken from first paragraph of document.)