Title: The writing of weddings in middle-period China : text and ritual practice in the eighth through fourteenth centuries /
Authors: De Pee, Christian.
Publisher: State University of New York Press,
Year: 2007
Subjects: Marriage customs and rites China.; Weddings in literature.; China History; China History
Abstract: "Approaching writing as a form of cultural practice and understanding text as an historical object, this book not only recovers elements of the ritual practice of Middle-Period weddings, but also reassesses the relationship between texts and the Middle-Period past. Its fourfold narrative of the writing of weddings and its spirited engagement with the texts - ritual manuals, engagement letters, nuptial songs, calendars and almanacs, and legal texts - offer a form and style for a cultural history that accommodates the particularities of the sources of the Chinese imperial past."--BOOK JACKET.
Contents: Introduction: The practice of the text -- Ritual manuals : exegetical hermeneutics and the re-embodiment of antiquity -- Wedding correspondence and nuptial songs : writing as cultural capital and text as ritual object -- Calendars, almanacs, miracle tales, and medical texts : cosmic cycles and the liminal affairs of man -- Legal codes, verdicts, and contracts : universal order and local practice -- Conclusion: Texts and tombs, ritual and history.