唐人家庭送年幼子女出家奉佛的性别选择

Gender Choice of Sending Young Children to Become Nuns or Monks in the Tang Dynasty

佛教在唐代极为盛行,出家的男女人数众多,很多僧尼都是在幼年时受家人安排而出家的.笔者曾在《唐代在室女出家墓志内容探析》一文中对在室女出家墓志进行了统计与分析,指出上层社会家庭送年幼女儿以祈福为目的出家现象并不少见[1].有学者亦对唐代社会送年幼儿子出家的现象做了初步考查[2].考虑到男子出家赋税豁免权的获得,理论上唐人家庭送儿子出家应该比女儿更多.虽然唐代社会相对开放,妇女地位较高,但传统社会性别制度未变,那么在送年幼子女出家的问题上,唐人家庭的态度与做法是否一致?本文在广泛搜集墓志资料的基础上,辅之以传世高僧传记,对这一现象进行梳理,借以探讨性别制度对唐代社会送年幼子女出家现象的影响.

It was not uncommon to send young children to Buddhism temples as nuns or monks in the Tang Dynasty.However,the choice of nuns and monks was greatly influenced by their parents’gender preference.Generally speaking,daughters were more likely to be chosen,and most of them were eldest daughters,while sons tended to be second sons or others in upper-middle class families.In addition,the age of becoming nuns or monks in young boys was significantly higher than that in girls,which was also related to the parents’hesitation to send their sons to become monks.This phenomenon was related to the expectation of men in traditional society and the inheritance system of patriarchal culture.