为了人生幸福:五四时期家庭革命的个体诉求

In Pursuit of Happiness:The Individual Purpose of Family Revolution around the May Fourth Movement

在中西文野互异的语境下,清末民初的读书人有意无意中构建了西方一夫一妻小家庭的正面形象。到五四前后,新青年理想的家庭从过去同居共财的大家庭变成一夫一妻和未婚子女组成的小家庭。前者象征着束缚、专制和依赖,而后者象征着自由、平等和独立。在新青年眼中,小家庭是快乐的源泉,是增进人生幸福、社会进步和国家建设的前提和基础。作为情感,快乐拥有一种理智没有的魔力,它激发了新青年的情志。于是他们纷纷提倡恋爱结婚、父子析居、成立小家庭等家庭革命方案。从家庭革命的言行可以看出,当政治革命不能产生令人满意的社会秩序时,青年们期待通过家庭革命来重建一个美好社会。

In the context of discrepancy between Chinese and Western notions of civilized vs barbarian,intellectuals around the end of the Qing Dynasty may have unintentionally conceived a positive image of Western monogamous nuclear family. When it came to the May Fourth Movement, the ideal family model for the new youth evolved from the traditional extended family with shared property and abode to nuclear family with only spouses and underage offspring. While the former stands a symbol of tutelage, oppression and dependency, the latter represents freedom, equality and independence. For the new youth, small family is the fountain of happiness, as well as the premise and foundation for social progress and nation building. As a sentiment, happiness, in contrast to reason, possesses a magic power that prompts the new youth to advocate family revolution plans that include free love, free marriage, and dissolution of patrimony. The discourse of family revolution foretold,when political revolution failed to deliver a satisfactory social order, young people turned to family revolution in order to achieve a good society.