礼教秩序与明代社会生活变迁——兼论礼制、观念与生活之关系

Feudal Ethics Order and Changes of Social Life in the Ming Dynasty: also on the Relation between Etiquette System,Concept and Life

礼是道德规范,是对人们生活、习俗的约束。礼制是一种“生活法则”,它与社会生活密不可分。礼制约束了生活,而生活的变迁实与礼制的盛衰休戚相关。明初朱元璋创设的一代礼制,从衣、食、住、行以及社交礼仪诸方面,确立了一代生活准则。自明代中期以后,以城市化、商业化为先导,儒家知识精英开始对礼、礼制加以重新的认知。无论是礼因人情之说,还是对“非礼之礼”的批评,无不是因应时代的变迁,得出了适应新的社会现实并切合时代需求的新的礼观念,进而形成对传统礼教的冲决之势。至于以“家礼”为典型的民间礼制,也随之发生变革,进而沿着以下两条路径展开:一是礼因俗制,二是礼之简化。伴随着礼观与礼教秩序的变化,明朝人的生活观念开始出现转向,社会生活因之发生巨大的变迁。

Etiquette is a moral norm and a normative restriction on people’s lives and customs.Etiquette system is a kind of “rule of life”,which is inextricably linked to social life.It constrains life,while the change of life is closely related to the rise and fall of the etiquette system.The generation of ritual system created by Zhu Yuan-zhang in the early Ming Dynasty established a generation of living standards from the aspects of life and social etiquette.Since the middle of Ming Dynasty,with the development of urbanization and commercialization,the Confucian intellectual elite began to re-recognize the etiquette and etiquette system.Whether it was the etiquette due to human or the criticism of “indecent etiquette”,they all have changed in response to the change of the times,and has come up with a new etiquette’s concept which fit the new social reality and the needs of the times,and then formed the impact on the traditional etiquette.As for the folk etiquette system which was typical of “family etiquette”,also has been reformed along the following two paths:one was etiquette conforming to the common system,the other one was the simplification of etiquette.People’s concept of life in the Ming Dynasty began to turn,whose social life also changed greatly along with the change of etiquette’s concept and feudal ethics.