臺灣農村婚姻的變貌－－兼談社會文化現象的瞭解與解釋

MARRIAGE TRANSFORMATION IN RURAL TAIWAN

作者做田野期間察覺臺灣農村的婚姻在過去的三十年間有相當改變。從男女雙方當事人迴避不見面完全聽從媒妁之言，漸漸轉變為年輕男女對婚姻對象的選擇有部份決定權；再轉變為青年男女自由戀愛合意之後再提親的形式，不但婚前迴避的禁忌消失了，而且先懷孕再結婚的趨勢愈來愈明顯。在一個小農村裏已婚婦女婚前懷孕的比例近年已達50%。本文透過一個‘媳婦入門’事例的詳細記述與比較分析，以求瞭解與解釋農村婚姻的變貌。作者以為研究者不是絕對客觀與沒有偏見的，但在收集資料時他應該儘量擺脫形式的束縛，在人們日常生活自然發展的情境中對相關的人物與一連串事件作長期的觀察，從人們共通的不受研究者干擾與支配的言語與行為中體會與瞭解其中的文化涵意。作者在結論時指出農村婚姻變遷最主要的推動力係來自外界工業化引起的人口流動與職業變遷，可是在表相變貌之下的一些基本文化觀念與原則並未改變。這個不易變遷的‘文化核心’具有文化與經濟雙重特性，既要達成家庭延續的文化目的，又要滿足物質需求的經濟目的。其他次要的觀念與活動較快隨境而變。

During the field period of 1976-78, the author observed that marriage in rural Taiwan experienced many charges in the past 30 years. In the 1950s, most marriages were arranged by the matchmakers, the girl and the boy at most saw each other once before marriage. In the 1960s, formal meetings were still arranged for boys and girls, but they had greater rights in making decisions. Since 1970, romantic love has become more and more popular. The youth prefer to find mates by themselves. Based on the household registry of Liu Ts'o village in central Taiwan, the author calculates the percentage of pre-marital pregnancy of married-in women, and finds that while among 61 married-in wemen above 40 years old there were only three women getting pregnant prior to marriage (5 per cent), among 49 married-in women under 40 years old, 45 per cent was pregnant before mariange (before 1971, the rate was 35 per cent, from 1971-77, it increased to 50 per cent). In this article, the author gives a detailed description (in the form of short novel) and analysis of a pre-marital case observed in Liu Ts'o village. The author believes that in the processes of data collection, the researcher who is by no means totally objective and without prejudice should try his best to get rid of the restriction of formality, that is to grasp cultural meanings from people's mutually understandable conversation and behavior undisturbed by the researcher, and a series of events occurred in daily natural settings for a long period.