英文摘要 |
This paper begins with an analysis of every occurrence of the term ku 姑 in the Shang and the Chou bronze inscriptions. They are compared with definitions of ku in the classical texts in order to clarify the meaning of each occurrence. The bronze inscriptions with the term ku can be classified into two groups. In the first, dated from the Shang to early Chou, all the dedicated persons in the inscriptions are represented by one of the ten kan 十干 signs (Heavenly Stems). This means that they may have been the Shang royal class. The meaning of ku in this group is the husband's mother. The basic relationship is a reciprocal one between a married woman fu 婦 and her hubsand's mother ku. In the second group, dated from the late Western Chou to the Spring and Autumn periods, the persons in the inscriptions often carry a name with po 伯, chung 仲, shu 叔 or chi 季 (such as Bo-Mao-Fu 伯懋父), making the meanings of ku in this group much more complicated. It can be the hubsand's mother in some cases and father's sisters in others female egos. At the same time, a new term chih 姪, meaning the brother's daughter, occurred as a new reciprocal kinship term for ku. In this period, ku was also used as the father's sister for male egos. Based on the chronological order of the two groups and the logical evolution of the meanings for kinship terms, we infer that there were several possible steps for the development of meanings of the kinship term ku . We argue that ku was a generic kinship term for the group using ten kan signs in their ''temple names (miao-hao 廟號).'' In the first hundred years of the Chou Dynasty, most of the posts of historians, document makers, and clerks remained occupied by the Shang nobility perhaps because their literacy rate was much higher than that of the previously barbaric Chou people. They introduced the term ku to the writings of the Chou Dynasty. However, matrilateral cross-cousin marriage or bilateral cross-cousin marriage were popular long before the establishment of the Chou Dynasty among both the Chi 姬 clan of the Chou royal house and the Chiang 姜 clan, a powerful alliance of the Chou, as well as other ancient clans. For them, the husband's mother is either the same person or of the same category as the father's sister. Therefore ku took a new meaning of the ''father's sister'' in the second period. In this period, the term chih also occurred in the bronze inscription for the first time. It is possible that chih was a generic kinship term of the Chou people and was introduced to the writing system to distinguish the brother's daughter for a female ego. The meaning of ku became broader during the second period, as brothers designated their father's sisters as ku by imitating their sisters. Thus a new reciprocal kinship dual of ku and chih 侄 (male) occurred. Subsequently, husbands designated their wives' brothers' daughters or sons as chih by mimicking their wives. Then, a secondary reciprocal kinship dual of shu 叔 and chih 姪 or chih 侄 developed. In this period, all the relationships associated with the kinship term ku recorded in the Er-ya Shi-ch'in 《爾雅‧釋親》 occurred in bronze inscriptions. From the difference in the meanings of ku for the Shang and the Chou, we begin to sense the differences between the two groups of population. Our further analysis reveals that there was no difference in kinship terminology for male or female egos before marriage for the Shang people. However, a married Shang woman designated her husband as pi 辟 and husband's mother as ku. These were the sole differences in kinship system for a female ego, and the rest of the kinship terms remained the same. A kinship system with such characteristics practised neither matrilateral-cross-cousin marriage nor sister-exchange marriage. Instead, there should be three or more parallel lineages associated with such a marriage alliance. This conclusion endorses the argument by K. C. Chang, Mochii Yasutaka and Matsumaru Michio that there were ten lineages in the Shang royal ''clan,'' each with a designation of a kan sign. This is an important theory deserving further attention. |