EXOGAMY IN CHINA 



129 



Mencius, 

 Legge, C.C., 13, 

 p. 498. 



where, all surnames must have been, when first used, 

 in a sense personal names, one might have thought 

 that the answer to the riddle of exogamy, in China at 

 anv rate, was to be found in the avoidance of a name 

 common to both the intended husband and wife and to 

 the families of which they were members; and in a 

 doubling of that fear of damage as incident to any 

 mating which is evidenced by six taboos such as we 

 find to have been observed by the Chinese race. 



Short cuts, are, however, proverbially dangerous, 

 and this path through the maze of exogamy is, as 

 regards China, barred by Mencius who says: — 



"We avoid the name ( jS Ming) but do not avoid 

 the surname ( & Hsing), the surname is common; the 

 name is peculiar. 



£ MING, the personal, given, name, is a com- 

 bination of the character & HSE, evening, dusk, a 

 pictograph of the rising moon, and of the character 

 P b KOU, mouth, speech. 



i& HSING, the family, or clan name, the name with 

 which a man is born, is a combination of the character 

 ic NU, woman, and of the character £ 1 SHENG, 

 to bear, to beget. 



The explanation given in the Shuo Wen, and 

 followed by Weiger in his Caracteres Chinois of the 

 use of the pictogram for evening and that for month to 

 indicate the person's name, is that — when people met 

 in the darkness they called out their names as a means 

 of identification. An explanation not in accord with 

 the strong taboo on the use of the personal name in 

 primitive China. 



The explanation of the use of the combined charac- 

 ters for evening and month as indicating the personal 

 name may be that it was given to a child at a gathering 

 of the tribe at the new moon, as amongst the Guarayos Vol. lfL , p."35. 

 Indians of Bolivia, or given at a solemn assembly as 

 amongst the Wyandots. 



The statements of natives, of Australia for in- 

 stance, in explanation of their own primitive usages, 

 are by many writers treated with scant consideration. 

 We, however, must- accept the authority of Mencius 

 as to the usages of his own time. That period in the 

 life of the Chinese race was far from primitive; and 

 it might be said that Chinese surnames having by then, 

 and in historical times, greatly increased in number, 

 the sanctity which had, presumably, applied to them 

 while still personal and few in number had been lost, 

 9 



Fraier, Golden 

 Bough. Pt. IV, 

 Vol. II. pp. 

 1 45-7. Totemism 

 and Exogamy. 



