130 EXOGAMY IN CHINA 



though the original avoidance of names strictly personal 

 was still in force. 



The Regulations in the Book of Rites show clearly 

 however, that, in the minds of those who first codified 

 the social customs and rules of conduct therein pre- 

 served, the bar to the marriage of persons bearing 

 the same surname was kinship, however remote, as 

 evidenced by the common family name. 

 UKi.Legge, In the "Great Treatise" it is said "As the branch - 



pf." iv.* p. 63. " surnames which arose separated the members of them 

 from their relatives of a former time, and the kinship 

 disappeared as time went on (so far as the wearing 

 mourning was concerned), could marriage be contracted 

 between parties so wide apart?" But there was "that 

 original surname tying all the members together with- 

 out distinction, and the maintenance of the connection 

 by means of a common feast ; — while there were these 

 conditions, there could be no intermarriage, even after 

 a hundred generations. Such was the rule of Chow." 



Legge in one of his notes on this passage says 

 ShaO' Hao refers to this prohibition of intermarriage by 

 Chow as the grand distinction of the dynasty, marking 

 clearly, "for the first time the distinction between man 

 and beast." 



Shao Hao, great scholar as he was, gave, in this 



regard, too great praise to the founders of the Chow 



dynasty. For in the "Great Treatise" we have a 



record of the reforms made by King Wu when he 



overthrew the last of the Shang dynasty in B.C. 1122. 



Legge .(Texts of In "The Speech at Muh," made in "the grey 



Shu rang)',*" 1 ' dawn" of the day of the battle, King Wu in addressing 



Ch.'lMwf)? the " hereditary ^ rulers of my friendly States" said: 



voi.jn, Pt. II. "The ancients have said 'the hen does not announce 



the morning. The crowing of a hen in the morning 



indicates the subversion of the family.' Now Show, 



the King of Shang, follows only the words of his wife. 



He has blindly thrown away the sacrifices which he 



should present, and makes no response for the favour 



which he has received; he has blindly thrown away 



his paternal and maternal relations, not treating them 



properly." 



If w T e had anywhere preserved to us the words of 

 Fuh-Hi for whom also the institution of marriage in 

 China has been claimed, we should probably find that 

 he too in his day, in the 29th Century B.C., at the 

 most regulated an existing Chinese patriarchal family. 



p. 302. 



