UC Berkeley

During the Republican Era both ceremonial rites and legal rights were redefined simultaneously, but not necessarily in concert. This work traces the evolution and implications of the "new-style" wedding ceremony, which at its most basic was defined by the choice of one's own spouse and the elimination of a dowry. Focusing on Shanghai, I examine the tension, negotiation and collaboration between Republican policies, market forces, and the practices of urban residents to illustrate the relative power of the fledgling state in the face of new-style ceremonies and their combined effect: a war against the traditional wedding.

New ceremonial rites linked many women to new consumptive practices: this change was embodied in the rise of the bride as both an individual woman and a symbol for enlightened, urban modernity. This - and the popularity of the new-style ceremony - would not have occurred without the publication of wedding photographs in newspapers and women's magazines. The evolution of the new-style wedding as a "pictured" event presents a parallel visual narrative that illustrates how personal ritual was presented publicly throughout the Republican Era. Here I interrogate the production and consumption of images of new-style wedding rituals and consider the power and utility of such images, both personally and politically.

Previous scholarship on the Republican Era has focused on re-codification of political rituals as a new state was being made, and the power of that Republican state in the creation of new families. Until now, no work has directly engaged the linkages between the public state and personal rituals especially those that governed individuals, particularly women, in their every day lives. Traditionally, there was no necessary reason for the state to be involved in personal rituals, nor was it expected for such things to be the matter of the state. In fact, the Nationalists' attempts to standardize, codify and enforce personal ritual were unprecedented, and represented an emphatic intervention of the state in these matters. This effort continued under Communist rule and is, I argue, no less than a defining characteristic of the Chinese state in the twentieth century.