Clothing and its Socio-cultural Implications in Han Dynasty
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Lin, Ying-Chun
Abstract
China has been known as “Ancient State of Clothing and Crown” (yiguan guguo) 衣冠古國 since the very past. On the one hand, this term attests to the custom that ancient Chinese people often, if not always, wore corresponding crown/hat as they dressed; on the other hand, this also implies that the material culture of clothing and crown had occupied a significant place in Chinese society. To understand the role and the function of clothing and crown in early Chinese daily life, this thesis, drawing on scholarships of textual studies on clothing as well as those of the history of Han Dynasty rituals and customs, intends to take contemporaries’ wearing cloth and crown as a departure, analyze the mentality and ideas behind the phenomenon, and offer a more vivid picture of rituals and customs of clothing and crown in Han China.
The former part deals with both ritual-customs and thoughts that were in association with “clothing.” Chapter 1 aims to illustrate how the material feature of clothing’s being covering human body had influenced people’s consideration of wearing. Based on its intimacy, Chapter 2 surrounds taboos concerning clothing so as to analyze mentalities, beliefs, and collective orders behind the behavior of dressing.
The latter part focuses on “crown/hat,” the most important element in the category of clothing. Chapter 3 aims to demonstrate the role and the function of crown/hat in Han society by analyzing rituals and customs associated with dressing them. Chapter 4 investigates the thought of cherishing crown in early China. It is shown that the cognition of crown was linked to the imagination of political and social order and thus developed into related beliefs in days and interpretations of welfare and disaster.
It is believed that in early China there existed a collective mentality in the wake of the daily usages and understandings of clothing and crown. This mentality was conditioned by concrete behaviors of dressing in the first place, but thereafter the former had influenced and regulated the latter so as to affected contemporaries’ thoughts. With the significance of clothing and crown in mind, both textual studies and cultural history of clothing deserve further exploration.
Subjects
clothing and crown
history of rituals and customs
collective mentality
behavior of dressing
material culture
Han Dynasty
Type
thesis
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