Abstract
The dissertation finds that the idea of “romantic love” can be a useful construct outside of Western literature. The Miao, a pre-industrial people of the Chinese Highlands, are shown to demonstrate the two competitive values of romantic love: individual sentiments versus collective martial institutions. Among the highland Miao people of eastern Guizhou, not only are institutional courtship and cross-cousin marriage the social ideal, but they are also the current social practice. This social practice has been in existence among the written work of Han elite since the 17th century. Based on the above ethnographical features, the dissertation will first describe the contents of the marriage institutions and individual sentiments, then explore the unnecessary causality between of them, and finally demonstrate their places within the social formation. This study of the Miao demonstrates the potential value of future study on sentiment and perception of subjectivity in Miao culture.Most of the data analyzed in the study was based on the author’s observation of one Miao village in eastern Ghizou. This observation involved interviewing and recording of an intensive ethnographical field-work over a period of 15 months. First, the work concludes that the highland Miao people establish a specific space, time and gift exchanges for individual sentiment. The meaning of individual sentiment for the highland Miao people exists within both the personal, individual dimension and within the collective dimension. Second, the diverse associations among gifts and marital customs, such as the marriage exchanges, courtship, and natolocal post-marital residence, show that there is no a causal relation between marital strategy and individual sentiment. Third, the sentiment and joking expressed in the love song and the open marriages in parallel with elopements suggest that the individual sentiment should not be neglected during the historical process when the cross cousin marriage has been conducted as the primary strategy for social grouping over a long period of time.