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关键词：集体主义，个人主义，婚恋观
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements...i
Abstract...ii
摘要.......... iii
1 Introduction.1
2 Cultural Values Influencing Views on Love and Marriage.2
2.1 Cultural Values in American.2
2.2 Cultural Values in China...5
3 The Comparison of Attitudes to Love and Marriage in the Two TV Serials in Different Periods.....9
3.1 Brief Introduction to Two TV serials..9
3.2 Before Marriage..11
3.3 In Marriage14
3.4 Divorce16
4 Conclusion..18
Bibliography..19
1 Introduction
As Eric Fromm says, “love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.” Family as the most basic unit of human society is an important manifestation of marriage. They are parts of human social life. All the aspects of social life reflect the cultural differences. Therefore, the different attitudes to love and marriage come from the cultural pergences. It is known to all that China and America are the main representatives of eastern and western cultures formed in different histories running through the whole process of human development. People’s thoughts and behaviors are mostly influenced by their own cultures. They have the distinct characteristics of nationality, locality, historicity and the spirit of the time.
With the development of society, the cultural communication between China and America becomes easy and frequent. The traditional Chinese attitudes to love and marriage is suffering the shock of new social factor which associates with the only child policy. Meanwhile, with the process of culture blending, American culture is also experiencing changes.
This paper, based on the two TV serials How I Met Your Mother and Down-to-earth Marriage, aims to make a comparison of Chinese and American attitudes to love and marriage.
2 Cultural Values Influencing Views on Love and Marriage
People live under different cultural backgrounds inoculated with different values. According to philosophical definition of value, it refers to general judgments and perspectives of the meaning and importance of objective things around people. (Chen, 2011:128-129) American and Chinese attitudes to love and marriage fall under their own cultures’ influences which are entirely different cultures.
2.1 Cultural Values in America
As the representative of western culture, American culture’s ideological foundation stems from the thoughts of Renaissance in Europe whose origin is Greek and Roman culture. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Christianity was introduced to the America as it was first colonized by Europeans. Since then, Christianity has developed rapidly in American society. Because of the deep influence of Christianity, it pays much attention to the personal freedom and right. Moreover, it also attaches great importance to practice and exploration.
2.1.1 American Core Value: Inpidualism
Inpidualism is the soul of American culture. The French political reviewer Tocqueville in his classical book Democracy in America first promoted the word inpidualism, “Inpidualism is the core of the American culture. It focuses on the satisfaction of one’s own desire and interests through self-reliance.” (1983:225) G. Hofstede illustrates that inpidualism stands for a preference for a loosely knit social framework in society wherein inpiduals are supposed to take care of themselves and their immediate families only (2000:89).
The development of American inpidualism could be pided into three historic periods briefly, before the Western Movement, after the World War Ⅱand after the Cold War.
In the 16th century, for the rise of trade and development of science in Western Europe, natural economy turned to market economy. Moreover, advanced thoughts of humanism were caused by the Renaissance and the Reformation. Under the influence of the Science Revolution and the Enlightenment, people slipped the leash of religion, polity and economy, then, recognized the importance of personal experience. Then, inpidualism started in Europe. In 17th century, the European immigrants brought it to the new continent. The concept of earlier inpidualism was fighting with the formidable natural conditions and pursuing freedom and happiness. American inpidualism was further developed to be exploiters’ inpidualism after Westward Movement. Its main concept is the spirit of exploration and self-reliance. In that western deserted area, the exploiters were cognizant of the importance of self-reliance. Hereafter, inpidualism had its roots on America and gradually be matured.