近代婚姻觀念最大別於傳統的是：婚姻從「兩個家族」的事，轉變成「兩個人」的事。從晚清一直到民初的修法運動，可說是中國法律由家族主義轉向個人主義，由家族制轉向契約制的過程。民國十七年「民法親屬篇草案」公佈，正式宣佈婚姻由男女雙方自由作主，完全廢棄傳統父母代定婚約之習。 當然，西學東漸和廿世紀初的新文化運動，對此一轉變都有重大影響。本文並不擬討論此二學術界早已熟知的原因，而擬將焦點置於中國十八、十九世紀，即清代中期，亦即考證學最盛之時，從禮學家對婚禮儀文形式的考證之中，探析婚姻意義的轉變。並據此觀 察中國在正面反應西力之前，其自身文化思想及社會已具有的變因。也因為有此變因，才得以在回應西力衝擊時，有內在之接榫性。 本文將探討清儒婚姻觀念如何從「成婦之意重於成妻」轉變為「成妻之意重於成婦」。其中，「夫婦，人倫之首，子得妻之，夫母乃得婦之」觀念的闡揚，正暗孕著傳統五倫序列的重組。同時，清儒對「何謂婚姻之成立」及「何謂夫婦」都進行了清闢的考辨。而 饒富趣味的是，「貞潔」觀念在此一轉變中竟擔任了弔詭性的助力。清儒考證的當下意義固然是反對當時禮教風氣下「室女守貞」的陋習，然而更深刻的則是從禮制原典的考證上對明清律令以「納徵」為婚姻之成立提出抨擊。其中，「夫婦合體」觀念的闡揚，嚴正聲明婚姻的實質內容必須適合於人性，合於人情的實質男女結合。 本文藉此說明在西方男女平等、自由戀愛觀念傳入中國之前，中國的知識界是如何在傳統禮制、禮意與人性情欲覺醒之間，針對傳統提出抨擊，針對現實要求變革。此一變化所蘊含的傳統禮教的「脫臼現象」，正暗藏著現代性的接榫可能。

　　　　　The most distinctive feature of modern concept of marriage, as compared to the tranditional one, consists in the idea that marriage is an affair between two persons and not between two families. The series of legal reform movements from the late Ch'ing through the early Republican era can be seen as a processs in which the spirit of Chinese laws was transformed from familism to individualism, and from patriarchism to contract. The 1928 “Kinship Section of the Preliminary Civil Code” formally proclaimed that marriage is to be decided freely by the two individual partners, and totally abrogated the traditional parental authority in their children's marital arrangement. This transformation, of course, was tremendously influenced by the newly adopted Western ideas and the New Cultural Movement of the early 20th century. This paper will not reiterate these two well-researched sources of impact; instead, it will focus on the 18th and 19th centuries, i.e., the mid-Ch'ing period, when evidential scholarship achieved its greatest bloossoming. It will investigate the change in the meaning of marriage as mainfested in the scholars' exegeses on marital rituals. In doing this, I will show the spontaneous momentum for change in Chinese culture and society, prior to any conscious responses to Western influences. In fact, it is the existence of this momentum that put China in a self-prepared position to respond to the Western impact. This paper will discuss how the idea “being a daghter-in-law is more important than being a man's wife” in Ch'ing scholars' concept of marriage was reversed to that “being a man's wife is more important that being a daghter-in-law.” The assertion that “husband-and-wife is the primary human relationship; a woman must first become a man's wife before she is daughter-in-law to his parents” indicates a reordering of respective importance of the tranditional five human relationships. In the meantime, Ch'ing scholars were brilliant in their explication of “what makes a marriage valid” and “what is husband and wife.” Most interestingly, the concept of “chastity” played a paradoxical role in facilitating this shift. The immediate concern of Ch'ing scholar's exegetic work certainly targeted against the undesriable custom of “maiden chastity” required by their contemporary ethical proporieties; more significantly, however, they were using the original texts to undermine the notion that “parentally arranged engagement” constituted the basis of a marriage, as established in the Ming and Ch'ing legal code. Their advocacy of the concept of “the oneness of husband and wife,” futhermore, was a resolute statement that the substance of marriage must accord with the actual and unforced union between a man and a woman. This paper attempts to indicate how Chinese intellectuals made assaults on tradition and demanded social reforms while they were immersed within a milieu still ruled by traditional mores and sense of propriety. They were already aweakened to the calling of human affections and this was before the inflow of Western concepts of sexual equality and free love. In the disjointedness” of traditional mores latent in this transformation was located the potential for the joint to modernity.