观念与制度:宦官的异姓嗣子问题

中国古代存在为嗣和不为嗣两类养子,人们分别称之为嗣子和义子。养子有来自于同宗和异姓之分,古代的礼、法都禁止士人以异姓养子为嗣,但这些规定却不适用于宦官。产生这一差异的原因与宦官在士人心目中的卑贱观念有关。可与之相参照的两个观念是“礼不下庶人”和“华夷异类”。

Idea and System: On the Issue of Castrated Officials' Adopting Successors from Different Clans

There are two types of adopted sons in ancient China: those who are successors of a family and those who are not.Scholars call them succeeding sons and foster sons respectively.The adopted sons come from the same clan or from different clans,and both the rites and laws of ancient China forbid those from different clans to become successors,but these rules are not applied to castrated officials.The reason for such a difference is that scholars regard castrated officials as very mean and low ones,and there are two ideas that should be referred to:"Rites are not applied to people whose status is lower than that of scholars"and "Chinese are different from non-Chinese."