延续香火的理想与普遍绝嗣的现实——基于家谱的人口数据

延续香火、专宗接代②是传统社会人们的普遍愿望和理想,然而,由于传统时代人口的高死亡率和极短的预期寿命,延续香火的理想对于大多数人来说难以实现,绝嗣现象普遍存在。本文依据家谱的人口信息,通过构建虚拟的家族支脉,考察了清代两百余年间家族支脉的繁衍状况。结果显示,仅有13.61%的人在经历了两百余年的生存竞争后,能够拥有自己的后代,而其他大多数都已绝嗣,传嗣的理想和现实之间存在巨大的落差。

Ideal and Reality of Family Lineage Continuation: A historical Demography Study of the Data from Chinese Genealogies

Although the continuation of the bloodline of a family lineage is an ideal which many people endeavored to pursue in the traditional society, but it was a hard dream for most people and most of the bloodlines became extinct without offspring due to the high mortality and very low life expectancy in traditional China. Based on the population data from Chinese families＇ genealogies, we examine the continuation of the families and their sub-lineages during 200 years in Qing Dynasty by constructing fictitious sub-lineages. The results indicate that only 13.61% people had successfully continued their bloodline and boasted of their own offspring after 267 years. The heir extinction was commonplace in traditional China and the ideal of a continuous bloodline consistently confronted with great frustration.