中國殯喪禮自古以來因被儒家視為展示“孝”道的重要形式而成為歷朝歷代社會生活的一個 重要方面。其禮儀不僅繁瑣、多樣，更是在殯喪禮的執行過程中演化出了嚴格的等級制度，協助穩 定了中國古代社會統治階級的等級統治，維護了其時的社會秩序。至清末時期，隨着歐美自由、民 主、平等觀念的湧入，西歐式的喪葬形式也影響和改變着中國傳統的殯喪禮儀形式，殯喪等級制度 開始瓦解崩潰。至中華人民共和國政府成立后，更是提倡新型殯喪，廢除殯喪中的等級制度。本文 從中國古今殯喪禮的發展變化一窺中國殯喪等級制度的演變與消亡。

Chinese funeral is thought to be an important method to show filial respect to parents by confucianist from ancient time and was very important in each ancient dynasty of China. Not only the funeral rite was complex and diversiform, but also a kind of strict hierarchy came into being in the developing progress of funeral. The hierarchy of funeral rite germed in far-away ancient China, was founded during Qin and Han dynasty in China, had it’s legal status during Tang and Song dynasty in China, and shrinked in Qing dynasty. In the end, the hierarchy of funeral rite was abolished politically after the foundation of new government in morden time. The hierarchy of old funeral rite showed the social status of the dead person. Historily it helped the ancient governor to stabilize hierarchical domination like other rites, systems and laws in ancient China. However, during the final stage of Qing dynasty, the ideals of freedom, democracy, and equality from Europe were introduced to Chinese. Following that, European funeral rite entered in China and affected Chinese traditional funeral dramatically. Under the influence of European funeral rite, people in China began to give up the Chinese traditional complex hierarchical funeral rite. Even the government of the day announced and called for a new simple equal funeral in China. The new funeral was accepted by many Chinese gradually and The traditional hierarchical funeral of Chinese started to disappear. And then, after a new Chinese government, the Pople’s Republic of China was set up, a special administrative department which aimed to remove the old complex hierarchical funeral and to guide a new modern funeral was also instituted. Thus, the hierarchy of funeral died politically. Then, the funeral exists in China not as a role of helping to stabilize the hierarchical dominaion but as a role of reducing sadness of losing a family member and strengthen links of the alive family members and so on. This paper will study the development and disappearance of Chinese funeral hierarchy by observing Chinese funeral from ancient to nowdays.

1. 前言
 2. 中國各時期的殯喪禮與殯喪等級制度
  1）中國上古時期殯喪等級制度的萌芽
  2）中國先秦、秦漢時期殯喪等級制度的建立
  3）中國唐宋時期殯喪禮等級制度的法律地位
  4）中國近現代喪葬禮中殯喪等級制度的衰落與消亡
 3. 結語
 【參考文獻】

• 劉麗(慶星大學中文系) | 류려