Qazaq Ablai khan University of International Relations & World Languages

Abstract

The complex of birth rituals opens the first cycle of rituals in human life. The first rituals aimed at praying for a child begin long before birth. Healthy offspring are the key to procreation. In nomadic and agrarian culture, procreation is undoubtedly linked to the birth of a male heir, the traditional way of life dictates its own rules of gender inequality. The rituals aimed at the birth of healthy offspring in Kazakh and Chinese traditions are key to the rituals of the childbearing complex, and the focus on the sex of the child from the perspective of ethnographic research has been little explored and of great interest for investigation. In this article, the author attempts to conduct a comparative and semantic analysis of gender aspects in the traditional culture of the Kazakh and Chinese people using the example of childbirth rituals, analyzes the symbolic component of the rituals. Some aspects of birth rituals reflect the inequality between the sexes and the social roles of boys and girls in traditional society, as well as their gender socialization at the stage of birth. The author links the traditions related to gender inequality to the traditional form of society, which was based on the division of labor.