Chapter 39 Four divorce and remarriage

Divorce and remarriage are also hot topics of gossip. Chinese people have always been interested in topics such as divorce. "So-and-so is divorced!" Such news can often arouse heated discussions in any unit or community.There are those who inquire about the truth, those who seek the bottom line, those who sigh, and those who express their emotions. The excitement and excitement can often last for several days. Why do Chinese like to talk about other people's divorce?Because generally speaking, the Chinese do not approve of divorce. From the Chinese point of view, neither marriage nor divorce is purely a "personal problem" but a "social problem". It is the requirement of the society that "male college students should marry and female college students should marry"; "husband and wife love each other and grow old together" is the ideal of society.Since it is a social problem, of course it is "everyone's responsibility", and everyone should care about it.Therefore, if single men and women never get married, someone will come to introduce them again and again.In the same way, if a married man and a woman want to go their separate ways, someone will naturally come to mediate and persuade them to make peace again and again, at least the parents, fellow villagers, colleagues and neighbors will talk about it.

So why are marriage and divorce not "personal issues" but social issues?For, first, they concern the making or breaking of the most important element of social organization—the family.Second, they are also related to the security and stability of society.I said in a book that in traditional Chinese society, "family" is the most basic and conventional unit in social organization and marriage.The most basic is inseparable, and the "most conventional" is the "universal model".This is a major difference between Chinese society and Western society.Western society is "individual-oriented".The individual is the most basic unit of social organization.A person can leave the family for personal reasons, join the community, join a political party, or go alone and act on his own, and still be a member of the society.Whether he forms a family, dissolves the family, "starts a family" or "becomes a monk", all are entirely his own business.As long as the law is not violated and certain procedures are fulfilled, the society and others have no right to intervene.

Traditional Chinese society is different. An individual's identity, status, value, power, obligation, responsibility, honor, and interests are all closely linked with his family and depend on his family.For example, if a person comes from a "famous family", his status is also high and his face is also high.On the contrary, if you are born as a "untouchable commoner", you may not be able to hold your head up for the rest of your life.In the same way, if a person is promoted to an official position, he will enshrine his wife and son and glorify his ancestors.On the contrary, if a person commits a crime, it will bring disaster to the whole family and destroy the nine clans.It can be seen that the rewards and punishments of society are imposed on families rather than individuals; the management of society is also imposed on families rather than individuals.The reason is that the family is the most basic unit of society.Since the family is so important, society cannot let things that cause the family break up.

Divorce will not only lead to the breakdown of the family, but also affect social stability and political stability.Because as mentioned earlier, the first purpose of marriage has always been said to be "combining two surnames".According to this theory, divorce is of course "resentment between the two surnames", or at least "the good of the two surnames".In this way, the divorce of two people is likely to lead to hatred and hostility between the two families, and even cause disasters and fight.If the two families are famous, wealthy, officials, or vassals, they may also cause political disputes, or even wars, or at least turn the world upside down.

It is natural for such serious consequences to arise.Because as mentioned earlier, for individuals and families, one loses and one loses, and one prospers and one prospers.If one person suffers, the whole family suffers; if one person loses face, the whole family loses face.Divorce, especially if the woman is "divorced", is extremely embarrassing for the woman's family.Because it often means that one's daughter is "bad": or not virtuous (such as not doing things to aunts, jealousy), or faulty (such as tongue, theft), or unlucky (such as childless), or No woman's virtue (such as obscenity), in short, there is "problem", and this has become "goods that no one wants".This is of course a shame.What's more, when these "problems" get deeper, most of them should be attributed to "no tutoring".This is tantamount to directly smearing the face of the woman's family, how can it be tolerated?Of course, tit for tat had to be fought.

The second aspect in which divorce affects social stability is that it creates new single men and women.In traditional Chinese society, "single men and women" are no different from "homeless prodigal sons".Like the "vagrants", they are "unstable factors" in society.If a person has no occupation, he will not have a "job".If there is no job, there will be "troubleshooting", such as theft, fraud, robbery, murder, etc.In the same way, a person without a spouse has no "family".Without a family, "accidents" will happen, such as adultery, prostitution, homosexuality, watching pornographic videos, and even rape.Therefore, society must be concerned with two major issues: one is to allow everyone to have a job and "have something to eat"; the other is to allow everyone to have a spouse and "have a family."In short, individuals should not be allowed to become "jobless people" or "homeless prodigal sons", and become "unstable factors" displaced outside the social organizational structure.

Since divorce causes so much harm, it is certainly not considered a "good thing."Since it is not a good thing, people will of course not only express their opposition, but also express their surprise: "It's so good, why do you want to get a divorce?" "It's better to die than to live" is to advocate making do with life;Then, if there are two people who refuse to make do with each other, everyone will come to the same conclusion: "Something must have happened!" And this is what idlers are most concerned about. When a couple wants to divorce, of course there is an "accident".But this matter may be multi-faceted.For example, personality problems, financial problems, relationship problems with the man or woman's family members, etc., may lead to a couple's request for divorce.

But most idlers don't understand it that way. In the eyes of ordinary idlers, when a couple wants to get divorced, there is only one problem that has happened, and that is sex.Specifically, there are two possibilities. One is that one party has sexual dysfunction, and the other is that one party (or both parties) has an affair.No matter what the situation is, it is enough to make people gossip. As I said before, sex is a hot topic in Chinese gossip.Usually when there is nothing to ask for trouble, it is always wrong to talk about sex. Now that there are real people and real things, they can even talk about it.The content of the discussion is naturally indispensable.For example, the man took "Gujing Pills" regularly, or saw him buy dog ​​kidney and deer whip wine, or said that the woman often went to the hospital to see the gynecologist.Perhaps there is a young boy who claims that he knows for sure that the couple failed to do that on their wedding night. Then everyone will look at him and laugh, and ask: "Take a look at the room!" The result, of course, is that young boy With red faces and red ears, the others roared with laughter. Everyone felt that it was really fun to gossip like this.

If the first type of problem is more mysterious, then the second type of problem is more dramatic.Because if a person has an "affair", there must be many storylines.For example, how did the two lovers meet?Is it a partner on the dance floor, or an old acquaintance, old friend, childhood sweetheart?If they are new acquaintances, there are naturally many stories and plots about how they met and how they got along from the acquaintance.If they are old acquaintances and good friends, there are naturally many allusions and historical facts that can be checked and verified.Next, how did the two hook up?Where are the trysts and affairs?There is also a lot to do here.Of course, the most exciting climax is the scene of catching rape.It was really suspenseful, dangerous and exciting.At this time, the person who has "first-hand reliable information" will often become the core figure that everyone expects, stealing the limelight.

In addition to narrating the plot, discussing the characters is also an important content of this kind of gossip.At this time, the topic tends to focus more on the "third party".Because if there is no "third party" to appear on the stage, this good show will naturally not be staged.Therefore, people tend to pay more attention to the "third party" than both parties to the divorce.If the "third party" is a young and beautiful woman, everyone will be more interested in talking.If she is a "female star" and the man is a "big director", it will not only gossip, but also alarm the news media, making many third-rate tabloids pay a lot of money to hire "writers" to write brilliantly Raw flowers.

Marriage breakdown due to "intervention by a third party" is just one of many divorce cases.If there is no "third party", then we have to make a fuss about the person concerned. In traditional Chinese society, generally speaking, once a divorce case occurs, the responsibility is often placed on the woman.In ancient China, there was no concept of "divorce", but only "divorce", which is another manifestation of inequality between men and women. "Divorcing a wife" is also called "giving up a wife". There has always been a rule of "seven divorces" in etiquette.That is to say, as long as a wife violates any of the "seven outs", the husband has the right to drive her out of the house and abandon her body, which is called "getting out of a wife" or "divorcing her". The article of "seven outs" has been around since the Zhou Dynasty.According to "Da Dai Li Ji".Benming and Yili.According to Jia Gongyan in Mourning Clothes, the seven so-called "justifiable reasons" for husbands to send out their wronged or innocent wives are: neglecting uncles (in-laws), childlessness, adultery, tongue-in-cheek, theft, jealousy, and serious illness.If you don't care about your uncle, you don't respect your parents-in-law.In fact, in fact, it may not be "disrespectful", as long as the parents-in-law "don't like it", they will also divorce their wives, such as the divorce of Jiao Zhongqing's wife and Tang Wanzhi, the ex-wife of Lu You, a great poet in the Song Dynasty, in ancient poems.Because it is unfilial to "do nothing about uncle and aunt", and it is a serious crime to be unfilial.Similarly, being childless is also unfilial, because "there are three types of unfilial piety, the greatest being having no offspring".There are two kinds of prostitution, one is "fornication", that is, having sexual relations with other men (including family members) other than the husband, of course it is "immoral"; Having sex with her husband indiscriminately, the result is that the husband loses a lot of energy, and his kidneys are weak, which is of course "immoral".Both of these situations are also shameless and should be given up.Jealousy is not allowing the husband to associate with other women, or not allowing the husband to take a concubine when he is "unable to come out", which is also considered "not a woman's virtue".There are three kinds of gossip (also known as "talking too much"): one is talking too much in front of parents-in-law, which is "disrespectful"; It is "discord".All three situations will affect the stability and unity of the family, so they must also go.As for the theft, it's a bit inexplicable.Because the husband and wife are one, how can one steal from oneself?It probably refers to stealing things from the in-law's house and sending them to the mother's house.It's even more unreasonable to talk about a bad disease.If a wife falls ill, her husband should pay for the treatment, so why should she be kicked out of the house instead? It can be seen that the "seven outs" clause is extremely unfair to women.Not only is it unfair, but it is also harsh.If a wife is a little careless, she may be divorced.For example, Zeng Shen, a student of Confucius, divorced his wife just because he cooked a raw meal, which is simply unreasonable.It is precisely because it is so convenient for a husband to divorce his wife, and there are so many conditions that can be "justified reasons", so once a divorce case occurs, people may make two diametrically opposed judgments. There is something "problem" with the woman, and the other is to immediately think that maybe it is the man's "unsafe intentions" like a conditioned reflex. In fact, many men give up their wives, divorce their wives, and abandon their wives. It is not at all that there is something wrong with their wives, but because they themselves hate the poor and love the rich, and hate the old and prefer the new.For example, Liu Xun, Wei's Pinglu general, married his wife, the Song family, and lived together for more than 20 years.Later, Liu Xun fell in love with Sima Nu from Shanyang, so he divorced the Song family on the grounds of "no children".Married for more than 20 years without mentioning the matter of childlessness, the real reason for thinking of the "major succession" when seeing the Sima girl in Shanyang can be imagined.In the Han Dynasty, Wang Su divorced his wife without even a reason, just because the emperor wanted to marry the princess to him.Fu Ma Ye is of course "the son-in-law who rides the dragon quickly", so Wang Su chose to divorce his wife without hesitation. Probably the framers of etiquette also expected this kind of thing, so they made the "three out" regulations, which were regarded as restrictions on divorce.Therefore, "three out", according to "Gongyang Zhuan.Zhuanggong Twenty-seven Years" He Xiu's commentary, that is: "Taste Geng three years of mourning and not forgetting kindness; Also." A woman, if there was someone in her natal family when she got married, but now there is no one in her natal family (generally refers to the death of both parents, the "natal family" no longer exists), she cannot give up, because this will make her homeless.In the old days, a woman could not become a "family" independently.When I was a child, my parents were my home, and after marriage, my husband was my home, so getting married is called "returning".If the mother's family does not exist, there will naturally be no home to "return". This is extremely inhumane, so society does not allow it.In addition, it is also immoral to give back to others and get married if you marry, and it is immoral to get something without giving something back. Therefore, "if you marry, you can't go back." "Tasting more three-year mourning" refers to the daughter-in-law who has observed the "three-year mourning" for her parents-in-law. It is the same as "unmarried daughter", and she has a brother-sister relationship with her husband. "The humble marry the expensive but not the expensive" means that when the husband marries his wife, the husband's family was poor and humble, but now he is rich, if he divorces his wife, he will be snobbish, immoral, and heartless. Among the "three not to give up", the most deeply rooted in the hearts of the people is "marry the cheap and not pay the expensive".If a man violates this principle, it is inevitable that someone will gossip and even be condemned by public opinion.The Chinese people have always advocated that "friends who are poor and lowly should not be forgotten, and wives who are poor will not go to court", and what they oppose is to see profit and forget righteousness, love the new and dislike the old, and climb new branches.If someone dares to do this, public opinion will generally not be merciless; if the woman stands up to fight back at this time, everyone will probably applaud.Such things have happened in history.For example, there was a man named Huang Yun in the later Han Dynasty who was "famous for his excellent talents" at that time, but it seems that his "virtue" was not very good.Situ (a kind of high-ranking official) Yuan Kai wanted to court his niece. Seeing Huang Yun's handsome appearance, he admired and said, "It's enough to get a son-in-law!" Huang Yun went home immediately to file for divorce.Huang Yun's wife, Xia Houshi, did not scramble for land, seek death and life as usual, and was in pain. Instead, she calmly said to her mother-in-law that now I have been divorced and will soon say goodbye to Huang's parents. Feelings.So, there were more than 300 guests gathered, Xiahou sat firmly in the middle, raised his hands, and counted 15 of Huang Yun's ulterior privacy scandals.After finishing speaking, he boarded the car and walked away. Now it was Huang Yun's turn to be gossiped by others, and the content of the gossip was obviously not limited to divorce. Divorcees gossip a lot, and remarried people gossip a lot. Generally speaking, Chinese society does not oppose remarriage.The remarriage of widowers has always been encouraged, and the remarriage of widows is only considered "dishonest" for a period of time, but this does not mean that remarriage is so honorable and dignified.In fact, many remarriages will inevitably attract objections.For example, if a virgin marries a widow, and a virgin marries a widower, it is very shameful.Because the former is "picking up other people's leftovers" and "eating buns that others have gnawed on", if it is not crazy, then it is probably incompetent; the latter is married to a "second marriage" and is doing " If you don't want to fill the house", then it is mostly "can't get married", and this is the last resort.Therefore, in this type of marriage, the psychological barriers of the parties are often very large, and a lot of determination is required. Another type of remarriage, which is very easy to cause gossip, is that both parties have children.Remarriage with children is originally a very difficult matter, because it involves how to get along with the other party's ex-husband or ex-wife and daughter.This problem can be said to be a worldwide problem.But the crux of the problem does not lie in this, but in the traditional Chinese concept, which regards having children as the purpose of marriage.Since the purpose of marriage is to have children, then, now that you have children, why do you want to marry again?Lead your children to live a good life and bring them up, isn't it all right? Obviously, there can only be one explanation for marrying after completing the fertility task, and this possible explanation is considered "shameful" by many people.Because in traditional Chinese society, sex is legal and moral only for the purpose of procreation, and non-procreative sex should be regarded as "lust", which inevitably makes people gossip.If both parties are older, there will be a lot of gossip: "It's a lot of age, but it's still restless!" So what do young women do), women are naturally not necessarily "good things".Because "Chang'e loves young people since ancient times", how can a young and beautiful woman be willing to marry an old man?If it's not "lost virginity" and unable to marry a boy boy, it's "another plan", and it's likely to be an idea of ​​the old guy's inheritance.Moreover, maybe he had secretly raised a "little boy" to make the old man foolishly cuckold.Obviously, not only the parties could not bear such gossip, but their children would also feel the pressure, and therefore strongly opposed their parents' remarriage.More than half of the reasons for the difficulty of remarriage among the elderly in China are often here.