Chapter 13 The Fourth View of Chastity

From the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty, China's feudal society was still on the rise. From its development to its peak, various social factors interacted and restricted each other. On the one hand, in society, in real life, the relationship between men and women and the choice of spouse and remarriage are still relatively free and relaxed to a certain extent and within a certain range, which is closely related to the overall cultural background of the Han and Tang Dynasties. . After Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, he began to use the name of the court to commend widows, and strive to set an example of the distinction between men and women and the observance of chastity.Qing is a widow in the Bashu area. She was widowed in her youth and relied on ancestral alchemy points for her livelihood. She "used money to defend herself" so that both her property and her body were protected.Qin Shihuang called Ba widow Qing a "chaste woman" and built a female Huai Qing platform specially for her.Qin Shihuang first opened this example. Because of the Qin system, the Han Dynasty advocated chastity even more. Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty gave silk horses to virgins.Emperor Ping of the Han Dynasty and Emperor Han'an also issued special edicts to commend chaste women.

The "Book of Rites" requires that chaste women should "be the same as they are, and they will never change for life", that is, once a woman is married, she cannot remarry for life.Women's "virtuous name" and men's "integrity" are both behaviors under the Confucian concept of etiquette and law in the Han Dynasty.In the Western Han Dynasty, Liu Xiang put forward six norms for restraining women in the form of biography, in which many widows were commended for their dedication, and Song Boji, who would rather be burned to death than "staying in the hall", was regarded as a model of women's morality.Dong Zhongshu's "Spring and Autumn Fanlu" and Ban Gu's "Baihu Tongyi" also highlight the promotion of consistency.In particular, Ban Zhao's younger sister, Ban Zhao, who is known as Master Cao [Gu Gu], wrote "The Commandments for Women", which raised this point to a theoretical level.She said that there is a reason for a husband to remarry, but there is no basis for a wife to remarry; the husband is heaven, and heaven covers everything, so a wife cannot divorce her husband.

Starting from the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty", most of the official histories of the past dynasties have been established. In "Book of the Later Han Dynasty: Biographies of Lie Nu", although the biographies of chastity-keepers accounted for only a small number, it laid the foundation for the practice of changing the biographies of Lie Nu into biographies of chaste women and martyrs after the Song Dynasty. The legacy of the sages has become a shackle on women, restricting widows from remarrying.Since the Han Dynasty, there have been some "martyr girls" who have lost their hair, disfigured their faces, and vowed not to marry again.Liu Changqing died early in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the son he left behind also died. His wife Huan was afraid that her parents would ask her to remarry, so she not only refused to return to her parents, but also cut her ears and disfigured her face in advance to show that she would never remarry.In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Xun Cai married Yang Yu at the age of 17 and gave birth to a daughter at the age of 19. Her husband died shortly thereafter.Her father, Xun Shuang, lied to her to go home and forced her to remarry.Xun Cai vowed not to obey, so he hanged himself.

Under the influence of Ban Zhao and other sages, some widows in later generations consciously kept their chastity. Not only did they no longer have sexual relations with any men, but they also no longer had any contact with men with their skin and arms.By the time of the Five Dynasties, there was a story of "a chaste woman breaking her arm": Li transported her husband's coffin back to her hometown and put it in a hotel at night. The owner thought it was unlucky, so he took Li's hand and asked her to go out.Mrs. Li held a sharp knife and cut off the arm that was held by the shopkeeper, saying that the arm had been defiled by the man.Of course, such examples are extremely individual.

As for the "female saint" Ban Zhao herself, she is a model of keeping chastity and abiding by "women's morality".She was married at the age of 14 and was a young widow.Emperor Hanhe summoned her to the palace to give lectures to royal dignitaries and scholars respectively.In order to show that "men and women are not close to each other", she sat on the pavilion by herself and asked the scholars to stand in front of the steps of your Excellency. The content of the explanation could not be heard by you, so she had to repeat it one by one by the maids' pavilion.

Although the ruling class continues to reward chastity, and the law has made various regulations on the divorce of husband and wife, the whole society, from the relatives of the emperor to the common people, still regards women's chastity more highly in this long period of more than 1,000 years. The phenomenon of remarriage is relatively common.Chen Ping in the late Qin Dynasty and early Han Dynasty married a widow who had been married five times and her husbands died one by one. "Wenjun Night Run" is also very famous in history. It tells the story of the early Western Han Dynasty, the story of Zhuo Wenjun, a 17-year-old new widow, elopes with Sima Xiangru, a contemporary celebrity.

The story of Zhu Maichen's wife divorced and remarried during the Han Dynasty was also widely circulated.According to the "Hanshu Zhu Maichen Biography", Zhu Maichen's family was poor, and Zhu's wife felt that life was too hard, so she proposed to divorce Zhu Maichen.Zhu failed to dissuade him, and finally left.Not long after that, Zhu Maichen met his ex-wife and her new husband on the way to the tomb while chopping firewood. Seeing that Maichen was suffering from hunger and cold, they brought him food.Later, Maichen made a fortune and became the prefect of Kuaiji, so he took his ex-wife and her husband, who were serving as officials, to the mansion to provide meals.Zhu's ex-wife was ashamed and hated, and soon committed suicide.

Among the royal relatives in the Han Dynasty, the phenomenon of remarriage is also often seen.The queen of Emperor Han Jing, as well as the queen's mother, were all remarried. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the rulers used administrative orders to force widows to remarry in order to increase the population.Sometimes widows from all over the country were recruited and distributed to sergeants.Administrative measures combined with a more civilized social atmosphere made it common for widows to remarry.In the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Yu Hui was killed in a disaster. Zhuge Daoming, Yu’s wife’s father, wrote to Yu Hui’s father, Yu Liang, and talked about his daughter’s desire to remarry. Yu Liang immediately wrote back and said, “Your daughter is still young, so it is very appropriate to do so.” .One question and one answer clearly shows the customs at that time.

In the Tang Dynasty, although "sacred books" such as "The Analects of Women" that required women to obey the three virtues and maintain chastity continued to appear, the imperial court also made some restrictions on remarriage. You can't remarry after death, and Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty also stipulated that if a princess has a son, she can't remarry if she loses her husband. However, people still don't pay much attention to chastity, whether inside or outside the palace, or in the folk lanes.According to the "New Book of Tang: The Biography of the Emperors and Princesses", there are 201 princesses in the Tang Dynasty. Except for those who died young, were unmarried as Taoist priests, and whose deeds were unknown, there were 121 people who were married, and 27 of them remarried. Almost 1/4 of it.If it is said that the remarriage of a princess is related to her power and status, then this phenomenon is also very common among officials and common people.For example, the daughter of the poet Han Yu once married to the Li family and then married to Fan Wenyi.Hanlin Duguyu married the beautiful daughter of Minister Quan Deyu, even the emperor envied her, but in fact Quan was still a widow.