Chapter 16 Section 2 Marriage and Family System

The feudal marriage and family system developed to the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. Although it has been declining day by day, and there is not much afterglow, but only in this way, its degree of solidification and dogma has increased compared with previous generations before the Tang Dynasty. Especially the poisoning and oppression of women reached its peak throughout the feudal era. Like the previous dynasties since the Zhou Dynasty, the marriage system characterized by "the order of the parents and the words of the matchmaker" was the only legal way for the establishment of marriage in the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.The marriage legislation of the Song Dynasty basically followed that of the Tang Dynasty, stipulating that the officiant of the marriage should be grandparents and parents.The laws of the Ming and Qing dynasties are also the same: "All marriages are officiated by grandparents and parents. If there are no grandparents or parents, the remaining relatives will officiate the marriage. If the husband dies and bring a suitable woman, the daughter will officiate the marriage from the mother." Or official or business outside, their grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters are engaged to be engaged after they go out when they are young... Those who are not married are determined by their elders, those who make their own decisions are not married. "("Great Qing Law · House Law").In order to maintain this autocratic system, the Ming law even imposed heavy penalties on women who betrayed their husbands after marriage, stipulating: "If a wife betrays her husband and runs away, she will be punished with a hundred sticks, and she will be sold by her husband; "Law"), how brutal and cruel!

Under the arranged and forced marriage system of betrothal marriage, the system of pawning wives and bride-in-law, which is full of backwardness and barbarism, and exclusively uses women as commodities and slaves, also emerged during this period. The vulgar custom of pawning wives began in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. Pawning wives are men who are poor, destitute or in debt. Forced to make ends meet, they pawn their wives and concubines to others as wives within a specified period and charge a certain amount of pawn .The classics are those who donate money to borrow wives to have children in order to make the clan have heirs.It is very clear that women who are wives and mothers have been arbitrarily pawned here as a commodity, a commodity, completely losing their independent personality and human dignity.At that time, the custom of exchanging wives for wealth was so prevalent that the imperial court had to promulgate laws to prohibit it.Yuan "Dayuan Tongzhi" stipulates: "Those who use women to hire people and women who hire people are prohibited"; "Those who accept money to hire wives and concubines are prohibited"; , those who are willing to use the gift of marriage as a wife and concubine, listen";The law of the Ming Dynasty believed that this custom was also "immoral" and issued an order to prohibit it: "Whoever hires a wife and concubine as a wife and concubine by the financial code, the stick is eighty; if the code hires a woman, the stick is sixty; women do not sit." , the law stipulates: "There must be a contract to receive wealth, and those who are hired by the Dian as wives and concubines can only sit on this law; today's poor people hire their wives and daughters as wives and concubines to serve, and this is not the case" ("Qing Law Collection") .In fact, it was difficult to distinguish Dian hired as a wife and concubine from Dian hired as a concubine during the implementation of the regulations of the Qing law. Therefore, until the end of the Qing Dynasty, the custom of pawning wives still persisted among the people.

Bride-in-law is commonly known as child bride-in-law, which refers to a daughter-in-law who has been engaged by her parents since she was a child and adopted by her husband's family.The bride-in-law system originated in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, but in the concubine marriage system of the Zhou Dynasty, the shadow of the child bride-in-law of later generations can already be seen.At that time, there were often underage girls among the nieces who married with the main wife. After they married to the other country, they could only get married after a few years of adulthood.From the Han Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, the emperor's family often selected some young girls into the palace, and when they grew up, they were either protected by themselves or given to their children.

By the Yuan Dynasty, the system of raising daughter-in-law was quite common, and the law of the Yuan Dynasty stipulated that if an unmarried child bride-in-law was transferred to a domestic slave, he would be punished with flogging, and the child bride-in-law should be returned to the family, and the betrothal money could not be recovered.In the Qing Dynasty, baby marriage was popular in some areas. When the son was only three or five years old, the parents married him a "daughter of Jiji". Marry your own daughter as a child bride.After the girl arrives at the man's house, she first meets her parents-in-law and calls her future husband her younger brother.Afterwards, "everything about the mortar, the cooking, the sewing" had to be taken care of. "At night, you caress your son-in-law to sleep, and during the day, you dress him and feed him, like a nanny";A popular folk song at the time described the living conditions of a child bride:

Little jujube tree, shake it three times, child bride, it's really difficult.The father-in-law boils the mother-in-law, and the foot is on the pot with the spoon in the hand, and it is comfortable to drink rice soup. (Qingjiang) Child bride-in-law, it's hard to live... I've been a millionaire in the daytime, and I've been spinning yarn until midnight at night.I was so hungry that I stole sticks of pickled vegetables to fill my stomach... I raised a little Ada for three years, and he has no joints at the age of three or six or nine. (Shanghai) Raising a daughter-in-law is suffering, raising a daughter-in-law is suffering, I get up in the middle of the night to grind tofu, and grind it until dawn at midnight, and my in-laws say I am happy. (Jiangbei) There is also a poem saying:

The married man has been married for thirteen years. Today I comb my hair and I feel sorry for myself. I remember eating milk together and sleeping in my grandmother's arms when I first came here. (Huang Zunxian: Folk Song) It can be seen that the victims of the bride-raising system are mainly child brides-in-law.Before they got married, they were like maidservants; after they got married, they had to serve their in-laws and their husbands much younger than themselves.The bride-in-law's family believes that to hire a person, you need to pay wages, and the hired worker cannot stay home all year round, and the hired daughter from a poor family does not cost much, and the command is satisfactory, so of course it is extremely cost-effective.The feudal bride-in-law created mismatched marriages, and many couples suffered from disharmony throughout their lives.

Advocated by the ruling class in the past dynasties, the feudal ethics with "filial piety" as the core has gone through hundreds of years of development from Han, Tang to Song, and finally reached the point of extreme, solidified and absurd.Since the Song Dynasty, "there is no right parent" and "the father tells the son to die, the son dare not not die" and other speeches promoting "foolish loyalty" and "foolish filial piety" also appeared.Taoists advocate not to express dissatisfaction with parents when they are angry; to submit to parents; the younger generation should not make their own decisions about family matters; when parents are angry and whip their children to bleed, the children should not have any complaints, etc. Otherwise, it is unfilial. The wider the spread of some ethical concepts among ordinary people, the farther their influence will be.In the Song Dynasty, there were 55 filial sons who were so-called "cutting shares to treat relatives" in records, but such cases in the Tang Dynasty were only very rare.In the Song Dynasty, there were also extreme examples of harvesting viscera and other organs to treat the diseases of their parents, and those who destroyed their own bodies to show their filial piety were regarded as models of supreme filial piety. Jing is "Yimen", so it can also be exempted from state and county taxes.From the Yuan Dynasty, the book "Twenty-Four Filial Piety Pictures" became widely popular, and its influence spread from the Ming and Qing Dynasties to the Republic of China.Distorted filial piety harms people's hearts. As Mr. Lu Xun said, this kind of "filial piety" "uses ruthlessness as a moral discipline, slanders the ancients, and ruins the future generations."

On the one hand, the ruling class advocates ignorance and filial piety, using feudal ethics to maintain the inequality of family relations, and on the other hand, it uses laws to ensure the exercise of parental power.According to the laws of the Tang Dynasty in the Song Dynasty, it was stipulated that if the grandparents and parents are present, and the children and grandchildren set up separate households to distribute the property, they will be imprisoned for three years;The laws of Ming and Qing continued to protect the right of parental control.Parents have the power to punish their children. If children do not obey their parents' will, they are unfilial. For unfilial children, parents can sue the government.For example, in the Qing Dynasty, parents had the "right to send for punishment", and if their children and grandchildren offended their father and grandfather, the father and grandfather could send their children and grandchildren to officials.The government does not ask whether it is true or not, and "handles it according to the control", and executes it according to the will of the father and ancestor.

Ming and Qing laws also regard grandparents, parents, children and grandchildren of different origins, and different wealth as "indecent". Loose, as long as the parents agree to divide the money and live apart, let them do what they want.The laws of the Tang and Song dynasties stipulated that within the time limit of the parents' mourning period, children who had a child would have to "be imprisoned for one year", while the laws of the Ming and Qing dynasties did not stipulate criminal punishment.The purpose of the law of the Ming and Qing Dynasties not to punish general "indecent" behaviors was to more effectively maintain the feudal autocratic monarchy.

In terms of the relationship between husband and wife, the combination of etiquette and law that safeguards the supremacy of the husband's power is also very close, and the principle of "husband is more expensive than his wife is inferior" is reflected in everything.For example, with regard to marital property, the Song Law stipulates that the wife’s property shall be jointly dominated by the husband and the wife; The husband came forward to sign the deed.The legal regulations on dealing with couples beating each other in the Ming Dynasty is a reflection of the unequal status of husbands and wives: "Whoever beats his husband shall be punished with a hundred rods... If he is extremely ill, he shall be strangled; if the dead are killed, he shall be beheaded. Injury, no matter, if the injury is more than broken, the mortal will be reduced to the second class... until the dead, strangle... the concubine is beaten, if the injury is more than broken, the wife will be reduced to the second class; if the dead is killed, the rod will be 100 years, and the prisoner will be three years" ( "Law of the Ming Dynasty").The difference in status and rights between husband and wife, wife and concubine went a step further than that in Han and Tang Dynasties.Not only that, the law also restricts the right of wives and concubines to sue their husbands.For example, according to the Qing law, wives and concubines suing their husbands and children and grandchildren suing their grandparents and parents are both guilty of "doing crimes against righteousness".Even if the husband commits adultery, the wife cannot report it, but the husband has the right to catch the adulterer. Even if he kills the adulterous wife on the spot, it is nothing more than a slap in the face.If there is a beating between husband and wife, the wife will be punished more heavily, but the husband will be given a lighter punishment or even be innocent.It can be seen that the punishment principles and sentencing standards of the Qing Dynasty are basically the same as those of the Ming Dynasty.

Since the Song Dynasty, the inequality in the relationship between husband and wife is also manifested in the inheritance of the previous dynasties' "wife out" system.The laws of Song, Ming, and Qing dynasties such as "Seven Outs", "Three Don'ts", and "Yi Jue" basically followed the old system of Tang Dynasty. According to the principle of "three don't go", you can have the right to marry a wife.The difference in this respect is the Yuan Dynasty.Since the Yuan Dynasty was less influenced by feudal Confucian ethics, the Yuan Law did not have the regulations of "seven outs", "three not to go" and "righteousness" in previous dynasties.The marriage laws of the Yuan Dynasty did not follow the feudal code of ethics that "women live together forever", but stipulated that: when both parties are engaged, if the man "does not remarry for five years without reason, he shall remarry with a certificate of authority." "For couples who are not in harmony, those who sell and buy a divorce are forbidden, those who violate it are punished, and those who divorce are not allowed to sit." Those who steal or commit crimes from distant places will be remarried" (see "Dayuan Tongzhi" for all the above).But for married women, the Yuan Law also stipulates: "Women who abandon their husbands and abandon their uncles and aunts to become nuns will have a staff of sixty-seven and return their husbands" ("Da Yuan Tong Zhi").It can be seen that the legal provisions on divorce between husband and wife in the Yuan Dynasty are more reasonable than those in the Tang and Song Dynasties.Song laws stipulated that women who betrayed their husbands should "be imprisoned for three years, so those who remarry will travel three thousand miles, and concubines will be reduced by one class" ("Song Xingtong"). Coupled with the preaching and advocacy of the strong concept of Women's Day, which was very popular at that time, the pain and oppression suffered by women, and the doom they suffered were even more extraordinary. The harshness of the law and the tyranny of ethics greatly distorted the personality and image of women in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.Lu Qi [qi Qi] from the Qing Dynasty described the newlyweds in his "New Wife Spectrum": "I dare not raise my eyebrows when I am a father-in-law, I dare not be angry with my husband, I dare not scold when I meet a servant, and I am cautious if I am blindly cautious. Husbands are all happy." Women also need to be careful about their expressions and tone of voice: "When you are a aunt and husband, you should be respectful; If you are virtuous, you are not virtuous if you are tall; if you speak too little, you are virtuous; if you talk too much, you are not virtuous." "New Wife Spectrum" also advises wives not to express dissatisfaction with their husbands who "want to promote buildings, buy maidservants and concubines".A wife is commendable only if she "accommodates maidservants and concubines, and treats brothels leniently".These views of oppressing, belittling women, damaging women's personality, and advocating husband's power are intertwined with the concept of "a woman's ignorance is virtue" after the Northern Song Dynasty, which seriously constrains women not only in the way of behavior, but also in the deep psychological structure. As a result, the differences in status and rights between husbands and wives in the family have further widened. Since the Song Dynasty, the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law has also undergone abnormal changes.Daughters-in-law's status in the family is very low. In front of their parents-in-law, they can only be obedient, and they must be cautious in everything, and live a life of swallowing and submissive.On the other hand, the mother-in-law has a lot of power over her daughter-in-law and the right to divorce and abstain. If the daughter-in-law does not agree with the mother-in-law, not only will she be reprimanded at any time, she may also be forced to separate from her husband. Miserable end.The divorce between Lu You, a great poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, and his wife Tang Wan is the eternal swan song of love tragedy under the feudal ethics. Lu You (1125-1210 A.D.), courtesy name Wuguan and nicknamed Fangweng, was born in Shanyin, Yuezhou (now Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province). He married Tang Wan in the 14th year of Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty (1144 A.D.).Lu You is handsome, bold and talented.Tang Wan is proficient in poetry and has outstanding appearance.The two not only admired each other, but also had the ambition to drive gold and serve the country, and established a deep relationship after marriage.Lu and Tang are very affectionate, but they are not liked by the rigid and strict Weng Gu.Lu and Tang had been married for less than two years, and Lu's mother ordered her son to divorce his wife.Lu You couldn't disobey his mother's order, so he could only reluctantly separate from his beloved wife.Later, Lu You married the Wang family, and Tang Wan remarried Zhao Shicheng from the same county. In the 21st year of Shaoxing (1151 A.D.), Tang Wan and his wife met Lu You unexpectedly in Shenyuan in the southeast of Shaoxing City.According to his wife's wishes, Zhao Shicheng gave Lu You wine and food as a compliment.Lu You was full of emotions, gushing out of his depression for many years. He inscribed "The Hairpin Head Phoenix" on the white wall of the Shenyuan Garden to vent his resentment towards his abandoned wife who has become another wife, himself and his mother who caused this tragedy. Affection: Red crispy hands, yellow Teng wine, and willows all over the city's spring palace walls.The east wind is evil, and the love is weak.A cup of melancholy, a few years away.Wrong, wrong, wrong. Spring is as old as before, people are empty and thin, and tears are red and silky.Peach blossoms fall, Xianchi Pavilion.Although the Shanmeng is here, the Jinshu is hard to entrust.Mo, mo, mo. Lu You's reckless and reckless inscription put Zhao Shicheng in an embarrassing situation, and deeply hurt the kind and innocent Tang Wan, causing waves of waves in her already calm heart.After returning home, Tang Wan reversed the words "evil" and "thin" and made a tactful excuse and rebuttal as an abandoned body: The love of the world is thin, the love of human beings is evil, and the flowers are easy to fall when the rain is sent at dusk.Xiaofeng is dry, and tears are left.If you want to write about your thoughts, you can talk alone.Difficult, difficult, difficult. People become different, today is not yesterday, sick souls are often like swings.The sound of the horn is cold, and the night is fading.Afraid of people asking questions, swallowing tears and making up happy.Conceal, conceal, conceal. Soon, Tang Wan died in grief and depression. More than 40 years later, Lu You, who is over 70 years old, dreamed of Shen Yuan.With the pain still lingering, I wrote two more poems of "Shen Yuan", recalling the old relationship with Tang Wan: The setting sun on the city draws sorrow at the corners, and the Shenyuan is not a restoration of the old pool.The spring green under the sad bridge was once a shadow of Jinghong. Forty years have passed since the fragrance of the dream has broken, and the willows in the Shenyuan will never blow cotton.This body walk is Jishantu, and there is still a trace of hanging. After the Song Dynasty, the growing inequality between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law also made the daughter-in-law who has been a mother-in-law for many years often use the methods she has tried, or even more powerful methods, to punish her daughter-in-law in order to compensate her past decades. years of suffering.In this way, from generation to generation, the methods and means of controlling the daughter-in-law have become more and more harsh and sophisticated.This is the saddest tragedy of women's abuse of each other, and it is also a unique malady in Chinese feudal family relations since the Song Dynasty. In terms of inheritance system, since the Song Dynasty, the law has basically followed the law of the Tang Dynasty to maintain the eldest son inheritance system, but the inheritance law of the two Song Dynasties is more detailed than the law of the Tang Dynasty. , many detailed rules were stipulated on the distribution of property between men and women, and these rules were followed by the laws of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.Song law also stipulates that women have certain property inheritance rights.In the Southern Song Dynasty, women's inheritance rights were weakened.The inheritance rights of women stipulated in the Song Law generally include: married sisters or daughters can get 1/3 of the prescribed inheritance, but it must be limited to less than 3,000 guan; virgins can get half of the brother's share; The land property, that is, the "dowry field", still belongs to the wife. When remarrying, she can take it with her or sell it as a pawn, but the property of the husband's family cannot be taken away. The laws of the two Song Dynasties also stipulated the property inheritance rights of posthumous sons, illegitimate sons, adopted sons and surrogate sons-in-law. The posthumous child has basically the same rights as the born parent.The illegitimate son was called "Bie Zhaizi" in Song Dynasty. If the "Biezhaizi" has already entered the household registration, the government will recognize and accept its property inheritance rights, and if it has not registered the household registration, the government will not accept it.In the Southern Song Dynasty, the law was relaxed. As long as "Bie Zhaizi" has evidence to prove his blood relationship with his biological father, the government will recognize his status and he can also enjoy certain property inheritance rights. The adopted son refers to the son of the ex-husband who lives with the remarried mother and lives in the step-husband's house, and calls the step-mother's step-husband the "foster father".The adoptive son does not take the adoptive father's surname. If the adoptive father dies, he should belong to the clan. Naturally, he will not have the right to inherit the property, but he has the right to share the biological mother's belongings. The son-in-law is usually recruited to be a son-in-law for the daughter's family because the man's family is poor and unable to marry a wife. Therefore, he does not have much status and rights in the family, let alone inherit and share the property of the wife's family.The son-in-law can only get some family wealth by contributing his wisdom and efforts to increase the property of his wife's family "until the end of the household". The Southern Song Dynasty also stipulated in detail the system of "succession" and property inheritance for households.It is allowed to adopt a man with a different surname under the age of three as a child, and once adopted, he is regarded as a parent and has the right to inherit property. The inheritance system of the Yuan Dynasty was different from that of the previous dynasties, especially the inheritance of the Mongols and the Semu people, each acting according to its original customs and habits, which is the so-called "each following the customary law".The Yuan Dynasty also recognized the right of inheritance to widows or women from childless families. The law of the Ming Dynasty also emphasized the maintenance of the eldest son inheritance system. Whether it is to inherit the ancestor's ancestry or inherit the yin and inherit the nobility, the eldest son will inherit. The "Law of the Ming Dynasty" stipulates: "Anyone who violates the law by setting up a legitimate son shall have a stick of eighty. If his wife is over 50 years old and has no children, he may establish a concubine's eldest son. If he does not establish an eldest son, the crime is the same... If he begs for a son with a different surname Those who mess up the clan will have a rod of sixty. If a son and a different surname are heirs, the crime is the same, and the son will belong to the clan." The legality of the eldest son's inheritance confirmed by the Ming Law is to maintain the inheritance relationship that is conducive to stabilizing the feudal order. Ensure the continuity and development of the feudal family. Regarding the inheritance of property, the Ming Dynasty was the same as the previous dynasties, "the sons and daughters of the concubine... do not ask wives, concubines and maidservants, but only divide them equally by the number of children" ("Da Ming Law · Hu Law").The law also stipulates that only the relatives and daughters can inherit the property if the household is extinct.Regardless of whether a woman is divorced or widowed, as long as she is going to remarry, all the dowry and property that accompany her marriage will belong to her ex-husband's family. The right to autonomy over the land property of the married couple. The Qing Dynasty also implemented the system of inheritance of the eldest son Zongzi and the system of succession of the eldest son to the nobility.The order of succession is basically the same as that of the previous generation.If the establishment of a descendant violates the legal procedures, it will be eighty sticks.Those who have no descendants of concubines and grandchildren will be extinct and must be succeeded.Successors must be equal to each other, and there must be no disorder of respect and inferiority.During the reign of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, the system of "only son and son" was also created for the first time, that is, one person inherits two families.After the heir relationship is established, it cannot be terminated at will, otherwise, a hundred sticks will be required.However, if the heir is unfilial or discordant with the step-in-law, the law allows re-establishment. In terms of property inheritance, the Qing law is based on the parents' will.If the parents did not make a will during their lifetime or at the time of their death, it will be "equal distribution among the sons" according to the law, and the wives, concubines and maidservants will not be asked.In the Qing Dynasty, women generally had no right to inherit property, but their households were extinct, and their property was "divided by their own daughters, and those who had no daughters entered the government."For childless and widowed women, they could inherit their husband’s property as stipulated in the Ming Law, but after establishing an heir, the property would belong to the heir. This actually shows that women in the Qing Dynasty had little right to speak of property inheritance.