In feudal society, it is normal for a man to have three wives and four concubines, but concubinage is not a wife or a formal marriage. A wife who kills a concubine is the master's * * *. She has no property rights, no personal freedom, no equal status, and can be traded and given away.
But in ancient times, concubinage was also bound, and ordinary people simply could not enjoy this treatment, which was a special treatment of the upper class. According to historical records, "Biography of the Ram in the Spring and Autumn Period in the Nineteenth Year of Zhuang Gong": "When a vassal marries a country, the two countries must go there and follow it. Who is the nephew? The son of a brother also; who is it? Brother also. The princes hired nine women. " That is, the original source of the saying that "one minister marries nine women".
It is not difficult to see in the article that the princes can marry nine women in a short time, which is the light of the original match. When the original match comes, two "wives" (little wives) will come with her, and the "wife" has two daughters to accompany her. In this way, those with two mouths and their dowry daughters are nine women. This is the "blessing" of princes, and other men can't meet such a beautiful thing. Although there is a saying that "there are more concubines and fewer concubines", it is not easy for the general elite to want more concubines, while the bottom people simply stop concubinage.
In the Han dynasty, you can marry up to eight concubines unless you have special dedication. Anyone with a little civilization and status can marry a concubine. Ordinary people are not allowed to marry little wives, as they are now, and they are monogamous.
It is estimated that the Yuan Dynasty was the first in the history of China to stipulate that ordinary people were not allowed to take concubinage. The first "good official" recorded in Yuan Shi Liang Li (Chuan 78) was Tan Cheng, a senior official in charge of agriculture when Yuan Shizu suddenly came to power. Tan is respected by ordinary people. He not only sincerely helped the peasant brothers to solve the problem of food and clothing, but also boldly wrote to allow Shu Ren to take concubinage for their incense. If it weren't for Tan Cheng's letter to Kublai Khan, I'm afraid ordinary men in the Yuan Dynasty would never want to have concubines.
Ming Dynasty, like Han and Tang Dynasties, was a relatively open dynasty in the history of China, which was much looser than Song and Yuan Dynasties. However, although most of the Ming emperors were dissolute, they strictly controlled the relationship between men and women and did not allow Shu Ren to take concubinage, which was a "meta-imitation system".
In ancient times, concubines could be bought. Some people may ask, how much does it cost to buy a concubine?
In the Song Dynasty, it cost about 100 yuan to buy a concubine. Converted into current RMB, 1 in Song Dynasty is equivalent to 148 to 600 RMB. If the center is 374, it will cost more than 37,000 RMB to buy concubines in the Song Dynasty. During the Ming Dynasty, the price of buying concubines fluctuated greatly. The cheapest is only 30 taels, and the most expensive is probably thousands of taels. Generally speaking, the cost of concubinage is more than 100. In the Ming Dynasty, the conversion from 1 silver is about 130 to 660 RMB. If the middle price is taken, it will cost about 40,000 RMB. There is a record about the cost of buying concubines in Yuemantang Diary in the Qing Dynasty: about 130 Liang to 180 Liang. According to the price at that time, one or two yuan was converted into 150-650 RMB, and a center would cost more than 40 thousand RMB. It can be seen that concubinage in ancient times was really not something that ordinary people could do.