"Spring and Autumn Valley Liang Chuan? In the twelfth year of Wen Gong, a man was twenty years old in the Western Zhou Dynasty? Crown and husband? , female 15 years old? And then what? Men and women can get married after this age. At the same time, Zhou Li also stipulates that men get married at the age of 30 and women get married at the age of 20. During this period, women got married late.
But in the Han dynasty, this age was greatly advanced. In Han Dynasty, the marriage ages of men were 15 and 16, and those of women were 13 and 14. "Han dynasty history. "Hui Di Ji" contains: If a woman is over 15 to 30 years old and still not married, five counts. ? If the woman 15 years old or older does not get married, she has to pay five times the tax, and the state will intervene.
From the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Han Dynasty, why did the age of marriage advance? Some people think that this is related to Gou Jian, the King of Yue. According to "Mandarin? In Shang Dynasty, Gou Jian, the King of Yue, gave such an order? If a woman does not marry at the age of seventeen, her parents are guilty; If the husband is not married at the age of twenty, his parents are guilty. ? Gou Jian, the King of Yue, offered a reward for giving birth all over the country for revenge. Early marriage and early childbearing are naturally the meaning of the topic.
After the Han dynasty, early marriage seems to have become a tradition, which has been followed repeatedly throughout the ages. For example, in the first year of Zhenguan (627), Emperor Taizong issued a decree: if a man reaches the age of 20, a woman reaches the age of 15, and there is no husband, the state and county will marry him with courtesy. For example, the rules of the Song Dynasty? Among them, the male is 15 and the female is 13. Do they listen to marriage? ; In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated that men should get married at the age of 16 and women should get married at the age of 14.
This is a legal provision. From the perspective of historical figures, it also reflects the phenomenon of early marriage of women. For example, when Ban Zhao was only 14 years old, she had already married Uncle Cao; 18 years old, Li Qingzhao married Zhao Mingcheng, the son of Prime Minister Tingzhi Zhao; Zhang Lihua, the concubine of Chen in the Southern Dynasties, was lucky when she entered the palace at the age of 10, and then became pregnant.
Most ancient women were married before 18 years old, and their bodies were still in the development stage, and their bodies and minds were distorted. It is very dangerous to get married and have children too early. Coupled with poor medical conditions in ancient times, the fate of women can be imagined.
In that case, why does the country advance people's marriage age again and again? In fact, the truth is not difficult to understand. In ancient times, productivity was low, wars continued, and population expansion was the best way to fight against natural and man-made disasters. After every war and natural disaster, the state encourages people to marry early and have children early, and has formulated a series of regulations for this purpose.
It is worth mentioning that, since we want to get married early and have children early, it is difficult to achieve prenatal and postnatal care. The crazy expansion of the ancient population has caused many bad consequences, such as the high probability of children's death and the continuous decline of people's physique, which is one of the reasons why the average life expectancy of ancient people is short.