It is a "husband and wife" between maids and maids, or between eunuchs and maids. This is the abnormal phenomenon that maids and eunuchs have been imprisoned in the court for a long time, unable to live a normal family life and complaining about boredom. From the Han Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, historical books and records emerged one after another. Hanshu. Spouse's offspring. "The Biography of Filial Piety Zhao Lie": "Servants, Daofang and Zhang abandoned it, so Zhao's princes and ministers are all in the guest house, such as Wang Wei and Zang Yi. All of them are called Gong (Cao Gong) knowing his son, and they belonged to Zhonggong before. In order to learn the history of things, they learned the poem and awarded it to the queen. The house and the palace are relative. " Yan Shigu quoted Ying Shao as saying: "Imperial secretaries are jealous of each other because they eat for the couple's names." Shen Ming Telford's "Wild quilt, internal supervision of food": "Today, many people cherish their wives, and some make friends with prostitutes, so they marry women. As for the matching imperial secretary, there is no one else. All the vegetables in the palace city, rich in silk, are all borrowed, and the cost is not subsidized. However, they are all in the palace, complaining about boredom, quenching thirst, and the next move ... According to the cooperation of the ladies-in-waiting, starting from the opposite side of the food in the Han Dynasty, the vegetable farmers are still the same today. When Emperor Wu was in power, Queen Chen was spoiled, which made the witch put on men's clothes and live with the queen, loving as husband and wife. When I heard about poor governance, I called it adultery. After the abolition, I am in charge of the palace. " And "The Warden and the Swimmer": "Your waiter has a straight room, but Meiere, Gan Qing and other palaces dare not set up a kitchen, so they move it into the outer room and cook with charcoal. Only male and female servants have their own rooms to cook for themselves. Your generation is reluctant to give it, and it is a good thing to return it. " Qing Xu's Biography of Filial Piety: "Guo Ming is always good, so Xia Guoxiang castrated pasta." The second volume of Suiyuan Poetry quotes the words of Nanhan Palace, the ruler of Luotian: "Don't blame the imperial court for boasting about food, but pay more attention to clothes." According to the Records of the Ten Kingdoms in the Spring and Autumn Period, "Liu Li stipulates that the champion must be imprisoned first." Eunuch and maid-in-waiting eat. The eunuch has no wife and children, and the maid-in-waiting has no husband. They form a temporary partner to comfort the loneliness of the palace. This relationship is called "eating". Duishi was first seen in the Han Dynasty. From the analysis of the name itself, it may be that eunuchs and maids eat together, but it does not mean sleeping together. There is a saying in "Gong Ci" of Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties: Don't blame the imperial court for boasting about food, most of the clothes are the best. This roughly reflects the phenomenon of food opposition in the palace at this time. Since the Ming Dynasty, it has been quite common for eunuchs and maids to become food lovers because of comforting each other. Even a maid-in-waiting who didn't eat in the palace for a long time was ridiculed by her peers as "abandoning things." Two of a kind, a former eunuch and maid-in-waiting, is enthusiastic and willing to be a matchmaker. The reason is that the junior eunuchs in the palace can't marry and concubinage, and the maids rarely have the opportunity to get the protection of the emperor, so the eunuchs and maids have to seek comfort themselves. The so-called "in the palace, resentment is boring, quenching thirst and making the best policy." The partnership between eunuchs and maids in the Ming Dynasty was also called "vegetable farmers". From the analysis of historical data, there should be a difference between vegetable farmers and food lovers. For pasta, it can be between eunuchs and maids, or between the same sex, and most of them are temporary; But ladies-in-waiting and eunuchs, which can be called "vegetable households", live together like husband and wife and are quite stable. In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang hated this behavior between eunuchs and maids and strictly prohibited it. He even imposed very cruel punishment on eunuchs who married and had children. However, since Yongle, the status of eunuchs has risen, and this ban has vanished. The history book says: "A childless court official chooses his inner supervisor as his partner, which is called a vegetable farmer. Their property is like a family, and they love each other like lovers. There are many concubines, although the emperor can't help it, his official is not too much. " Similar historical materials can also be found in unofficial history. According to Wan Bian, at first, because the eunuch on duty had more contact with the maids in charge, he gradually developed feelings. On this basis, eunuchs often take the initiative to purchase food, clothing, jewelry and daily necessities for maids to show their admiration. If the maid-in-waiting marries the eunuch, they can form a partner, called a vegetable farmer. Vegetable farmers were openly allowed in the imperial palace of the Ming Dynasty. Even emperors and empresses sometimes ask eunuchs, "Whose vegetable farmer are you?" Eunuchs can only answer truthfully. After eunuchs and maids became "vegetable households", they came back singing, just like husband and wife. Eunuchs are hard-working and driven by their beloved ladies-in-waiting. The ladies-in-waiting will feel sorry for the eunuchs and will not let him do too much work, but order other eunuchs to do it. Some humble, ugly and older eunuchs in the palace know that they can't be liked by ladies-in-waiting, so they are willing to be the servants of the cook, cooking, carrying and sizing for them, and the ladies-in-waiting pay them a certain amount of money every month. In this case, some eunuchs who are good at cooking become the targets of chasing, and they get more rewards. They can earn four or five taels of silver a month at most. These eunuchs wear clothes covered with dust and oil stains, carry food baskets, go in and out of the palace, and buy all necessary sundries. Maids-in-waiting and eunuchs who become "vegetable households" swear to each other before and after the flowers, love each other for life and never have feelings with others again. If a eunuch finds that his beloved maid-in-waiting has moved on, it will often be very painful, but he will not be kind to the maid-in-waiting, but will often have sharp contradictions with his rival in love. During the Wanli period, maid-in-waiting Wu fell in love with eunuch Song Bao, and later had feelings with eunuch Zhang Jinchao. Song Bao was so angry that he was finally disheartened that he went out of the palace and cut his hair and became a monk, never to return. The eunuchs in the palace spoke highly of Song Bao. For example, Wu's empathy is rare in the Ming Palace. Most maids and eunuchs can stay together for life after becoming "vegetable households", and they are faithful to each other. If one of them dies, the other one will never be worthy. In Wanli Wild Collection, it is recorded that a scholar lived in a temple outside the city, and it was strange to see a room locked in the temple on weekdays. When the people in the temple were cleaning, he went in and took a look, and found that it was full of memorial tablets of dead ladies-in-waiting enshrined by eunuchs in the palace. The name of the maid-in-waiting is written on the memorial tablet. The people in the temple told the scholar that every time the maid-in-waiting died, the eunuch who married her would come to sacrifice, and her sadness was more than that of ordinary couples. There are records of eunuchs marrying wives in all previous dynasties, which can be described as history books. Of course, the fact that eunuchs marry does not mean that they can have a normal sex life, but eunuchs have men's sexual consciousness and of course have corresponding sexual requirements. Although the strength of sexual desire is different, the psychological needs should be the same. Besides, eunuchs don't admit that they are abnormal men, and they don't want to prove that they have the true nature of men all the time, which makes people ignore that they have been castrated, and marrying a wife has become their greatest comfort. It can be said that psychological comfort and potential sexual demands are the two major driving forces for eunuchs to get married and start a family. Eunuchs got married and got married, which can be found in earlier examples in history, such as Zhao Gao in Qin and Han Dynasties. Biography of Historical Records and Lisi once mentioned that Zhao Gaoyou had a son-in-law Yan Le, who was appointed as an official of Xianyang. Like a son-in-law, like a daughter, but according to historical records, Zhao Gao was castrated at an early age, obviously without fertility. This woman is undoubtedly Zhao Gao's adopted daughter. Since Zhao adopts children, it should be possible to get married and start a family. Since then, there have been more and more records of eunuchs getting married. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, the power of eunuchs expanded rapidly, and there was a situation of "always serving the yellow door and marrying wives widely". When he was Emperor Huan, Shan Chao waited for a "five marquis", and even "taking more beautiful women as concubines is expensive and luxurious, which means being a servant." This shows that taking a wife and concubinage has become the legal right of eunuchs at the latest in the Eastern Han Dynasty. After entering the Tang Dynasty, it was more common for eunuchs to marry. Gao Lishi, the great eunuch of Xuanzong, happened to meet the daughter of Lu Xuanhu, a knife and pen official. Seeing her beautiful appearance and elegant manners, she was surprised, so she got married. Lu Xuanwu was immediately promoted to Shao Qing and later became a secretariat. Li Zongquan castrated Li's married daughter, so he became the secretariat of Liangzhou. Qiu Shiliang, a great eunuch in the Six Dynasties of Shishun, Xianren, Mu, Jing, Wen and Wu, married Hu Chengen's daughter, opened a third guest, proofread the prince and an ancient bachelor, and gave gifts to the minister. After Hu married Qiu Shiliang, his wife was more expensive and he was named Mrs. Lu. When Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty banned eunuchs from getting married, but it had little effect and soon became a dead letter. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty, eunuch Chen Wu was highly prized. Xuanzong first named him "Wang Jin" and arranged two maids for him. Although the later generations rarely received the reward from the emperor himself, the eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty were all married and married. The Qing dynasty was very strict with eunuchs, but marriage was still very common. Xiao was a famous person in the late Qing Dynasty. He once met a prostitute named Fang in a brothel. They hit it off, and the prostitute boss warmly welcomed her. Fang is very considerate to Xiao. When spitting, always let Fang hold it in his mouth, and then Fang spits into the spittoon. Therefore, there were many rumors for a while, which was called "passing the cage and spitting". Xiao Zhangde is satisfied with it and hopes that the buyer Cui Jin is good. Prostitutes saw this opportunity and tried their best to raise the price, but Xiao was ready to agree. Unexpectedly, Fang Jian never agreed on the grounds that she was still a virgin. In a rage, Zhang Xiaode bought a virgin named Zhang Xiaoxian as his wife in another house. Eunuchs get married, of course, but they can't. The so-called "people who are upright officials also bully good families in vain, take women and shut them down until they have no spouse, which is against heaven." But there are also some shameful eunuchs in history who use their wives to seek official positions. In the Five Dynasties, Wang Yan, the master of Shu, had an affair with the wife of eunuch Wang Chengxiu. When Wang Chengxiu learned that, instead of stopping him, he encouraged his wife to continue having an affair with the emperor in order to get lucky. As a result, he became the special envoy of Tianxiong Army. Eunuchs who prospered in the late Qing Dynasty all married beautiful wives, and some people contacted powerful people with beautiful young wives to attract peers. Gu Yuxiu, the eunuch of the chef, had nothing extraordinary, so he took a beautiful young wife to run for him, and finally climbed to the position of head chef. Of course, it is more common for female fathers and brothers to marry eunuchs because they are greedy for money. For example, Lu Xuan married her daughter to Gao Lishi and her daughter to Li.