In the Northern and Southern Dynasties, hell to pay, the "leftover man and woman". In ancient China, different dynasties had different standards for women's marriage age. Among them, in the ancient Zhou Dynasty, "Men marry at thirty and women marry at twenty" was repeatedly mentioned. This is from "Zhou Li? Sheriff? According to media articles, if you say so, China was a country with late marriage and late childbearing in the early days. Judging from historical data, it is not. This marriage age lever is not the minimum marriage age in modern marriage, but the upper age limit at which adult men and women must get married.
According to the adult standard of men and women stipulated in the Book of Rites, the general standard of marriage age in ancient times was 20 years for men and 0/5 years for women. But there are differences in different dynasties. For example, in the Tang Dynasty, "fifteen men and thirteen women are allowed to get married"; In the Ming Dynasty, "Sixteen-year-old male and fourteen-year-old female were married."
In order to solve the problem of fertility and male marriage, many dynasties have adopted the means of forcing women to marry. For example, in the Jin Dynasty, a woman had to marry when she reached a certain age, otherwise the government would force her to find a partner. Jin Shu? According to Liang Wudi's records, Sima Yan once demanded that if a girl reached the age of 17, if her parents didn't marry her, the local government would find her a husband and force her to get married.
In the Northern and Southern Dynasties, it was also stipulated that girls would not get married at the right age, and if they did not get married in time, their families would go to jail, which was illegal. This is Uncle Song? Zhou Lang said, "If a woman doesn't marry at fifteen, her family will sit on it." Although the original intention of forcing women to get married may be to increase the social population at first, it objectively solves the problem that many bachelors can't afford a wife.
Women in the Jin Dynasty 17 years old did not marry "to match the official position". In ancient China, most of the marriages between men and women were "parents' orders and matchmakers' words".
In the past, a man and a woman could not get married without a matchmaker. Even if you are engaged in private, you should invite a formal matchmaker to act as a matchmaker. This is called "matchmaking".
Later, many dynasties stipulated in law that marriage must have a matchmaker. If not, it would violate the Marriage Law at that time. For example, Tang Law? "Famous Examples" is sparse: "Marriage and media"; On family marriage: "For marriage law, there must be media". In the Yuan Dynasty, the regulations in this respect were more detailed. Household department? Wedding ceremony: "The matchmaker is a local elder, a loyal woman and an official." It means the matchmaker can't do everything. He has to be recommended by the local prestigious old people, select honest and trustworthy married women to declare to the official, and register and manage them in a unified way.
This kind of matchmaker is folk and belongs to private media. In ancient times, there was an official media, that is, full-time government personnel responsible for solving the marriage spouses of "leftover men", whose functions were the same as those of civil servants who issued marriage certificates in civil affairs departments today, but with greater power. The official media find wives for the "leftover men" and husbands for the "leftover women" by compulsory means, and designate Jane to marry a certain man and a certain man to marry Jane. This is a kind of distributive marriage, which is purely "matching women".
Official media existed in the pre-Qin era, and it was not until the Qing Dynasty that there was an "official media". At that time, a large number of "leftover men" were sent to Xinjiang. For the sake of the stability of the frontier, successors have set up many official media to facilitate a large number of single men to find wives. The wives and daughters of some peasant insurgents and women who fled the disaster areas are often designated as "leftover men" by the official media to live together and reproduce.
In the Tang Dynasty, parents who did not object to a woman's "widowed" could forcibly "take her husband and marry" and advocated the widow's remarriage, which was also a means to solve the single man's spouse in ancient times.
In ancient China, there was a saying, "Marry a chicken with a chicken, marry a dog with a dog, and marry a shoulder pole to carry it away", and "A good woman doesn't marry a mistress", which stresses life. Under the influence of this superstition and vulgar custom, it was still difficult for ancient widows to remarry. In order to balance the proportion of marriageable men and women, in places where there are more men and fewer women, both the people and the government hold a positive attitude of supporting widows' remarriage, instead of emphasizing the three cardinal principles and the five permanent members.
Corresponding to encouraging widows to remarry, men are encouraged to marry widows. In ancient times, unmarried men married widows, just like widows remarried, which was often looked down upon. Therefore, in the past, it was difficult not only for widows to remarry, but also for men to take mistresses.
To this end, many ancient dynasties advocated changing customs in marriage. While advocating widows' remarriage, they also set up remarriage procedures to force widows to marry, such as the Tang Law? Family marriage stipulates that after the death of her husband, if the wife voluntarily keeps her promise not to marry, others cannot force her to marry, but grandparents and parents are exceptions, so-called "grabbing marriage."
When an abnormal marriage behavior is accepted by more people, it will gradually evolve into a social marriage custom. Among the ancient northern minorities, they were not ashamed of losing their spouses, especially within their families. I didn't consider that my brother married my sister-in-law, and my sister-in-law married my uncle.
The Han Dynasty stipulated that "Shu Ren is monogamous and monogamous". Whether in modern or ancient times, the sex ratio of human beings has remained unchanged, and there are basically no "leftover men" and "leftover women" in the natural state. However, anyone who knows the history of ancient marriage in China knows that monogamy was not practiced in the past as it is in modern times. Polygamy has been practiced for a long time, and it is not uncommon for men to have three wives and four concubines.
This has artificially caused more men than women, and many marriageable men can't find women of school age. Due to the serious problems brought by men's excessive concubinage to society, many dynasties strictly restricted men from marrying little wives.
Cai Yong's Arbitrariness recorded the stipulation of concubinage in Han Dynasty: "Doctor Qing has one wife and two concubines", and only those who have made special contributions can marry at most eight concubines-"If sealed, there will be eight concubines". A person with a little culture and status can marry a concubine, that is, "a scholar, a concubine." Ordinary people are not allowed to marry little wives. "Shu Ren is monogamous", just like modern times, is monogamous. In the Yuan Dynasty, the law stipulated that ordinary people (Shu Ren) were not allowed to marry little wives.
Even those who meet the requirements for concubinage do not want to take them whenever they want. For example, Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty stipulated that at the prince level, "you can fight once and stop at ten people"; The number of princes and county kings is much less, which is reduced by more than half. "Four concubines" generally take concubines once in their lives, unless there is no queen.
There are many reasons why marriageable men can't get married in time, all because agent Zhou's "Mid-year Spring Festival" encourages young men and women to make friends. In addition to the system design and the imbalance between men and women, many times men and women lack the opportunity to fall in love, which sets up artificial obstacles such as "men and women are not close" in ethics. The ancients also saw this and found it unreasonable, so they changed their methods to break through it.
In fact, in early ancient China, the communication between men and women was quite free. The pre-Qin period was the best, and * * * provided a chance for single men and women to communicate once a year. The Mid-Autumn Festival in the Spring and Autumn Period is a typical gathering for men and women to make friends. Its theme is "running", which means running away with the person you love. "Local officials" in Zhou Li? A media person said: "In the mid-spring festival, men and women must book it, so at that time, there is nothing the runners can do. If they don't use orders for no reason, they will be punished. " Judging from this provision of the Zhou Dynasty, this activity was officially promoted and implemented. If someone doesn't rush and attend the party, he will be punished.
The Mid-Autumn Festival provides a special communication platform for marriageable men and women and childbearing men and women, which greatly improves the success rate of marriage for men and women. The Spring Festival is usually held on the third day of the third month of the lunar calendar every year. Later, the custom of "stepping on spring" for men and women in Tomb-Sweeping Day was influenced by the Spring Festival.
In addition to this day, the fifteenth day of the first month and the seventh day of July in ancient times are also good opportunities for single men and women to find spouses. July 7th, also called "Valentine's Day in China", was nicknamed "Valentine's Day in ancient China" by modern men and women. It can be said that ancient times also tried their best to solve the problem of "leftover men and women".