In ancient times, girls came of age at 15 years old, while men in ancient times came of age at 20 years old, and in our modern society it's 18 years old, and 20 years old is two years behind 18 years old, so a grown-up man would marry a woman mostly at 13 years old. So at that time, most of the women that a grown man married were around 13 or 14 years old. We all know that thirteen or fourteen is the time when girls grow up, and if a girl of this age marries or gets pregnant, it may cause the girl's body to underdevelopment, and even leave her with life-long illnesses.
Is it just because young girls are more popular with ancient men? Of course, this is not the main reason, ancient early marriage is a lot of reasons, of which one of the most important ones is that in ancient times it was not easy for newborns to survive.
The most important reason is that it's not easy for newborns to survive in the ancient world.
If there is an extrauterine pregnancy and so on, there is no way to know, and even in modern times an ultrasound can see fetal abnormalities, in ancient times until the child is born to know, and the child will also be called a freak , and considered anomalous, and the child will be a freak.
There is also the fact that the medical equipment at that time was also relatively backward, in the birth of a woman, it is very likely that because of the unhygienic environment at the time of the birth, leading to wound infections, causing other problems in the later stages of life, and newborns are also immunocompromised, so that they have a better understanding of their own health.
In addition to this reason, the ancient women early marriage also related to their social status. In ancient times, people lived a life in which men went out to cultivate the fields and women weaved at home, men were the main labor force in the family, and in ancient times, countries often fought wars, and men were the main group of people fighting in the wars, so in ancient times, men had a higher social status than women. strong> than women.
So they would not let girls go to school, no matter whether they were noble counts or commoners, they would let the girls learn how to raise their children from a young age, so that they could serve their husbands when they got married in the future. In ancient times, marriages were arranged by parents, and the couple might not even have met before they got married, and the main job of women was to marry and have children, and early marriages were only for the sake of giving their husbands' families a higher chance of success.
There is also because in ancient times often have to go to war , there will be a lot of deaths in the war, especially in the weapons and armaments are not developed enough ancient times, the war can only fight the number of people so most people do not want to let their own children to go to war , but they do not want to let their own children to go to war , they do not want to let their own children to go to war .
In addition to social needs, women marrying early and having children early is also because of the need to carry on the family line, and in ancient times, people put a lot of emphasis on the family line. We all know that prosperous , that is, the family family is huge, there are many people, which in ancient times is very attractive envy of the situation, that your family is big, rich and powerful .
So, in ancient times, girls married early, in order to give birth to a child, and in some large families, in order to have a large population, the man may marry several women at the same time, which was very common in ancient times, and the main purpose was to give a child to the family, in order to give birth to a child.
This is a very common practice in ancient times, and the main purpose is to import more children into the family, to increase the family population, and to expand the family's power.
And in ancient times there not filial three, no later for great, this proverb means that there is a lot of filial disobedience to parents, but this most unfilial behavior is the lack of succession. So the ancient thought is also early marriage, early child, more children, the more people in the family the better.
It is for these reasons that the ancient world requires women to marry early and have children early, but early marriage is extremely unfair to women of this age, but the tragedy is that in ancient times, women were of a very low status in the society.
In the Book of Jin, there is a record that Sima Yan has ordered that girls up to 17 years old, parents do not marry her out, the local government will be involved, for women to find a husband, forcibly force women to get married, and the parents will not be able to get married.
Arranging a marriage, for fear of not being able to get married.
In the North and South Dynasties, there are regulations requiring women to be married off before the age of fifteen, and if your family's girl is not married off by the age of fifteen, then you're a family of people who are all going to be jailed in the office. The first thing you need to do is to get your family to go to jail. In addition to the family imprisonment, some courts also issued announcements that women would be treated with punishment if they did not get married, and young women in their late teens, who had not committed any crimes, would be penalized for not being married.
The Han Dynasty also stipulated that if a woman was not married at the age of fifteen, she would have to be punished by paying the government six hundred dollars, which was a lot of money for the common people of the time who would have wanted to wait for their daughter to get married and collect the money from them.
In addition to the interference of the imperial court, in ancient times people's ideology also believed that women should get married early. If someone does not get married by the stipulated age, she will be criticized by the people. As the saying goes, "spittle drowns a man", let's imagine if all our neighbors are criticized by the people. Imagine if our neighbors are evaluating us, walking down the street and people are discussing you behind your back, that's how hard it is.
And in ancient times, women paid the most attention to reputation, and if they didn't get married, they became the object of gossip, and even got the reputation of being unfilial, which was enough to break the heart of a woman.
But in ancient times there were some dynasties that didn't require girls to get married so early. In the Zhou Dynasty, there is a record that girls can get married at 20, so women got married at a later age compared to other dynasties. However, in the later China Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, women were required to marry when they reached adulthood. For example, the King of Yue stipulated that girls must be married before the age of fifteen, and during the Warring States period, some countries even lowered the age to fourteen, where the King of Qin stipulated that women high enough to reach a height of 1.5 meters and 3 meters were to be married.
If the provisions of the King of Qin put to the modern to see, women height to reach one meter three to marry , that now the society standard of living is relatively high, children supplemented with good nutrition, the body grows fast , some girls in less than a year, but the number of children is also very high, but the number of children is not very high.
This is the first time I've ever seen a girl who has been in a hurry to get married, and I've never seen her do it before.
By the Han Dynasty, Emperor Huidi also ordered women to get married at the age of fourteen; Song Renzong period, also stipulated that women have to get married at the age of thirteen, which shows that in ancient times, the age of women married. Most of the ancient women married at the age of thirteen or fourteen, so we say that they are thirteen or fourteen married.
Throughout ancient history, we can summarize that the mandatory requirement of early marriage for women and early childbearing in every dynasty was for a certain reason, and that it was a product of the solution of a certain problem at that time, and that this compulsion of women to marry early was the cause of the problem, and that this compulsion of women to marry early was the cause of the problem.
Article | Allen on History
Editor | Allen on History
The first part of the article is about the history of the city.