Why are girls called "yellow flower girls"?

In our country, unmarried girls are often called "yellow flower girls". What is the reason? In fact, this word has existed since ancient times, and its earliest origin comes from a historical story.

During the Liu and Song Dynasties in the Southern Dynasties, Princess Shouyang, the daughter of Emperor Wu of Song Wudi, took a nap under the eaves after watching the play. At this time, a breeze blew, just blowing a few plum blossoms on Princess Shouyang's forehead. Stained by sweat, it left a faint flower mark on the princess's forehead. Princess Shouyang tried to erase this flower mark, but it couldn't be wiped off after several times, so she had to wait until she returned to the palace to deal with it. After returning to the palace, the queen saw it and liked it very much. She thought it was more beautiful, and let Princess Shouyang keep it. It took three days to wash off the flower marks. Since then, Princess Shouyang, who loves beauty, often picks some plum blossoms and sticks them on her forehead to help her look beautiful. When the ladies-in-waiting saw it, they followed suit and spread all over the court at once. As a result, this "plum blossom makeup" began to spread among the people and was loved by girls.

But if you want to paint "plum blossom makeup", plum blossom is essential, but the opening of plum blossom is limited by the season, only in winter. Therefore, people came up with an alternative method, that is, collecting yellow pollen from flowers to make yellow powder, and then cutting it into the shapes of flowers, birds, fish and insects with thin cheese slices, mica slices, cicada wings, fish scales and dragonfly wings, coating it with yellow powder and sticking it on the forehead, wine bottles, corners of the mouth and temples. These ornaments dyed with yellow pollen are called "flower yellow".

Because the yellow powder is yellow, and the girls who use this makeup are unmarried (girls will change their ornaments to dress up again after marriage, so there is an old saying among the people: "Today's white-faced yellow sister, tomorrow's beauty will have a green sidekick wife"), plus "yellow flower" refers to chrysanthemum in ancient times. Chrysanthemum has the characteristics of cold resistance in Ao Shuang, which is often used to describe noble moral character. So later, someone reversed the word "flower yellow" before the word "girl" to form the word "yellow flower girl". On the one hand, it shows that the girl is not married, on the other hand, it shows that the girl is pure in heart and chaste in character. Later, this usage gradually spread among the people.

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