Why would the Huns have the custom of "father's wife, brother's death, marry sister-in-law"?

The Xiongnu is a famous ancient steppe people, the Xiongnu people and our Han people in the Central Plains itself belong to the Chinese nation, is the two branches of the Chinese nation, their own bloodline is connected but was our country's strong neighbor for hundreds of years.

Since the beginning of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, through the Qin, Han and other three dynasties have always been in constant strife with our country, and ultimately by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty exhausted the strength of the country defeated, most of the relocation to the west of the Aral Sea in Europe, and then in the North and South Dynasties were completely eliminated, disappeared in the long river of history.

While the Huns are long gone, many of the cultures left behind by the ancient Huns have had a profound impact on the subsequent generations of steppe peoples, especially the tradition of "succeeding the father's wife and marrying the sister-in-law on the death of the brother," which is still being passed down even in the Mongolian period more than 1,000 years later, so why is this?

"Father's wife, brother's death, levirate" means that after the death of the father of the Huns, the father's wife and concubine must be married to his own son, and can not be married outside. When a brother dies, his concubine is also to marry his brother and still not to marry outside, unless there is no son or brother.

Of course, marrying one's mother here refers to the concubine mother, not one's own mother, and treating one's own mother with filial piety is still the same for the Huns as it is for the Han Chinese.

And the reason for this custom is that the Huns believe that if a man dies, his concubine marries his own brother or son, so that his position and the wealth he has acquired during his lifetime will not go out of the country, but will still be in the hands of his own family.

And the children born to the concubines still didn't change much in their lineage, and were all related to themselves. Especially for the Xiongnu nobles with high power and status, this idea was as if they were leaving a legacy to their sons and brothers, which they needed to inherit, and also to ensure the purity of the lineage of their future successors.

In fact this idea of seeing one's woman as an inheritance to be delivered into the hands of relatives who take over one's wealth or power, so that they can continue it as their own, was not only found among the Huns in ancient times, but was prevalent in many parts of the world, just in different ways.

Of course, this "father's wife, brother married sister-in-law," the tradition is mostly practiced in the Huns aristocrats, for the general population of the Huns on the bottom of the people, there is little personal wealth and status, their own deaths after the wife will have nothing to inherit, a lot of people will choose to remarry.

But why is it that this seemingly inhumane tradition of the Huns was relatively humane at the time?

Because it was during the Qin and Han Dynasties, more than 2,000 years ago, when most of the world was still in a primitive society or in slavery, culture and rituals were very different from today, and many customs were unimaginable to modern people.

Compared with those who take their own women to sacrifice, accompanied by the burial method, the Huns "father's wife to inherit, brother's death to marry sister-in-law," the custom of the father's wife, although it does not seem to comply with the contemporary ethical views, but it is still considered to be a more humane way of treating widows.

While China already had a high degree of etiquette at that time, under the system of male superiority and female inferiority, some powerful people would let their beloved wives and concubines be buried with them after death, that is, after they had killed themselves to accompany them to sleep in the ground. This is a kind of ancient society men's possessiveness, but also because the ancient people too much believe in the world after death, so they want to bring their beloved women and beloved objects to the world after death to continue to enjoy.

And the Huns let their own son or brother to inherit his concubines, in fact, is also to give these concubines a better place to go, after all, it is also considered to be indirectly let the inheritance of their own status of their loved ones to take care of them for themselves for the rest of their lives.

On this custom, Wang Zhaojun, who married as a princess to make peace with Xiong Nu during the Western Han Dynasty, is a typical example.

In the early Western Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu frequently attacked our borders, and the Han Empire at the time since the siege of Emperor Gaozu's Baideng lost half of its elite, and was unable to launch an attack at all, and could only have been in a defensive posture to support the bitter. During the reigns of Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing, the Han imperial family began to adopt the method of making peace with the Xiong Nu in exchange for a short period of peace, to buy time for the country to develop.

At first, the Han Dynasty did have real princesses married off to the Xiongnu to make peace with them, such as Emperor Wu's own sister who was once married off to the Xiongnu as a peace princess.

But later, as the Han Empire continued to grow stronger, even with the Xiongnu peace, most of the people sent were palace maidens or the daughters of royal relatives, until the Yuan Emperor's period, the Western Han Dynasty was not as good as it once was, although the Xiongnu had long since been beaten by the Han Emperor Wudi and Emperor Xuandi's dynasties to break up into five divisions and retreat to the northern part of the desert, but at this time the northern part of the Han Dynasty still posed a certain threat.

At this time, the southern Xiongnu Hohanxie monarch forced by the Xiongnu's internal annexation wars to surrender to the Han Dynasty, and asked for peace, the Han Yuan Di will be married to Wang Zhaojun as a princess, and its eternal alliance. When Wang Zhaojun married Huanxie Shan Yu, Huanxie was already very old and died after having only one daughter with Wang Zhaojun.

According to the tradition of the Huns, Wang Zhaojun married Fuzureliu Diogu, the successor of the Southern Huns, as the wife of Hu Hanxie, and had two daughters with him, and then, after the death of Fuzureliu Diogu, she married Fuzureliu Diogu's grandson, who was also the son of Fuzureliu Diogu, in accordance with the custom of the Huns.

After Zhaojun's departure, she married three generations of Xiong Nu monarchs because of the Xiong Nu tradition of "succeeding one's father's wife and marrying one's sister-in-law after the death of one's brother," which brought peace to the Han Dynasty for 60 years. During this period, she brought the Han culture to the Xiongnu people, which contributed to the economic and cultural exchanges between the South Xiongnu and the Central Plains, and indirectly made the South Xiongnu gradually integrate into the Han nation and become a member of the Chinese family.

This historical contribution has made Wang Zhaojun one of the two most prestigious peace princesses in China's history, along with Princess Wencheng.

Perhaps because the Xiongnu people and we are branches of the Chinese nation, itself belongs to the same lineage, so in our country in ancient times and even in modern times there is a kind of Xiongnu people and "father's wife to succeed, brother died to marry the sister-in-law," more similar to the way of marriage, that is, the brother **** with a wife.

This kind of marriage is mostly found in the poor families during the chaotic years, because of the poverty of the family and the need to pass on the bloodline, so many brothers will **** marry a wife, so that she will be for the brothers of the family to reproduce the heir. But compared to the Huns, this tradition of ours would have to be considered a poor family's helplessness.