Why was it difficult to get married in the Song Dynasty? What was the marriage system like in the Song Dynasty?

Marriage is a big event in the life of many people. Although there are many people who don't want to get married now, they can't stop their families from urging them. After all, elders always think differently from young people. However, even if you want to get married, modern people want to get married is also very difficult, in the way of marriage can often see a variety of roadblocks. However, it was not always so simple for the ancients to get married, especially in the Song Dynasty. Why? Did they have the same problems as we do?

1. No marriage with the same surname, even rising to the legal level.

It is a traditional Chinese taboo that men and women with the same surname cannot marry. From the Zhou Dynasty to the Qin and Han Dynasties, from the Wei and Jin Dynasties to the Tang and Song Dynasties, China has always had the custom of not intermarrying with the same surname, and even raised this custom to the legal level. For example, the law of the Song Dynasty states, "Anyone who marries with the same surname shall be married for two years each." If a man and a woman married with the same surname and the government found out, they were to be sentenced to two years in prison.

Of course, there is often a disconnect between law and reality, and regulations on paper are not always enforced in reality.

Cha: "Jun has a favorite concubine, a prostitute in Qiantang, who knows the book, Jun's character, and so on." Legend has it that Zhang Joon, a general of the Southern Song Dynasty, married Zhang Nong, a prostitute from Hangzhou, who was very learned and well-educated. Zhang Joon's daily official documents and letters were handled by Zhang Nong.

Zhang Jun's last name was Zhang. He shares her last name, but he is married.

You may think that marriage with the same surname was limited to taking wives, not just concubines. It is not against traditional custom for Zhang Jun to marry a concubine with the same surname. But the Bible, considered a traditional custom by Confucianism, the Three Dynasties of the Northern League, clearly states, "If you marry a wife with a different surname and do not know her surname, you may buy a concubine." You can't marry a wife with the same surname, you can't marry a concubine with the same surname. If you married a concubine at a time of war and weathering and you could not tell what her surname was, then you had to ask the gods for help and do some good divination. If the divination results show that Yu Ji has the same surname as you, then she still can't be married.

There were many civil officials and military generals in the Song Dynasty, and those who violated the custom of not marrying someone with the same surname were even more rare. So far, only one case of Zhang Jun has been found. But there were many married people with the same surname among ordinary people. During the reign of Emperor Zhezong of Song, Wei, an official of the Ministry of Rites, said, "Intermarriage with the same surname is prohibited by law, but the foolish people in Minzhong do not know the etiquette, and there are many intermarriages with the same surname." Although the government banned same-name marriages, there were many who violated the ban in Fujian.

2. Cousin intermarriage can enhance clan interests.

Ancient China opposed same-surname intermarriage, but not cousin intermarriage. Here, you may think that Jia Baoyu married his cousin Xue Baochai and Lu You married his cousin Tang Wan. In fact, although intermarriage between cousins was very common in ancient times, Lu You and Tang Wan were not cousins at all.

Many friends believe that Lu You's mother's surname was Tang and Tang Wan's surname was also Tang, so Tang Wan should be Lu You's uncle and cousin. Lu You's mother's surname is Tang, but Tang Wan is not related to Lu You's mother's mother's family. Lu You's mother was the granddaughter of Tang Jie, a minister of the Northern Song Dynasty. He was a politically savvy official, equivalent to the Vice Premier of the State Council, and was originally from Jiangling, Hubei. Tang Wan was the daughter of Tang Hong. This Tang Hong was never Lu You's uncle. He was a native of Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, Lu You's hometown, the son of a minor Beijing official in the late Northern Song Dynasty. He is not related to Tang Jie's family in any way.

Many historians mistakenly believe that Tang Wan had a superficial relationship with Lu You. In fact, this is the result of misreading historical materials. After divorcing Lu You, Tang Wan remarried to a man named Zhao Shicheng. He was the son of the royal family, the sixth-generation grandson, and the nephew of Princess Qin, the 10th daughter of

Ancient China did not oppose cousin intermarriage and intermarriage with the same surname, which had nothing to do with eugenics, but only with clan interests.

Cousin marriages could promote clan interests. It makes this family closer to that family, enlarges the size of the clan, and stabilizes the clan network.

What about marriage with the same surname? It is carried out within the tribe, can not contribute to the tribe from external relations, so the ancients supported cousin intermarriage, opposed to same-surname intermarriage. During the Spring and Autumn period, people believed that "intermarriage with the same surname is not a good life", saying that intermarriage with the same surname will lead to crop failure and livestock death. This was a superstitious view, which was to restrict same-name intermarriage through ghost and god taboos, thus promoting intertribal intermarriage.

3. The girl is difficult to marry, Su Zhe "broken family to marry the girl"

As the saying goes, there is no such thing as a girl who can't get married. Regardless of whether the daughter is a fish or a goose or a toad's eye, as long as the marriageable age, there will be hordes of matchmakers to propose marriage. Boys can suffer. In the vast countryside, any young man with a low level of education, poor skills, who can't earn a lot of money by working outside the home, and whose parents are not businessmen or village cadres, will inevitably have to worry about his marriage.

Even for those educated and skilled rural lads, getting a wife is not so easy because the bride price is getting heavier and heavier these days. For example, in my hometown, if you don't pay more than 300,000 yuan in red packets when you get engaged, the woman and her parents will definitely not agree. When the woman enters the house, she brings a big bed, a TV, an electric car, a red-painted toilet and a dressing table, which doesn't cost much. All the dowries are bundled together and capped at twenty thousand dollars.

However, in the Song Dynasty, the situation was completely opposite. In those days, you didn't need much dowry to marry a daughter-in-law, but you needed a large dowry to marry a girl.

In the first few years of Emperor Huizong's reign, Su Zhe's daughter was getting married. In order to prepare the dowry for his daughter, Su Zhe deliberately sold a piece of land he had purchased on the outskirts of Kaifeng for 9,400 yuan, all of which his daughter brought into her in-laws. At this time is the late Northern Song Dynasty, inflation, currency devaluation, but consistent purchasing power is still equivalent to 300 yuan now. 9400 yuan is equivalent to how much money now? Three million! Su Zhe said in his diary that he "broke his family to marry his daughter". In other words, in order to get a dowry for his daughter, he almost went bankrupt.

Yuan Cai, a native of the Southern Song Dynasty, said that a commoner's family, if not particularly rich, must plan for their daughter's dowry when she is very young. In other words, you have to save up before it's too late, and you can't wait until your daughter gets married to realize that you don't have enough savings to get a decent dowry, so you have to sell your house. But Yuan Cai doesn't say that she prepared a dowry for her son when he was still very young, which suggests that compared to a girl's marriage, a boy's marriage doesn't put a big financial burden on his parents.

Many commoner families in the Song dynasty could not afford to pay a dowry and had to keep their daughters at home to be married. For example, in the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, Ke of Huacheng County in Sichuan found that there were hundreds of unmarried old girls under his rule. The reason why these old girls could not get married was not because they were ugly, but because "when you marry a woman, you have to be responsible for your own wealth, and you can only marry a poor woman when she is old". The man's parents must make the woman pay a thick dowry, not the poor, so their daughters can't get married.

Why was there a strong marriage trend in the Song Dynasty? Because women in the Song Dynasty had certain property rights.

According to the laws and social customs of the Great Song, women had property rights, but only the dowry. In other words, for property during marriage, a wife could not share equally with her husband and could only dispose of her dowry. No one is allowed to use clothes, jewelry, furniture, house deeds, land deeds, maids and servants, her in-laws, her husband and her family for any reason. If she divorces her husband legally, she can snatch all these brides, which is naturally a great loss to the in-laws. For the sake of property, smart in-laws would never mistreat their daughters-in-law ea

Girls in the Song Dynasty had so many dowries that they even gave red envelopes to the welcoming party on their wedding day. The Song script "Epitaph for the Teacher of Huayin Hou" depicts the scene of the welcoming party asking for red envelopes:

The welcoming party arrived at the door, and the best man first read a poem: "Jade hooks hanging on the high rolled bead curtains, the fragrant car and the treasure horse to the door. Li Hongcheng rewarded much, rich and honorable over a hundred autumns." The bonus market is a red envelope. The bridesmaids, matchmakers and sedan chair get everyone's share. Who will send it to them? The bride's side.

It's a good thing the groom is not in hiding. When the sedan chair is carried to the groom's house, the master of ceremonies, the band and the deacon who serves tea and wine will stop the sedan chair at the front door to keep the bride out. They must wait until the man gives them a red packet before letting them go. Nian: "The time has come to welcome the guests to the entrance of the man's house. The music officials, prostitutes, tea, wine, etc. will recite poems to each other and stop the door for profit." When the groom saw this, he asked someone to recite "Dou'e Gou": "A gentleman is never short of money, and this meaning is even deeper. Want to kiss and talk widely, not tired of introducing half a day." We read the poem while handing out red envelopes, scattering millet, beans, candies, and copper coins outside the door for onlookers to scramble for.

The bride coming to the door and the groom scattering beans and grains can be seen in the Song Dynasty's Gao Cheng compilation, "Answering the Poem of Stopping the Door". On the day of the wedding, it is said that three evil spirits will stop the bride at the door. Which three evil spirits? Chicken, green goat and green ox, three animals that become gods. Chickens eat grains, cows and goats eat grass. The ancient people of Han and Tang got married by sowing grains and grass. Grain is still okay, grass is too shabby, the Song people instead of sowing beans and grains, candy, copper money, just like the current wedding candy.

The bride's sedan chair carries the bride into the door, the bridesmaids recite poems, the deacon sets off firecrackers, the bugler plays a tune, and the matchmaker helps the bride out of the sedan chair. According to the custom of the Central Plains of the Northern Song Dynasty, the bride's feet cannot touch the ground, so she has to step on the blue carpet to enter the new room and sit on the bed to wait for the marriage ceremony. Sister-in-laws, children, and older neighbors crowd into the new room to watch and comment on the bride's sitting position. But they can't see the bride's face because a red veil has been placed over her head, which is only lifted by the groom after paying homage to heaven and earth.

Worshipping heaven and earth there is nothing to say, just the bride and groom dressed in red, holding a concentric knot, led by the bridesmaids, the first time to worship the family temple, the second time to pay homage to the high hall, husband and wife to worship, sent into the bridal chamber. When worshipping the family temple, to show respect for the ancestors, the bridesmaids will gently pick up the bride's veil with scales so that the long-dead ancestors can see the face of the new daughter-in-law.

After worshipping heaven and earth, the bride waits in the bride's room, and the groom has to come out to thank the guests, attend the wedding banquet, and toast to the elders, relatives, friends, and female guests. Ouyang Xiu's "Things Lin Guangji" mentions a very interesting custom: "On the wedding night, two chairs are placed back to back, a saddle is placed, the husband is ordered to sit on it, and the wife sends three invitations before going down. It is a marriage ceremony, meaning a high seat." The groom's seat at the wedding reception was special. It was two back-to-back chairs with a saddle on top so that the groom could sit across the saddle and drink three glasses of wine. After that, he is invited three times by the woman's guests before he can come down.

The saddles are placed flat on the backs of the chairs, which means "peace", and the groom sits across the backs of the chairs, which means "promotion". The truth is that morality is not important. What matters is fun and excitement. When everyone is teasing the groom, the atmosphere of the wedding becomes very lively and festive. It's exactly the same as a modern wedding, where the host takes a thin thread and ties an apple to the end of the thread for the bride and groom to bite together.