What did the ancient Chinese know about love?

On the whole, good love in Chinese history is few and far between. We can count only a few, like Fan Li and Xi Shi, Sima Xiangru and Zhuo Wenjun, Liang Hong and Meng Guang, Li Longji and Yang Yuhuan, Li Qingzhao and Zhao Mingcheng, Lu You and Tang Wan, Shen Fu and Yuniang. Even these people were not truly happy. Like Fan Li and Xi Shi this pair, the legend of the composition of a little more, and even if it is not a legend, the two of them for the sake of the country's interests of their own sacrifice too much. Sima Xiangru and Zhuo Wenjun legend component is not small, and it is said that later Sima Xiangru also changed his heart. Liang Hong and Meng Guang two mouths in my opinion, it is difficult to say that there is love, because Liang Hong initially married Meng Guang is aimed at Meng Guang's ugly to go. Meng Guang was a famous ugly woman in ancient China. The Book of the Later Han Dynasty says that she was black, fat and ugly. Liang Hong's motivation is very suspicious, is he ugly for beauty ah, or this person was originally a little perverted. Either way, one is not sure if there was love between the couple. Li Longji and Yang Yuhuan, this pair is also very suspicious. Because Yang Yuhuan was 28 years old when she entered the palace, while Li Longji was already 62 years old. Can a young woman and an old man make love? Maybe Yang Guifei had a special hobby, that's another story. Lu You and Tang Wan eventually divorced, causing Tang Wan to die of depression. Li Qingzhao and Zhao Mingcheng, Shen Fu and Yuniang, these two pairs have a **** the same point, are middle-aged widow. Zhao Mingcheng and Yuniang died early. So to summarize, I think the love of these people is beautiful, but not necessarily満, that is to say, beautiful but not満. Of course, beautiful love can still be found everywhere in ancient Chinese literature.

The ancient feudal system and the absolute supremacy of men doomed women to lose all rights or enjoy all the rights promised by men, including love. From a certain point of view, the woman in love above, absolutely passive. Although, the emperor's daughter to marry a man called "recruit extra horse harnessed by the side of a team", there is the meaning of selection. But most of them are also the emperor's decision. Princesses can also pick only in the emperor's son of the imperial pen to find a person with sound limbs and features. Or the scholar, or the general, or the imperial relatives, or foreign crown prince, in short, this is married to a certain person for the emperor to achieve the political purposes of the people, so no status of the civilian face name even if the talent and appearance is also difficult to see the face of the phoenix. Within the royal so, ordinary people are not immune. So much is arranged to bundle, more is the bride's wedding night only to know the husband looks, while the parents-in-law will be son-in-law's face already familiar with the heart.

The ancients were very mature and profound in their attitude towards love. This is very obvious compared with the same period of the West. This mature and profound performance in the following aspects: fidelity "Park boat", respect for each other "Guan Suo", recognizing that good love can not be found "Han Guang" "reed", love to material-based "papaya", "Jing female its Shu".

Chinese history developed to the Song Dynasty, China's feudal rites and rituals also developed to the most mature and most complete and strict also the most cruel. In particular, the control of women was restricted and oppressed to the highest degree. The Three Obediences and the Four Virtues, starvation is a small matter and losing one's honor is a big one, and men and women are not related by marriage, and so on. The foot-binding of Chinese women began in the Five Dynasties, immediately after the Song Dynasty. Since then, there have been no more brave, bold, healthy, spirited, full, hearty, drenching love stories in Chinese history. There are quite a few in literature. But the protagonists in them are mostly characters from the lower classes. Like Fan Li and Xi Shi, Sima Xiangru and Zhuo Wenjun, such a love story belonging to the top of the social characters are no longer seen. There are also stories that are so evocative that they are sung with three sighs, such as The Tale of the Western Chamber and The Dream of the Red Chamber, but their boldness and passion are far less than the love in the Poetry and Scripture. From the Northern Song Dynasty onward, the line is very clear. The love in the Tang legends is still very painful, decisive and addictive. In the Song Dynasty, it immediately became weak. The fact that China's four great folk legends of love, namely, "The Weaving Maiden", "The Blessing of the Dragon", "The Tale of the White Snake" and "Meng Jiangnu Weeps at the Great Wall", all predate the Song dynasty, is very telling.

From the point of view of ancient Chinese history, love is more of a tragedy than a comedy. From a literary point of view, there are more love comedies than tragedies. The two together, purely in terms of quantity, are more comedies than tragedies. If you look at the impact on people, the tragedy is far greater than the comedy.

Like "Southeast Flight of the Peacock", "Searching for God" in the "Han with his wife", the Tang dynasty biography of "Huo Xiaoyu biography", "Long Hate Song biography", "Yingying biography", "Ren's biography", "Bu FeiYan" and so on, the Ming dynasty in some of the stories in the three words and two beats, of course, the most famous is the DuShuniang, and the Qing dynasty's Dream of Red Mansions. The number is not large. The tragedies of love shown in these works are basically either the beautiful love can't make a happy marriage, or the man is a messy man, or the evil forces are hard to break up the lovers.

There are some comedies in the Tang Dynasty; there are a large number in the Yuan Dynasty; there are a large number in the Ming Dynasty; and there are a large number in the Liaozhai Zhiyi (聊斋志异). The most famous ones are the West Wing and the Peony Pavilion. Happy families are all the same, and the plot structure of comedies gives the impression of being in the same mold.

Why comedies are not as powerful as tragedies, I think there is a fundamental reason, that is, there are no cases of high quality, harmonious and happy love and marriage in the real society of ancient China. Reflected in literature and art, the literati could only make up for the poverty of reality through fiction. The happy ending in those comedies was achieved either through the high school entrance examination, or through the immortality of the soul, or by pretending to be foxes, ghosts, gods and fairies, or by using the authority of the royal family or the big officials, none of which was caused by the main character's own efforts. Because of this, the fulfillment people get from the illusion is always less impressive than the setbacks they suffer in reality. This is one reason why love tragedies are more shocking than love comedies.

In the ancient Chinese works of love, there is a phenomenon that the love they depicted is open and closed at the same time. Or openness and closure are the two sides of ancient Chinese love. One kind of love is as depicted in the Dream of the Red Chamber, the two parties involved in the cover-up, shy ride, stammering, greasy, that is, do not say, in the behavior of the behavior is extremely careful and cautious cautious and closed. A kind of love is such as three words two beat depicted in the way, men and women meet regardless of the first cohabitation. Liaozhai Zhiyi also has a large number of such. The most typical combination of these two types of love is the Western Chamber. In the West Wing, Zhang Junrui and Cui Yingying in the process of dating, first Cui Yingying to observe the law of etiquette, Zhang not the slightest rhetoric, and even reprimanded. Later, she suddenly took the initiative to throw herself into the arms of Cui Yingying, showing an extremely strong contrast.

This, I think, is also related to the ancient Chinese feudalistic etiquette. In ancient China, women were required to keep their doors closed. There were fourteen hiding six relatives. Men and women simply do not have the opportunity to meet, which results in two consequences, one is the fear of men and women for each other due to lack of understanding, especially women for men (big tigers). The other consequence is the extreme longing for each other resulting from the long period of isolation. For the upper class women of the official family, who are more confined by feudal propriety, fear will prevail. For the less educated women of the lower classes, the longing is a little greater, because they are less bound.

When we look at ancient romance novels, there are very few psychological descriptions, almost none. This has a lot to do with the fact that men and women had fewer interactions in ancient times. Ancient China is to get married first and then fall in love, where there will be so much love psychology. It wasn't until the Dream of the Red Chamber that there began to be some, but compared to similar novels in the West, it was too pedestrian.

So the contradiction between openness and closure that appeared in ancient Chinese romance novels was caused by the reality of seeing and not seeing in the society at that time. This, of course, seems bad now. But on the other hand, it may not be all bad for men and women to be out of sight for long periods of time. Two people fall in love, all day long, head down, especially a unit, even if it is good will feel boring - how is it again you. The West is also seen as East is also good. On the contrary, if you don't see each other often, you will give both sides to fully imagine the space, then the East Beauty will also be imagined by you as the West Beauty. This is also the attraction of online love. Therefore, I think that if love did not happen in ancient times, it would be fine, but if it did happen, its quality would be higher than that of modern people. Because of its dry fire. Like Zhuo Wenjun new widow, before and Sima Xiangru have not even seen, followed others to run away. Existing, Han Lefu folk songs in the upper evil, some thought said more than perfect, is also the reason. Lu Zhaolin, one of the Four Heroes of the early Tang Dynasty, is famous for his line, "If you get to be more than one, why don't you resign to death, and if you want to be a mandarin duck, don't be envious of immortality." Li Bai's poem famously said, "It is better not to meet each other than to see each other." In the Tang legend "Step Flying Smoke", it says: "If you are born to be close to each other, you will have no regrets in death" - you don't care about the length of time, you only care about what you once had. After the Song Dynasty, there were no more such words. There are only words like "I have no regrets when my belt gets wider", "There is no fragrant grass on the cliffs of the sky", "If this love lasts for a long time, is it not in the morning and the evening grave", and "I ask what is love in this world that can make people love each other in life and in death". By now more only remains: there was once a real love in front of me ...... what is this called. Love is undergoing flirtation.

In this more like parents "married" son-in-law under the marriage system (of course, does not exclude coincidence, as you wish, and finally the children and grandchildren, old age, but must be married first after the love of the point of view in the end is not insurance), I do not know if Princess Wencheng after marriage is happy, but it is always also the song of the world. Diao Chan is instructed, but also should be grateful to finally married a powerful Lord, the descendants did not forget her in the eradication of Dong Zhuo merit book position. Poor Xi Shi, she sacrificed her love for Fan Li to marry the king of Wu. Though she made a great achievement in Yue and finally married Fan Li, the curse of the female color scourge of the country still lingers on to this day. In order to avoid such a fate, there are those who stand in front of their parents and powerful people and say "no". But Liu Lanzhi's resistance was to throw herself into the river, while Du Shiniang's resistance was to sink into the river. But it is the Dugu Empress is more powerful, determined to not allow Yang tight consort during her lifetime, became the history of the famous or is also the first "wife control". Can not be avoided after the death of wearing a big green hat, Yang Jian finally renewed the string. And this consort in the road of love is not flat. She first married sui wen emperor, and then by emperor yang domination, and the throne, jade seal together as something like the inheritance. The love affair between Yang Yuhuan and Li Longji, which is similar to this one, has been much talked about, and I think it is the greatest irony of the so-called traditional concept of a virtuous woman who stays faithful to her husband.

And the damage done to women by the feudal idea of the inferiority of men goes far beyond that. The scary part is that most women not only submit to this form of love, they even pander to it. In "Jinpingmei", Pan Jinlian and Li Baili were used as tools of lust, but instead they "took the pain for the pleasure" and competed for favor in the small Simon's house; in "Water Margin", Hu Sanniang had her whole family slaughtered, but she recognized the thief as her brother and married a man with five short hairs, and instead she thought it was her fortune to be able to do so. Feudal thinking has extinguished the love cells in these women's brains, and replaced them with a kind of blind obedience and pandering that is almost upside down.

Let's take a look at men as the makers of the feudal order. As a group entitled to enjoy the right to education in feudal society, men were constantly imbued with and enriched by the existing ruling ideology. The so-called "love" of women by men was like the love of money by merchants and the love of land by peasants - it was based on the premise of the woman's worthiness. It's just a matter of marrying a dignified and virtuous house to show off in front of people, or a couple of beautiful concubines to satisfy their personal desires. It's not much different from picking goods in the marketplace and sifting through them. Liang Shanbo and so on is a minority. And although there are Wang Xifeng family, Wu Zetian ruling things, but after all, they are beautiful to get the husband's favor in the first, weak and weak Jia Lian and Tang Gaozong is also after all few and far between. Lu Pian and Wu Zetian plus Xiaozhuang and Cixi are less than one percent of all male emperors in Chinese history. If washing, cooking, and giving birth to children are not considered rights, then the real rights given to women are to listen to the qin in the pavilion, to flutter butterflies in the garden, and to wait for the monthly payment in the room. As Liang Shiqiu said, when a man puts his household goods in front of his wife, it is more of a show-off. There is charity rather than love. Leaving aside the beastly Simon Qing, Sun Fu and Li Jia and other middle-of-the-road, just talk about some of the so-called "spirit of resistance", Jia Baoyu has always been considered a rebel against feudalism, and Jiao Zhongqing is also praised for its loyalty to love. But the former became a monk, the latter hanged himself, and did not stay with his lover. This so-called rebellion is not just like throwing oneself into a river or sinking into a river. But we can't blame them for being weak or submissive or for not resisting thoroughly or for the negativity of the form of resistance. Because men, as the ruling class of the group, will never allow the existence of a concept of love that would subvert their own ideas of domination. And the few "love-struck men" as individuals and the oppressed class of women as a whole are powerless to change this situation.

Why there were so many tragedies of love in ancient China, the ruling class did not allow the existence of free love. Freedom of love emphasizes the freedom of individuality, and a general and complete freedom of individuality will break down the possibility of a small group of people to rule over the rest of the people, which is what the rulers don't want to see. In short, free love touches the foundation of feudal rule. As for the seemingly happy ending of "The Story of the Western Chamber" and the like, it was only like the emergence of Hans Christian Andersen in the 19th century among a large group of critical realist writers. The beauty of the fairy tale against the ugliness of reality, calling for the future of happiness.

As one of the worldviews, outlooks on life and values, the social consciousness of the concept of love is determined by the constraints of social existence. Under the feudal society, the low status and loss of human rights of women in ancient times doomed her to have no real concept of love to speak of, if there is to be submissive and forced to be submissive to the two categories. Therefore, it seems that Lin's excessive concept of love is obviously incompatible with reality, and it is this great contrast between ideal and reality that highlights the injustice of the social system (the ideal of pursuing good love must be the same). The accumulation of this injustice for thousands of years, as well as the subsequent enlightenment of foreign advanced thought, and ultimately make people rise up and break it, destroyed the shackles of feudal thought.