Are women in ancient China so free? They even divorced voluntarily and divided the property of men? Hong Tao knew that the status of women in the Song Dynasty was not as low as they imagined, but they did not expect that their social status was so high.↗, I originally thought that it would be good to allow girls to study, do business, conduct scientific research, and appear in public as a promotion. I didn’t expect that my prediction was wrong. The status of women in the Song Dynasty was so high that many places were even more experienced than later generations. Especially in the developed commercial Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas, many people would rather have girls than boys because boys lost money!

"Since the Sui and Tang Dynasties, officials have books and family genealogies. The election of officials must be based on fish books and family marriage must be based on genealogies. This is a recent ancient system that leads the world to be the most noble and noble, and has the same authority. Therefore, people prefer genealogy studies and books on genealogy. For only five seasons, they have been selected without caring about family affairs and marriage without caring about reading." This is a passage from Zheng Qiao's "General History".

What does this sentence mean? That is to say, before the Song Dynasty, the social structure was clear. The gentry was the gentry, and the common people were the common people. Not only did they have to be elected from the scholars, but they even had to be married in a good family and could not marry in a random way. However, after the five dynasties of the Later Liang, the Later Tang, the Later Jin, the Later Han, and the Later Zhou Dynasty, the strict boundaries between the scholars and the common people had been broken. The common people could become officials through the imperial examinations, and the principle of not intermarriage among the scholars was also abolished.

What is the reason for the class that had been maintained for thousands of years to loosen? The answer is business! Because of the development of business in the Song Dynasty, the Song people's indifference to class were changed. The people of the Song Dynasty themselves also realized the root of this phenomenon. Cai Xiang once said in "Duanming Collection": Looking at the customs of the present, marrying his wife ignores the family, seeking money and following the wealth and poverty.

According to these businessmen in the Southern Song Dynasty, not only the people did this, but the first thing they did was to the upper class. Because of the example, the people followed suit. They also gave examples, saying with a solid word that in the fifth year of Xianping of Emperor Zhenzong of the Northern Song Dynasty (1002). The two prime ministers of the dynasty, Xiang Minzhong and Zhang Qixian, were hostile to each other in order to marry a widow named Chai, and eventually went to court to sue.

Is this widow named Chai as beautiful as a fairy? No; is it a prominent family background? No! Cheng Yi said something and revealed the advantages of Widow Chai. He recorded this in the "Two Books of Cheng Wai" and commented this: Because he had a hundred thousand pockets!

See, this Widow Chai is rich! The two prime ministers of the current dynasty fought to marry a rich woman. Will this happen in other dynasties? It is already amazing to marry a widow. It is still because of money. According to the old saying, it is very unconventional. This shows that the social atmosphere at that time, the Song people did not be ashamed of seeking money, but were proud. It was a very, very pure business society. From top to bottom, everyone was very pure!

If you ask who did this Widow Chai eventually marry? No one married! The two prime ministers had a very extraordinary fight, which made the emperor very embarrassed, so they demoted them to the Ministry of Revenue and the other became Taichangqing.

Another thing is unique to the Song Dynasty. Some books may have been written, but it only existed in the Song Dynasty. If other dynasties have it, it is a misleading. What is it? It is the trend of "catching a son-in-law under the list". Zhu Yu of the Northern Song Dynasty wrote in "Pingzhou Ketan": In recent years, wealthy businessmen and those who are vulgar and have rich treasures marry daughters, and they also catch son-in-law under the list, catch money and bait to lure the scholars, and make them bow down. One son-in-law has reached more than a thousand treasures (confused).

Every day the scientific examination results are released, the rich people of the Song Dynasty will go to the places where the results are released to grab the students. What method can they use to grab them? Just use money. If you catch a college student, you will take out a thousand guan of money and beg the college student to marry your daughter. Hong Tao is very envious. In the future, you want to marry a wife, so you can only use the college student's identity! Even if you are a doctoral student, you will still be done without a car, no house or deposit! I have only heard that the rich people drive to the gates of major art colleges to find Xiaomi for themselves, but I have never heard that the rich people go to the gates of the school to find a son-in-law.

This situation can only occur in a pure commercial society. If the Zhu family in the Ming Dynasty destroyed you one after another, let alone the Qing Dynasty. If you dare to do this, your daughter will never get married in her life and she will not learn the female rings well. You should learn to become an old girl at home. At the same time, this also shows a problem. In the Song Dynasty, the gap between scholars and commoners no longer exists. If you have knowledge, you can marry a woman from a businessman family. If you have money, you can catch a poor college student and become a son-in-law.

In addition to the breaking of the scholastic class barrier, the status of women in the Song Dynasty was also very high. This height was not a folk custom, but a legal provision. The "Qingming Collection of Famous Books" records: In law, parents have died, children have divided their births, and women have half of the male. I won't explain much about the meaning. In a word, daughters have legal inheritance rights, and the inheritance share is half of the son.

Some serious people may ask, this law has, but was it implemented in the Song Dynasty? Let’s take a look at Liu Qingzhi’s records in "Jing Zi Tonglu": The virgin also received a certificate from his head and slandered himself in the court, and fought with Brother Qi to compete for marriage. Here it records that a woman who was not married went to the government to sue the case. Who should I sue? He sued her brother! What should I sue? He sued her brother and did not give her dowry money.

The part of property inherited by the daughter is usually called lian property. If the parents are alive and the daughter gets married, this part of property will follow the daughter and be used as a dowry. When a woman gets married, she will give the man a document called "Ding Tie". In addition to specifying the woman's identity and birth date, it also states the dowry jewelry, gold and silver, items, as well as the land and houses that will be married. This is the dowry property. According to the maritime merchants, the dowry property given to her daughter by ordinary families near Guangzhou and Quanzhou is generally worth ten acres of land and ordinary paddy fields, and Lin'an is even higher, and poorer places in the mainland may be low.

According to the Song Dynasty, the wealth obtained by the wife's family is not limited to the division! That is to say, the dowry brought by the wife cannot be divided when the man's family is divided, and it must be controlled by the woman. If the husband and wife divorce or the wife remarries, the property must still be taken away by the woman. Of course, she can choose not to take it away, but the dominance lies with the woman. The specific amount of the two people took away is indicated in the "decision post" before the two got married. This "decision post" is the pre-marital property notarization of the Song Dynasty, which has extremely high legal effect.

So why did Boss Huang even pay his property when he divorced? Could it be that he was at fault and the judge ordered him to compensate the woman more? It is true that the Song Dynasty did not have such detailed legal stripes, and it was publicly not for raising lovers in the Song Dynasty. The reason why Boss Huang compensated his wife and was too traitorous. In order to avoid being divided by his family's property in the future, he put a lot of his property in his wife's name, which was considered to be dowry brought by his wife. As a result, when his wife divorced him, he pretended not to know about this and took away his property. Boss Huang was a mute and couldn't say anything about it. This behavior was illegal. Not only did the government not help him get it back, but he probably would have to be beaten, which would be a waste of money and avoid disaster.

Do only women in the Song Dynasty have the same right to inherit property as men? The answer is yes. There is a law in the Yuan Dynasty's "General Code": In the future, a woman should be married, regardless of divorce during her lifetime, and her husband will live in a widow, but she will want to be suitable for others. Their family will be followed by the dowry and dowry, and the family will be mainly followed by the family. The "Da Ming Hui Dian" and "Da Qing Laws" also have the same provisions. Widows can remarry, but they can only leave the house in vain, and their husband's property and his own dowry, and the family will be mainly followed by the family.

As for divorce, it was also common in the Song Dynasty. Ying Jun, a native of the Song Dynasty, wrote in "Qintang Yuqu" that women regard their husband's family as if they were passing on the wrong place, and they were together by chance, and suddenly they left.

In the "Xuzizhi Tongjian Changbian", the provisions on divorce of women in the Song Dynasty are described in detail. It is said that if a person who does not show off his wife, he will die if he gets his wealth. If his wife cannot give in, he will be allowed to change from now on. If his husband goes out for three years and does not return, he will listen to his wife's change; if his husband lives together, his relatives are strong, but his wife is willing to leave this, listen.

The meaning of these sentences is that if the husband is not able to support the family, the wife has the right to divorce voluntarily; if the husband leaves home for three years and has not returned, the wife has the right to divorce voluntarily; if the wife is beaten by the husband's family, regardless of whether it is successful or not, the wife has the right to divorce voluntarily; for these three situations, the government supports the woman, and the other situations will be analyzed in detail.

Cheng Yi, the initiator of Zhu Cheng's Neo-Confucianism, should he oppose giving women so much rights? In fact, this is not the case. Later generations misinterpreted his meaning. In the "Henan Cheng Suoter", a passage from him was recorded in detail: He died and married, so he lost his integrity. However, there are also those who had to be done, and the sages could not ban it.

Fan Zhongyan once set a "Rules for the Yizhuang Manor" for his manor, which clearly stipulates that: marrying a daughter and paying thirty trump cards, and then 20 trump cards; marrying a wife and paying twenty trump cards, but not remarrying. If you see, remarrying is more than getting a wife.

This is true among the people, literati, and the same is true for the royal family. There was a Liu E, the empress of Emperor Zhenzong of Song Dynasty Zhao Heng, and the first regent of the Song Dynasty. He had great achievements and was often called together with Empress Lu of the Han Dynasty and Empress Wu of the Tang Dynasty. Historical books claimed that she "had the talent of Lü Wu, but not the evil of Lü Wu." This empress, who was comparable to Wu Zetian and Empress Lu, first married a silversmith when she was young, and then her family was in decline. Liu E was born with beauty and became naturally beautiful, and she remarried to Zhao Yuankan, the then King Xiang of Xiang. Later, Zhao Yuankan became the emperor, and he was Emperor Zhenzong of Song, and Liu E was directly named the queen. The Zhao family did not dislike her at all for being a second marriage.
Chapter completed!