Demystification: Why is remarriage after the ancient widow called continuation?

According to Zhai Hao's "Popular Compilation of Women" of the Qing Dynasty, "It is now common to say that a widow is a broken string, and then marry a continuation of the string." Because in ancient times, the qinse was used as a metaphor for husband and wife, so the widow was called "broken string", and the remarriage was called "continued string". The origin of this word is related to the famous drum and violinist Yu Boya (that is, the one who played "Mountain Flowing Water") in the Spring and Autumn Period, and the other is related to Liu Che, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty.

According to legend, during the Spring and Autumn Period, Yu Boya was good at drumming and playing. His wife greatly appreciated his piano skills, often let Yu Boya play the piano to her, the husband and wife were affectionate, and the couple had a deep affection. Hou Boya's wife was seriously ill and bedridden. Although Bo Ya asked all the famous doctors to take good care of him, his wife's illness still did not get better.

Seeing that his wife's illness was getting worse and worse day by day, Yu Boya was anxious. Suddenly, one day, the wife's spirit improved (in fact, it was a return to the light) and said that she wanted to listen to her husband play the piano. Yu Boya hurriedly tuned the strings of the piano and played them "Zheng Zheng Shu Shu" so that his sick wife could get joy and comfort from her beautiful piano sound. Listening to the piano sound played by Yu Boya, his wife was indeed in good spirits.

In order to make his wife get better quickly, Yu Boya played one song after another, and did not dare to stop; When he played Yaxing Zhengnong, he suddenly "collapsed" and the strings broke in two. At this moment, the wife did not moan anymore. Yu Boya hurriedly dropped the puller and ran to the bed to see that his wife was already panting. After Bo Ya held his headache and cried for a while, he beckoned his family to take care of the aftermath and never played the piano again.

A year later, a friend of Yu Boyadi introduced him to a family affair. Because Yu Boya was still immersed in the pain of his dead wife, he did not intend to marry again; But unable to withstand the persuasion of everyone, he had to reluctantly agree to go to the woman's house to see him first. I didn't expect this look to matter, Yu Boya actually fell in love with the girl at first sight; The other party also because of Yu Boya's talent, intends to marry him as a wife. But she put forward a condition, to listen to Yu Boya play a song for herself before she would marry him.

Yu Boya went home to get the one with a broken string, removed the broken string that he had not had the heart to pick up, and after renewing a new string, he played it for the girl. That melodious and beautiful rhyme, one moment like the flowing water of the mountains, the other like the blue sky flying clouds, is really fascinating, a fairy music. Everyone listened as if they were dumbfounded, and the sound of the piano stopped for a while before waking up, followed by a burst of cheers. Even the always restrained bridesmaid couldn't help but slap her face. The marriage was agreed to at the moment.

After the story spread, the folk began to use the "continuation string" to refer to the widowed wife and remarried.

There is also a saying: according to the "Han Wu Wai Biography", after the bow string used by Emperor Wu of The Han Dynasty was broken, it was continued with luan glue, and the string later became extremely strong and was never broken. Later, people called men's continued marriages "continuations", "continuations" or "luan glue continued". Liu Jian's poem "Autumn Sunset Book Huai ChengRong Zhou Langzhong": "Luan glue is difficult to find everywhere, and it is impossible to break the intestines of acacia." The "luan glue" here means to remarry.