Genghis Khan famously said that defeating the enemy, taking away his possessions, seeing his relatives shed tears, and taking his wife and daughter is the happiest in life. Some of his adherents argue that this exaggeration cannot be concretized as a derogatory treatment of him, that it was an effective way for him (Genghis Khan) to spread fear through the pen of the literati, and that the Mongols were using propaganda of terror to hasten conquest. We don't say whether this statement or justification can stand on its feet, but only say that a custom that was popular in the grasslands of northern China at that time was marriage snatching.
When we open the resume of Genghis Khan, we will find the fact that Temujin, as the Great Khan, has many wives and concubines like too many emperors in the Central Plains, or in our words today, wives, and these wives have a common characteristic, either robbed or sacrificed by defeated tribes, but these people have all shown loyalty to him without exception, which inevitably does not make people feel a little strange. And this is enough to let us see some of the consciousness and concepts of women in the northern steppe at that time, especially Genghis Khan's mother, which is even more prominent in this regard.
There is a Chinese proverb that originally said, "Marry a beggar and beg, marry a beggar with a beggar", which means that even if a woman marries a beggar and an older person, she will live with her for a lifetime. With the change of the times, this saying has been transliterated into "marry the chicken with the chicken, marry the dog with the dog". Its original sentence comes from Song Zhuang Jiyu's "Chicken Ribs": "Marry a chicken and fly a chicken, marry a dog and go away." "The women of the northern steppes of Genghis Khan's time really did this to the extreme.
The first thing we will say is that in the past, some ethnic groups in the northern steppe did have the custom of snatching. Take Genghis Khan's mother, Khao Erlun, for example. Genghis Khan's father was also the military leader of the Mongol Beggars, and his mother belonged to the Wuti clan of Theurakuni, a tribe of the Mongol clan, and a clan of the Hongjira clan. Ha Erlun was originally married to Chi Liedu, a guest of the Qi'er Beggars, but was robbed of marriage by Ye Quick. Genghis Khan's wife, Bo Erti, also clearly had this experience. In 1180, shortly after she and Genghis Khan were newly married, they were snatched away by Genghis Khan's father who snatched his mother's mother. Two such things happened upwards in the same person, the mother was robbed and the wife was robbed, and it is not difficult to see the prevalence of the custom of snatching marriage at that time.
Predatory marriages flourished in the male-centered nomadic era. At this time, because women were already the property of men, they became the object of plunder in the struggle between tribes and tribes, nations and nations. But when exactly this predatory marriage custom appeared and what the reasons for its formation are a controversial topic. But what we want to say is that this is not the patent of the Mongols, and it seems that this marriage custom has appeared among the steppe peoples in the north of our country. For example, the Tuguhun people's marriage robbery is clearly recorded in the history books, and the "Biography of Tuguhun in the Northern History" says that the Tuguhun people "as for marriage, those who are poor and cannot prepare for wealth will rob women." This means that when the poor among the Tuguhun people cannot come up with a bride price similar to what we say today, they will go to the house of the daughter and snatch the woman away. The "History of the North" uses the word "theft", which is actually a marriage robbery. This is also a microcosm of the marriage snatching customs of ethnic minorities in the northern grasslands.
The influence of the custom of snatching marriage can even be said to be extensive and far-reaching, and even today, we can still see the existence of this form, but this "robbery" is not robbery, but a folk custom - after the man and woman have free love, with the consent of their parents, after deciding to get married, the two sides agree on the date of the robbery, which is just a form of lively wedding. Therefore, the marriage snatching has actually changed its original meaning, but the wedding ceremony of the marriage robbery is still retained, and it is mostly found in the ethnic minority areas of the southwestern provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, tibet and other provinces in China. It is also reported that some ethnic groups in India and tribes in East Africa have also retained this traditional custom.
Second, the stolen women are not as terrible as some people say, and there seems to be no problem of revenge. Among Genghis Khan's wives, there is a very famous legend, that is, when Genghis Khan attacked Western Xia, the Western Xia people could not resist, so they sent a princess to Genghis Khan and became Genghis Khan's wife. This matter is real in history, this woman lives in genghis Khan's third son, is the Chaga Empress, named Li Songming, also known as the Princess of Western Xia, is the daughter of Li Safe of Western Xia. Legend has it that Li Weiming is very complicated, saying that in order to avenge the Western Xia people, she finally bit Genghis Khan and let Genghis Khan go away very undignified. But what we have to say is that this is only a legend, from the history of the wild, and does not exist in the main history.
Although the poets described the fact that he should have robbed The Erlun as thrilling and somewhat frightening, after being robbed, the Robbery was clearly very dead-hearted, and after experiencing the ups and downs of her husband who should also be poisoned and abandoned by her people, with tenacious perseverance and superhuman talent, she successfully raised the Temujin brothers in the bloody rain, and finally became famous because of her son Genghis Khan, who was "a generation of heavenly pride". The same is true of Genghis Khan's wife, BoErti, who has been a solid backing after being snatched away and snatched back by Genghis Khan, assisting Genghis Khan in laying the foundation of the Mongol Empire and being respected by future generations. That is to say, they only have the question of who they are married to, and there is no question of whether they are robbed or not, and they are always single-mindedly fulfilling their responsibilities as wives.
Third, at that time, the northern grasslands did not seem to hate women and children, and if they could not fight, they offered their daughters to marry. There is a story about Boerti that her first child, Shuchi, and Genghis Khan were only nominally father-son relations, because after she was rescued by Genghis Khan, she gave birth to Shuchi on the way, and she was not pregnant when she snatched it. Therefore, some people say that the word "Shuchi" means "guest", and there are always people who constantly doubt the lineage of Shuchi, especially the second brother Chagatai and the third brother Wokoutai often clash with it. However, Genghis Khan has always been very "open-minded" in this regard, and has trained Shuchi, like other children, to become an adult and become an excellent military commander. Moreover, he did not abandon boerti, or even did not abandon it.
That is to say, men who snatch and rob each other clearly regard children and women as "wealth", as long as they are around, they will sincerely love. In addition, the steppe tribes at that time clearly lived such a life, and after fighting, they became kings, and if they could not fight, they surrendered and offered their daughters to form an alliance. Among Genghis Khan's wives, many of them were like this. For example, the side concubine Kulan had such a lineage: when the original Wusun of the Same Clan was once with the Wudu of the same clan, the Chieftain of The Yi Ti Er Qi, the Chieftain of he'a Tai Qi' Qi, attacked Genghis Khan and abducted Er Ti. In 1204, they fought against Genghis Khan at Mount Naku, together with the Naiman chieftain Sun Khan Tai Yi, and were defeated and killed in battle. He fled, and His son Wusun defected to the Mongol official Nagaa and offered his daughter Kulan to surrender.
For another example, Yasugan and Yasusu are also like this: At the beginning, Yasugan's father also gathered a small number of Tatars to fight the Mongols, and as a result, all of them were killed, and Yakugan's younger daughter was also adopted as a concubine by Temujin. Later, Yasugan tried his best to recommend to Temujin a sister who was more beautiful than himself. At that time, a woman with a husband, saw Temujin cut off her husband's head. After the death of her husband, she also tried her best to win temujin's favor with the cooperation of her sister, and temujin's more attendants after Hedaan's death were also fulfilled...
These stolen women on the steppe, after marrying their "enemies", are invariably competing for a good wife, which makes people today somewhat surprised. Therefore, we have such speculation - whether the men on the grassland at that time did not hate women and children in the custom of marriage robbery, and women only recognized "existing husbands" - this is very important for the study of the marriage consciousness of grassland women at that time and the marriage customs of the grassland - Perhaps, marriage robbery is not as terrible as some people think. (Text/Lu Sheng)