Most of us think that between the husband and wife of the ancients, the husband calls the wife "Lady", the wife calls the husband "Xianggong", basically it is not directly called by name, our country pays attention to "etiquette", since ancient times, the husband calls the wife in addition to the name, there are many titles, the ancients on the wife of the strangest three names, the second now men do not shout, easy to be misunderstood.
The first is "Zi Tong (zǐtóng)", during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the proper wives of the princes usually called themselves "Little Children", and it is recorded in the Analects of the Ji Clan that "the king is called Lady Yue, and the lady calls herself a little child." The people of the state are called the Lady of the King, and the foreign states are called the widowed little king. ”
After Qin Shi Huang achieved unification, he thought that the great cause he had achieved was not enough for the "king" to represent, so he called him "emperor", but the title of empress still followed the previous name, "Xiaojun" was the modest title of the empress, and later in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, popular literature developed rapidly, but in terms of literary words, the author needed to be particularly careful, so as not to be misinterpreted and invite disasters, so a large number of new words entered people's field of vision.
The empress is the "mother of a country", and the use of "small" is suspected of great disrespect, and the literati have replaced "small" with "son", and "son" also contains the meaning of many sons and many blessings, and there is" in the Former Han Shu Ping dialect: "Lü Hou: 'Zi Tong leads the will, on September 21, weiyang Palace, behead Han Xinye'. Here is Lü Hou's self-proclaimed "child".
And because the empress's seal was carved from zi wood, the emperor called the empress "Zi Tong", in the Journey to the West: "The king opened his eyes urgently, and when he saw the empress's head, he hurriedly climbed up and said: 'Zi Tong, how do you wait. ’”
The second is "untouchable", we may have learned about the "untouchable slave", "unworthy concubine" and other titles, thinking that this is the ancient custom of male superiority and female inferiority, the status of women is lower than that of men, and the title of "unworthy" is also like cursing, today's men will not call their wives so much, it is easy to be misunderstood, to punish the kneeling keyboard, in fact, "unworthy" is divided into "unworthy" and "inside" two parts.
"Untouchable" is the husband's self-effacing word for his wife, "nei" is to say his wife, we have seen the title of "insider", which is also the husband's title for his wife, but the inner person is also used as a synonym for the palace maid in the palace, and the title of "unworthy" means "the wife of this humble person", "Qin Xin Ji • Oath Title Bridge" has: "There is a misfortune in the inner part, dare to be annoyed." "The couple is very affectionate, so don't misinterpret it."
The third is "Xiao Jun", during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the wives of the princes were called "Xiao Jun", and the men of the common people after that also called their wives. The poet Han Yue has a poem "Yueyang Lou Bei Dou Si Zhi": The fine jun knows the silkworm weaving, and the child can already pay. "Xiao Jun" is Han Yu's name for his wife.
During the Han Dynasty, the daughter of Liu Jian, the king of the Han River, was named the Princess of Jiangdu and married to the distant Wusun, this princess was named Liu Xijun, also known as "Princess Xiaojun." ”