After a long period of reproduction and development, human beings have gradually developed from a matrilineal clan society to a male clan society. This change is aggravated on the one hand with the deepening of agricultural civilization, and on the other hand, because of the worship of fertility.
In primitive society, the living conditions of human beings are extremely harsh, and it is precisely because of this that human life expectancy is very short. In a short lifetime, if you want to ensure the reproduction of the clan, you must rely on high fertility.
This was the only way to reduce mortality during that period, and among men and women, because the influence of men on fertility was not obvious at first. This is because they do not have a towering abdomen to conceive a fetus.
It is women who can procreate, which leads to the promotion of women's fertility to a sacred position, which indicates that people are in a stage of desperate desire to survive. We can also find that the earliest deities in human history were mostly female characters.
According to the last name, we can disassemble it into women. Therefore, the oldest human surname is a follower of the mother's surname.
In the long process of development, because of the chaos of the social order and the gradual recognition of the important role that men play in childbearing, the fertility cult of men gradually rose in society.
During this period, gathering fishing and hunting was replaced by agricultural production, and with the group marriage system withdrew from the stage of history. The economy in the clan also became relatively independent, and the weakness of women was gradually reflected.
In a clan, it is clear that men play a greater role than women, which provides an opportunity for men to elevate their status.
Back in ancient China, as the gap between the rich and the poor widened, society also had a class division. In a wealthy family, a man's status is maximized, and at the same time, three wives and four concubines are a symbol of wealth and status for them.
At this time, people's primitive ideas have been completely changed, and people believe that men are the dominant force in society, and women are destined to rely on men for survival.
And because of the idea of passing on the generations, people want their children and grandchildren to be full of halls, so that they can spread their genes to the greatest extent.
But the "three wives and four concubines" of ancient China that we see today were only able to be done by rich people in that period.
There are many poor people who, like inday's time, play bare-knuckle and cannot marry a wife. So which three wives and four concubines are the three wives and which four concubines are we talking about? Could the ancients really marry so many wives?
In fact, whether rich or poor, the ancient people were also polygamous concubines. The one-wife here refers to the man's wife, that is, the wife of the house, and the status of the wife is the highest in the peer generation except for her husband.
The status of these three in a family is supported by ancient records, which mention that "the husband who beats his wife is not injured." And "the wife beats the husband with a staff of a hundred." The same applies in the relationship between the status of the wife and the concubine.
That is to say, when a husband beats his wife, he is not punished for not being punished, and conversely, when a wife beats her husband, no matter how heavy it is, she must be reprimanded a hundred times.
From this sentence, we can clearly understand the status between these three, in fact, concubines were lowly slaves in the earliest times. It is bought and sold like a commodity, and in hieroglyphs, the concubine character is divided into two parts, which in ancient times means a woman who was punished.
Of course, there are also concubines with higher status. This shows that wives and concubines are the same, the so-called marrying chickens with chickens and dogs with dogs, marrying what kind of people, what kind of life they live. Treatment also varies from person to person. Therefore, the concubines also had a good life.
In addition to the main wife, the other two are the partial wife and the next wife. The partial wife is equivalent to the second wife, and her status is second only to that of the main wife. At the end of the three wives is the lower wife, and the status of the lower wife is the lowest of the three wives.
Most of the four concubines in the concubine room are the maids arranged by the relatives to be by the married wives, which is the so-called dowry maids.
We can often see a variety of palace fight dramas in TV dramas, the most typical of which is which dowry gets the "grace" of the male host and the subsequent series of dog blood "upper position" bridge sections.
These people are the handmaidens who were close to the ancient woman when she married, although it was obviously a maid, but if the man was interested, the maid could be accepted as a concubine.
Supposedly, three wives correspond to three concubines, so where did the last concubine come from?
The last concubine is usually given to the son by the in-laws to take care of the son's living life, and the last concubine is usually held by someone who grew up with the son or is familiar with the son's life.
In fact, many families do not necessarily have so many wives and concubines. Of course, on the contrary, there are not necessarily only so many wives and concubines, three wives and four concubines are just a general adjective, used to indicate that there were many wives and concubines of high-ranking officials and nobles in ancient times.
And in ancient times, as long as a man did not marry a proper wife, he was still in the ranks of single dogs. The difference between a wife and a concubine over a husband is that the husband is free to dispose of the concubine room, but not to the wife in this way.
The most direct embodiment of the status of the wife and concubine is the number and order of the husband having sex with the wife or concubine. In this way, the number of concubines can be guaranteed and the inheritance of family blood can be guaranteed.
And the so-called three wives and four concubines of the ancients also have requirements, only if the right wife has passed the normal reproductive age and has not yet had children, the husband can take concubines at will, but the sons born of concubines must be raised by the right wife.
Therefore, the ancients also had many constraints, in the tribal etiquette environment, a person often can not marry and have children according to their wishes. On the contrary, ordinary people enjoy such "privileges". This makes many people who yearn for the countryside very envious.
Some people will ask, is it possible for a concubine to surpass the status of a proper wife? This also requires problem-specific analysis. But in ancient times, concubines without strong "backing" support could hardly reach such heights.
Because many concubines who are not pregnant or have children are also at risk of being sold by their wives. If they can't find a buyer, they will sell people directly to traffickers, and this happens from time to time, even if the husband knows it, he can't say anything.
However, if the right wife fails to play the role of succession, then the status of the concubine is very likely to surpass the right wife.
The so-called mother relies on the son to be noble, with the strong support of the son, the right wife gives the concubine the opportunity to enhance her status, coupled with the husband's love and the family support of the concubine, the status of the right wife is even more precarious.
This is also why there will be such a bridge section as poisoning in the palace fighting drama, in order to get favor and enhance their status, ancient women have resorted to all kinds of means. But this has no reference significance for our current life, after all, it is quite difficult to marry one.