In recent years, domestic costume dramas have become more and more exquisite. In many ancient dramas, the screenwriter will deliberately emphasize the distinction between concubines and concubines, so that the audience realizes that the children born to wives are significantly higher in family status than those born of concubines.
Therefore, their living conditions are not the same. But at the same time,
The ancient Chinese also placed special emphasis on "male superiority over female inferiority". Will the eldest daughter of a wife be of higher status than the eldest son?
In fact, this depends on the times and customs of the region in which they live.
Overall,
Unless they were born in the royal family, the difference between the status of concubines in the ordinary family is not so obvious
, at least not as prominently as in the TV series.
The sons born to a concubine only have an advantage in the inheritance of the clan and the division of property. There are also cases of disparities in the status of the two, but in different dynasties and different regions of the same dynasty, their degree and expression are different.
First, the sons of shu are only in the order of succession, and their status is not low
Before discussing the issue of the status of the eldest daughter and the eldest son, we must first make it clear that in ancient times, women, whether they were concubines or concubines, did not have the right to inherit the family.
So, before talking about the status of the eldest daughter,
We must first understand whether the question is about her position in the clan or whether it refers to her position in actual daily life.
If it is the former, then she is not in line; if it is the latter, then she and the eldest son are legally equal. As for how their father treated them in real life, it all depended on personal preference.
We can see this from "Dream of the Red Chamber". Jia Huan was the son of Aunt Zhao, and Aunt Zhao scolded him a few times, and Wang Xifeng said unhappily: "He is now the master, and there are people who teach him horizontally, what does it have to do with you?" ”
It can be seen that as Jia Zheng's son, his status is already higher than that of his birth mother. Therefore, the eldest son of Shu will not be inferior to the concubine and the concubine because he is a child born of a concubine.
Shuzi is only in terms of clan succession, and the "ranking" is relatively low.
The ancient Chinese inheritance system is mainly "the father dies and the son inherits", the head of the family dies, the eldest son is the heir of the first order, and the eldest grandson is the heir of the second order.
If there is no first or second heir, then it is the half-brother of the eldest son; if there is no more, then it is the turn of the eldest son to inherit.
Simply put, shuzi is the heir of the "N+1" of the head of the family, and this "N" is the number of children born to the wife, and the "1" is a grandson.
However, in addition to the low ranking on the issue of inheritance, in daily life, there is no law that the concubine can only enjoy the treatment of one grade lower than the concubine's children.
In daily life, the status of a son's family is mainly determined by his father's face. If his mother is more favored, then he may have a high status in the family.
But some people will say that in ancient times, "spoiling concubines and destroying wives" was not illegal? The Tang Laws and Loose Righteousness clearly stipulates that "those who take their wives as concubines and take their wives as wives shall be apprenticed for two years." A concubine and a guest daughter as a wife, and a concubine as a concubine, a disciple of one and a half years. Each is still true. ”
However, this provision was not so strictly enforced at that time. To put it bluntly, the reason why there is such a law is because some people do not obey it, and
The one who took the lead in disobeying was the emperor of the Tang Dynasty himself.
Wasn't Wu Zetian a concubine at first? And at first she was still Li Shimin's concubine, and in order to spoil her, didn't Li Zhi finally kill Empress Wang?
The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, did he like Zheng Guifei, wasn't that his concubine? At that time, what was the name of his queen, many people did not know it.
So don't think that in ancient times, if there were these laws, it would always be able to be implemented. These are actually nonsense, because in the early Tang Dynasty, the distinction between concubines and concubines was not very obvious. This is still true of the royal family, let alone the people.
Second, the real "difference between concubines"
Written in
When referring to the separation of concubines in the "Yan Family Training" of the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, it says:
The people in the jiangzuo area do not shy away from coming out. After the death of the wife, the man often straightened out the concubine.
The children of the family are not distinguished from each other, have equal status, get along harmoniously, and there are fewer disputes between the walls. In the Hebei area, in the territory of Northern Qi, they despised Shu chu and basically did not treat shu out's children as people.
Therefore, in Northern Qi, if the wife died, it was necessary to remarry a wife, and as a result, the wives who were later married were getting younger and younger, and some were younger than their sons. There are also obvious differences in the treatment of these children in life, and the people have become accustomed to it.
Has such a situation existed since ancient times? The emergence of the distinction between concubines and concubines is mainly to facilitate the succession of the imperial family. In the era of "courtesy is not inferior", only the princes and nobles will have these distinctions.
Later, the "ritual collapse and happiness", which belongs to the "etiquette" of the superior people, was spread downwards. Some "big families" have begun to have a "distinction between concubines".
There are records that the Han Dynasty people have already attached great importance to the difference between concubines and concubines. The children born to concubines are still looked down upon by the people, but as long as he is willing to work hard, he can still become a high-ranking official and get ahead.
Zhong Hui, who was famous during the Three Kingdoms period, was a child who came out of the house. Neither his family nor himself was afraid of this, and he personally recorded his own life in books.
Generally speaking, before the Tang Dynasty, some regions in northern China attached importance to the distinction between concubines and concubines, and some high-gate clans also attached importance to the distinction between concubines.
However, to the center of the Heluo culture, radiating southwards to the commercial area
, as well as the Song Ming Commercial and Cultural Center, a gathering place for citizens and farmers,
Basically, there is little emphasis on the distinction between concubines and concubines.
Henan, the center of ancient political culture, seems to be a proper north today, but in fact, since the era of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, it has advocated new culture and new fashion.
The cultural circle represented by the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest arose in the Heluo area, and their own families and protégés no longer paid much attention to the distinction between concubines. Why is this happening? Because the children of ordinary families in ancient times were not as many as the children of emperors.
Ordinary folk families, people are thin. The owners of the family often want to pick out the best of their sons to inherit the family business, rather than simply looking at who was born.
In addition, the ancient struggle was based on the family. Distinguishing between concubines is equivalent to actively creating internal contradictions. This can also be seen from the "Yan Family Training" that the author advocates not to be clearly distinguished.
Treat all children equally, and as for who will be in charge in the future, it depends on who has the ability.
This concept was more easily accepted among merchant families and farmers.
The businessman is more open-minded, he considers the accumulation of wealth from generation to generation; the peasant family is small, originally has no money to beg for a wife, married to a house, it is good to have a son, and what concubines are divided.
In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, when the economy of the citizens was developed, some enlightened parents, even in the inheritance of property, had already treated their children equally.
epilogue
Finally, let's return to the theme: who is the higher status of the ancient eldest daughter and the eldest son? The correct answer is that in the vast majority of dynasties, their status was equally high. Don't say it in the folk, even in the royal family.
The daughter born to the empress of the Qing Dynasty was called "Princess Gulun", and the daughter born to the concubine was called "Princess Heshuo". However, Kangxi was overjoyed and made the two princesses "Princess Gulun". To put it bluntly, it is still whether the emperor is happy or unhappy.
The princes of the Qing Dynasty were also divided into princes, belles, beizi, and brothers. But who should be sealed, or depends on the emperor's own mood, not that you will naturally be crowned when you are born.
Probably the emperor of the Qing Dynasty did not understand the "Yan Family Training" and made his son "too rolled", so he would make a bunch of dog blood incidents and compile it into "Nine Dragons and Take The Wife" for the storyteller.
Later, Yongzheng simply did not even seal the prince, and only dared to put the secret edict behind the plaque of "Zhengda Guangming". However, he rolled up his rolls, and the people were so poor that their crotches could not be repaired, and it was impossible to accompany him to "roll".
In "Dream of the Red Chamber", Wang Xifeng mentioned that when visiting the spring, he said: "Although the daughter is the same, the daughter is inferior to the man, and when she climbs the family in the future, there is something that the concubine does not want." ”
The meaning of these words shows that, at least in the eyes of the people of Jia Province, both the concubine and the concubine are the same. It's only the phoenix man who doesn't open his eyes, who wants to have a husband and wife, that he will dislike Tanchun as a concubine.
Since the daughters of the concubines are the same, will the eldest man of the concubines still have a lower status than the eldest daughters of the concubines?