As the old saying goes: no filial piety has three, and no queen is greater. The ancients were always full of expectations for their descendants, so the idea of favoring sons over daughters was also very heavy.
For the imperial court, the problem of the number of people was also a big problem that needed to be solved. But not everyone can marry a daughter-in-law, and for some poor people, marrying a wife is a huge burden.
During the Qing Dynasty, in order to save their own expenses and continue to incense, the folk began to popularize the custom of "pawning wives".
1. The meaning of "pawn wife"
"Pawn wife" refers to a way of pawning one's wife as an object to obtain money.
Different prices are offered according to the appearance of the wife and the situation of birth and maintenance, and then the transaction is carried out by signing a "marriage contract" for the wife.
"Pawn wife" is divided into two kinds of living deeds and death deeds, living deeds refer to the agreed time of sale and redemption time, generally speaking, the longest is five years, during this time, the wife must complete the task of buying her husband's family to reproduce, if not completed can also be re-redeemed.
The death contract is mainly that after the pawned wife completes her task, her original husband's family does not take out the original agreed money in time to redeem herself, and the wife will be tacitly accepted as the buyer's lifelong wife, and even face the situation of being pawned again.
During the period of performance of the contract, the wife must cut off all contact with the original husband's family, even if she has children, she cannot visit, and can only live in the current husband's family. The wife must do heavy work and housework like the daughter-in-law she marries.
During the Qing Dynasty, people's idea of favoring sons over women became more and more serious, and men were inferior to women. Women are "unmarried from the father, married from the husband, and the husband dies from the son." Bound by the three from the four virtues, they have no right to speak at all, and they cannot resist.
Although the "pawn wife" is not a formal marriage, it must also go through the introduction of the matchmaker, the parents of both sides meet, and the dowry.
Although "pawn wives" are popular among the people and mostly happen to the poor, there are also some rich concubines who are not favored by the master's family or cannot have children and are pawned.
2. The source of the "pawn wife"
During the feudal dynasty, the imperial court attached great importance to the problem of population, so it always tried its best to enrich the population.
For some people whose families are poor and helpless to beat single sticks, most of the imperial court will use official media to match each other and solve the marriage problem.
Some dynasties also have certain restrictions on the age at which a woman can marry, such as fines for those who cannot marry before the age of 15, and even more affect the official fortunes of fathers and brothers.
At that time, marriages and marriages all paid attention to the fate of their parents, and many people did not see each other before marriage.
However, the consumption of official media is huge, and the general localities cannot afford it at all, so the custom of "pawn wife" came into being.
Originally, "pawn wives" arose from the Han Dynasty, and under the influence of the official media, they only prevailed on a small scale.
During the Qing Dynasty, the country was troubled internally and externally, and the imperial court was simply unable to support the development and operation of the official media.
The situation of poor families not being able to marry their daughters-in-law has become more and more serious, and in order to meet their own needs, "pawn wives" have gradually developed to the whole country and even become an industry.
The most basic livelihood of the people is not guaranteed, on the one hand, in order to save money for the sake of less people in the family, on the other hand, through the practice of pawning wives, they can harvest some money to support their families, and many poor families have to make this decision in order to live.
Third, the harm of "pawn wives"
During the Qing Dynasty, the use of "pawn wives" did save some lives and allow the population to develop, but this kind of behavior violated the most basic ethics and morality, and also caused the wives who were pawned to suffer greatly.
During the Qing Dynasty, people's thinking was mostly conservative, and women who were at a disadvantage in society took "from one to the end" as the code.
The pawned wife not only has to bear the pressure of her own thinking, but also becomes the object of being pointed out by everyone.
Wives are exchanged as tools of procreation, from persecution to childbearing, every step of the way can cause irreversible damage to the body.
In ancient times, when medical conditions were low, many women gave birth to children equivalent to a trip through the ghost gate, and they needed to risk death to give birth to children for buyers, and their bodies suffered greatly.
During the pawn period, the wives were forced to separate from their own flesh and blood in their original husband's family and never saw each other again.
It is even more difficult to accept that children who are dependent on their mothers in their infancy suddenly lose the care and care of their mothers. "Pawn wife" is a very cruel thing for both mother and son.
After the end of the "wife", the wife will give up everything she has in the buyer and return to her original family, even the biological children are not half related. The child is a piece of flesh that falls from the mother's body, and it is difficult for the mother to give up the child.
Some children lose their own mothers from birth and do not receive love from their mothers for the rest of their lives. Growing up in the ridicule of the neighborhood from an early age, causing an indelible psychological shadow for the child for a lifetime.
During the time of being pawned, the wife is used as a tool, not only not well taken care of, but also bears the burden of life, and even more to bear the scolding from the buyer, and the woman who does not give birth to offspring in a limited period of time is also beaten.
The pawned woman bears the double pressure from the spirit and the body, and after returning to the original family, she also has to usher in the worldly vision and discussion, the husband's dislike and white eyes, even if she can't help herself, there is no way to refute it.
The development of the "pawn wife" undermined the social order of the time to a certain extent, although it went through the steps of signing a contract.
There are still many people who do not want to abide by the provisions of the contract, resulting in a lot of contradictions between buyers and sellers, between the original couple, and between pawn couples, resulting in the occurrence of murders and causing a lot of social instability.
The poor of the Qing Dynasty did not have enough money to marry their wives, and often reproduced through this "pawn wife" method.
In essence, this method is a manifestation of human trafficking, which is explicitly prohibited by all dynasties and generations, but in the war-torn Qing Dynasty, the imperial court could not divide the mind to manage, and could only allow "pawn wives" to prevail.
The behavior of "pawn wives" prevailed in the Qing Dynasty, and did not stop until the Republic of China period, and many remote areas still secretly implemented this system, until after the founding of New China, the status of women gradually rose with the emancipation of the mind, and this kind of inhumane behavior gradually stopped.