Five miles of different townships, ten miles of different customs", different regions, the course of their development is also different, and some of the customs and habits formed are also different. Different regional cultures create different customs and habits, and the things that exist are reasonable, so today we will talk about how in history, how did the Xiongnu evolve the marriage system of "father and wife succession, brother death and sister-in-law", in our opinion, is it a bad custom?
Let's start with a "father-wife succession", as the name suggests, that is, when the father dies, the father's wives also become the father's inheritance, and the sons can marry other nominal stepmothers besides the birth mother. The Huns were also human beings, involving red lines of principle, and I believe they would not touch them.
But just like that, I think it's still very confusing, how should their relationship get along? For example, if the younger brother marries his half-brother's biological mother, the relationship between the two brothers is a bit chaotic. What should these unlucky children call each other? The plot in Charlotte is staged in history, "The two people have their own opinions, I call you brother, you call me Dad", "Brother, what are you looking for, Dad help you find".
As for "brothers dying to marry sisters-in-law", this was very common in some remote areas during the Republic of China years, and it was more difficult for the sister-in-law to live with her eldest nephew. The sister-in-law married the little uncle, or a family, solved quite a lot of problems, think about it, this is also a good way.
Let's get back to the point and talk about this marriage custom of the Huns. This marriage custom of the Huns was called "succession marriage", and this did exist. The well-known Wang Zhaojun, after going out and kissing, encountered the marriage system of the Xiongnu, as the "princess" of the Han Dynasty, this custom that broke her cognition had made her extremely painful. Since the Xiongnu had consciously learned civilization from the Central Plains at that time, why didn't they take the initiative to learn advanced marriage and choose to continue to adopt such controversial "evil customs"?
The inevitable product of the extreme scarcity of the Xiongnu material civilization
When the Xiongnu belonged to the typical nomadic civilization and the Central Plains belonged to the agricultural civilization, different marriage systems evolved under the two different civilizations. The Huns were located in the northern steppes, grazing cattle and sheep for a living, a large area of land to feed the family to eat and drink, material extreme scarcity, in addition to meat, the rest of the living materials are either by robbery or by border trade. But this is not the case in the farming civilization of the Central Plains, and the fertile land nourishes the family's food and drink.
Whether it is nomadic or farming, people were the primary productive force at that time, herding cattle and sheep, harvesting and farming, so as a large family, the prosperity of people is a source of power that does not fall and the family prospers. According to the principle of fairness and justice, when the head of the family dies, all the remaining children and women should distribute a certain amount of inheritance, and then split into several small families, which is called branching and scattering leaves, and this inheritance system is deeply loved by the Central Plains people. But why didn't the Huns accept such a seemingly fair and reasonable way of not being easy to mess with? Xiongnu: We also want to, but strength does not allow it.
The Xiongnu were desperately short of supplies, which necessitated the need for members of their families to live in a "group warmth" approach. If, due to the death of the former head of the family, the brothers lived alone, they would not have been able to survive in the steppe at that time. At that time, the living environment of the desert northern grassland was much worse than imagined. Therefore, when the father and brother died, the next successor, in order to maintain the stability of the group, had to pack the women left by the predecessor and continue to raise the younger brother to ensure the continued development of the existing group.
In fact, the system of succession marriage does not explain the degree of civilization of the tribe, they are all people, and the ethics and morality of the Huns naturally understand, but when survival cannot be guaranteed, everything is empty talk. In fact, the Central Plains also existed in the Spring and Autumn Period, including before, and the younger generations adopted the elders called "Yan", and the elders adopted the younger generations called "Bao". This is actually a strange circle that cannot be walked out in the era of extreme material scarcity, and it is necessary to survive.
The uniqueness of the structure of the Hun confederation, the inevitable product of the demand for pure blood
Strong blood relations were strong relations that maintained the stability of a family, and they helped each other and were willing to eat, and in the thinking of the Huns at that time, dedication and pattern did not exist. A pure blood relationship is a powerful driving force for maintaining the longevity of the tribe. At that time, the Hun tribes would intermarry, and there was generally no case of women remarrying other tribes with children.
Under this system of succession marriage, the xiongnu tribal bloodline must be pure, and the succession system in the Central Plains, and the remarriage system, although to a certain extent make the life of mother and child more comfortable, but also avoid some internal ethical relations, but also caused some inconvenience caused by the remarriage of women to the man. "Fish and bear paws cannot be both", under the influence of Confucian culture, ethics and morality are greater than the so-called "bloodlines" and living independently in inheritance will not cause a devastating blow to the lives of children, so this kind of inheritance marriage is slowly abandoned on the grounds that it violates ethics and morality.
The Xiongnu were backward in productivity, resulting in a strong demand for population
The word "love," I believe, has appeared at an absolutely less time than marriage. In the early days of human development, including for a long time in ancient times, the first purpose of marriage was reproduction. For the nomadic Civilization of the Huns, they needed people to graze and reproduce, and all women married into the tribe, in addition to taking on the responsibility of procreation, was also a productive force.
Even if the head of the family dies, allowing these women to remarry with their children is a big loss for the successor. The development and growth of the tribe is inseparable from women, and they are the powerful driving force for the continued development of the tribe. Because of the importance of women, leaving even widowed women in the tribe became an inevitable choice.
The extreme scarcity of materials and the extremely poor living conditions are the root causes of the continued existence of this "adoptive marriage". From the point of view of civilization, this is a vicious custom, but if placed under the conditions of the time, it is an effective solution as a last resort.
postscript
Existence is rationality, this sentence still explains the past, in some special times, some special backgrounds, prevailing in a certain way, since it is accepted by people, there is a rationality of its existence.
Therefore, when we look at some of the so-called "evil customs" of the ancients, we should look at them in conjunction with the historical background at that time, which is the true meaning of learning history.