In ancient times, the "three principles and five constants" were the moral dogmas of society, and everyone must abide by them. When it comes to the three principles and five constants, we have to mention one of the very important laws, "husband for wife". Wives in feudal societies were often required to obey their husbands unconditionally, and if there was a conflict between husbands and fathers, they were forced to make choices.
We are going to talk about a story today, in which the wife is faced with a dilemma, her husband is loyal to the king, ordered to kill her father-in-law, she learns the whole plan, and falls into a contradiction: as a wife, she should help her husband, but as a daughter, she can't watch her father die.
So what did she make in the end? The story has to start at the beginning. During the Spring and Autumn Period, there was a minister in the State of Zheng called Ji Zhong, and when Zheng Zhuanggong, the overlord of the State of Zheng, reigned, he served as the Grand Master of Qing and was highly valued. In 701 BC, Duke Zhengzhuang died, and Hezhong successively supported 4 sons of Duke Zhengzhuang to ascend the throne and monopolize power.
Matsuri has a daughter who is very beautiful, so Matsuri loves her very much and plans to marry her daughter to a good family. After careful selection, Matsuri chose Yonggui, who was young and promising, and after marrying Matsuri's daughter, his status in the court also rose. If he and his father-in-law joined forces, they would certainly be able to make a difference, but the plan could not catch up with the change.
Originally, Yong Gui was dissatisfied with the dictatorship of the priest and gradually fell to the monarch Zheng Ligong. Zheng Ligong was the second monarch supported by The Sacrifice Zhong, and he personally witnessed the abolition of his brother Zheng Zhaogong and always felt that Mang was stabbed in the back, lest he would one day be deposed like his brother. Thinking about it, Zheng Ligong felt that killing The Sacrifice Zhong was the most once and for all solution.
So he carefully observed for a long time, and finally found that Yong Gui, the son-in-law of the priest, was dissatisfied with the old man, so he deliberately wooed him. The more the two talked, the more speculative, Zheng Ligong revealed a little bit of his plan, Yong Gui not only did not stop it, but patted his chest and said that he could provoke the heavy responsibility of assassinating The Sacrifice Zhong.
The two men discussed specific plans: when the time came, a banquet would be held in the wilderness, the priest would be invited to attend, and the audience would find an opportunity to kill him. Yong Jie was very happy to receive such trust from the monarch, and when he returned home, he told his wife Yong Ji that as long as he did this, he would definitely be able to take the place of his father-in-law.
After Yong Ji listened, she was silent on the surface, but when she returned to the room, she began to pace back and forth, anxious. She didn't want to see her father die, nor did she want her husband to die, but judging from the situation at hand, the two were already in the same situation, and only one could live. As a wife and daughter, how should she choose?
After thinking about it for several days, Yong ji did not come up with the best of both worlds. She returned to her mother's house with a heavy heart, and the mother noticed that her daughter's face was not right, and asked her if she was in trouble. Yongji then asked her mother, "Father and husband?" When her mother heard this, she laughed and educated her: "Anyone can be your husband, but there is only one father who raised you, who do you say is closer to you?" ”
The "Zuo Biography" records that the original text of Yongji's mother said was: "Everyone is a husband, the father is only one, Hu Kebi is also?" As soon as these words were uttered, Yong Ji woke up like a dream, and she quickly ran to her father to tell him about her husband's plan. When he learned of this, he was furious and preemptively killed his son-in-law, and then planned to take action against Zheng Ligong.
Zheng Ligong heard the news and quickly fled, taking Yong Jie's body with him by the way, and scolded the corpse halfway through: "Even if you discuss such an important matter with a woman, you simply died without any wrongdoing." It is worth mentioning that Yongji made the decision to save her father and saved filial piety, but she was saddled with a thousand years of infamy.
Because in the eyes of some Confucian scholars in later generations, Yongji betrayed the basic law of "husband as wife" and only cared about filial piety and abandoned her loyalty to her husband, so her behavior was not advisable. At the same time, the phrase "everyone is full of husbands" said by Yongji's mother has also become a derogatory term "people are full of husbands", but put yourself in the shoes of Yongji, if you are in the position of Yongji, how can you choose?