"The rain is wet and the dust is fragrant, and the jade man is first dressed in white." Half-dazed idly looking at the embroidery, a pear blossom pressed like a bed. Lotus silk shirt willow flower skirt, empty Shen incense slow fire smoke. Idle leaning on the screen laughing At Zhou Fang, he threw his heart and effort to paint towards the clouds. ——"Two Songs in White Clothes" Yuan Shu
In ancient times, "old and young" was a very common thing, and the man was often much older than the woman, and the more he was in the family of the powerful, the more so. Because of the generation gap caused by the age gap, it is also natural that the newlywed bride is always depressed. As the "Two Songs of White Clothes" wrote: "Half with pity and idling at the embroidery, a pear blossom pressed like a bed." ”
In ancient times, women often married out at the age of fourteen or fifteen, so some people even think that most of the ancient men had special habits and loved to marry fourteen or fifteen-year-old women, but in fact, it was not a fetish but another hidden feeling, mainly causing this phenomenon for the following three reasons.
For the sake of the country to grow the population
In an agrarian society, population is the primary productive force. The assessment of the military and economic strength of a country or dynasty can be directly linked to population.
So in ancient times, procreation was encouraged in almost any dynasty. Especially after experiencing large and protracted wars, it often causes a lot of population loss, and many fertile lands have become no man's land because they have not been cultivated for a long time and finally become deserted. No one to farm means no taxation, and the emptiness of the treasury affects stability. As a result, many dynasties even developed a series of rewards and punishments for marriage to increase the population.
In the early Han Dynasty, there was a rule that if a woman did not marry by the age of 14, then the woman's family would have to pay nearly double the tax. For example, the Song Dynasty also did the same, if a woman did not get married by the age of 15, she would be fined 600 yuan.
If you have not married before the age of 20 in ancient times, you will be considered a "leftover woman" and ridiculed by others. Therefore, many families prefer to have a dowry, and they will marry their daughters early. In ancient times, most of the men naturally married women who were about fourteen or fifteen years old.
The lifespan of the ancients was relatively short
The average life expectancy of ancient and modern people is not the same, in ancient times men could call themselves "old men" when they reached the age of 40, and now men at 40 years old are in their prime. In ancient times, 60-year-olds could call themselves "high lifespans", and now many 60-year-olds are still fighting in the front line of their careers.
Among them, the reason has a great relationship with medical conditions, many slightly troublesome serious diseases in ancient times are incurable, dragging and dragging naturally will be a life.
Therefore, due to the generally short life span, many things can only be completed ahead of time against common sense. In the eyes of modern people, "early marriage" is a very common thing in the eyes of ancient people, it is not surprising that women marry at the age of 14, to know that many of the "child brides" of ancient feudal society may have had a second child at the age of 15, that is what they see as "too early", which is even more difficult to understand in the eyes of modern people.
Patriarchal thinking
We know that in ancient times, the status of women was lower than that of men, women could not study and could not be officials, from the Song Dynasty until the Ming and Qing Dynasties, women in order to please their husbands, from childhood to wrap their feet, so it was very inconvenient to walk and could not do anything. The mother's family naturally looks forward to marrying out early and saving food. It sounds cruel, but often the more cruel it is, the closer it is to reality.