When studying ancient history, we will find a strange phenomenon, the Sui Wen Emperor Yang Jian, who only loved one wife in his life, actually married Dugu Jialuo, the woman was only 14 years old, and posterity often called Li Shimin of the Emperor of the Ancients, when marrying the eldest grandson empress, the woman was 13 years old, and when Na Wu Zetian was a talented person, Wu Zetian was only 13 years old.
There is also su Dongpo in the Song Dynasty period is more interesting, when he was 80 years old, he also married an 18-year-old girl as a wife, when the Emperor Taiji married Xiaozhuang, Xiaozhuang was only 13 years old, even the Yongzheng Emperor, who was also 51 years old, also married a 15-year-old concubine, so many famous men in ancient times actually married thirteen or fourteen-year-old wives, are they as we say now, more fond of thirteen- and fourteen-year-old girls?
The average life expectancy of ancient people was short
Presumably, when many people look at ancient history, they will find that many historical records say that the average life expectancy of ancient people is relatively short, in some dynasties, the average life expectancy of people is only twenty or thirty years old, and it is very rare to live to fifty or sixty years old.
This is more complicated, first of all, the ancient technology in all aspects of the medical level, it is far less developed than today, at that time may get a cold, people will die, or get some infectious diseases, such as smallpox and the like, people are in the doom, in the Qing Dynasty emperor, because of smallpox died, Shunzhi is the most typical one.
Even the royal family is still like this, for ordinary people's families, the situation is even more obvious, once you get any disease, you may lose your life, it is completely impossible to be like today, there is a disease can also take medicine, injections, if the situation is dangerous, you can also do surgery, change organs to achieve prolonged life, in ancient times these dare not think, so the life expectancy will inevitably be very short.
If you encounter some plagues that occur once in a hundred years, such as at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the Haozhou area where Zhu Yuanzhang's family is located, because of the continuous drought coupled with the impact of locust plagues, resulting in a once-in-a-century plague, many people lost their lives, Zhu Yuanzhang's parents and eldest brother all died in it, and the death rate was jaw-dropping.
Of course, in addition to these unchangeable reasons, there are some reasons caused by human beings themselves, such as war is one of them, the more frequent wars in ancient times, the higher the population mortality rate, the shorter the average life expectancy of people, such as the Warring States period, a random battle of Changping, you can kill hundreds of thousands of Zhao troops, many of these young soldiers are about twenty years old, they died on the battlefield, thus reducing the average life expectancy of the entire national population.
There are also three kingdoms period is more obvious, the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there are still more than fifty million people, until the end of the Three Kingdoms, has been because of frequent wars, resulting in a sharp reduction in the population to only a few million, such a serious population loss, and the war is very closely related, in the war died of people, some are directly involved in the war died, and some are because of the war died too many people, the body was not dealt with in time, resulting in the induction of some infectious diseases and death, I have to say that in that era of war chaos, Human life can be lost at any time.
Since the average life expectancy of the ancients has been so short, if it is still according to the current female 20 years old to get married, it is estimated that there are very few conditions that can be met in ancient times, for many soldiers, less than twenty years old to die on the battlefield, where to marry a wife?
Once everyone has no chance to marry a wife, the birth rate will be seriously reduced, if so, it means that a country without population supplies to wage war or some cool labor that requires young and middle-aged people can not be carried out, and the resulting losses in addition to war, there are many aspects of state building, and the national leadership will inevitably pay attention to it.
Combined with people's average life expectancy, as well as social needs to consider, the monarch will usually develop a more effective way to deal with, that is, to reduce people's age of marriage, or to reduce the age of crowning, in many dynasties, basically women thirteen or fourteen years old have reached the age of marriage, and are already considered adults in the legal sense.
Since it already belongs to adults, it is naturally a very common thing for a man to marry a woman of thirteen or fourteen years old, just like today people marry a 20-year-old girl, whether the man is thirty years old, forty years old or fifty or sixty years old, it is not against the law, it is a normal behavior, as long as both men and women are willing to do it.
Today's rule of law society, everything pays attention to your feelings and wishes, so even if the age of adulthood today is 18 years old, the marriage age of women is 20 years old, but in the real situation, now more and more people are married at a age far greater than this age, and even if they do not want to get married, even if they are married, they do not want to have children, which seriously reduces the birth rate of the population, but we can only encourage people to have a second child, and cannot do more measures, if it is placed in ancient times, the situation is completely different.
Effective measures for marriage of young people of appropriate age in ancient times
In ancient times, once the woman or man reached the age of marriage, the state began to worry about you, so the number of single sticks at that time was far from being as large as it is now. In many dynasties, the state not only imposed legal restrictions on marriage, but also carried out blind dates on many special holidays to help young people get married.
In terms of legal provisions, the ancients were very strict, for example, in the Western Han Dynasty, for families that had children in time or had a relatively large number of children, the state would reward them and exempt them from taxes for two years, which was a very powerful preferential policy at that time, and under the attraction of this policy, many people were more willing to have children early.
Later, in order to achieve the purpose of clear reward and punishment, it was also stipulated that if the girl was more than 15 years old and less than 30 years old and did not marry, she needed to be fined 120 yuan, and if she was still not married at the age of 30, she would be fined 600 yuan, which was reflected in later dynasties, such as the "Song Shu Zhou Lang Biography" stipulated: a woman does not marry fifteen, and the family sits on it.
That is to say, if a woman does not marry until the age of 15, then the family also has the responsibility of sitting together, light is fined, serious times may be pulled to jail, in order to prevent such a phenomenon, the state will usually regularly count some men and women of the right age, after the age of marriage, the country began to get busy.
On the one hand, in accordance with the provisions of the law to urge the family to get the child's marriage in time, if the family can not be done, the state has relevant staff, will directly help the marriageable men and women to marry, once this marriage is established, both men and women can not refuse, otherwise they may bear the punishment they want.
This is a more severe approach, usually, if it is not a last resort, in fact, the country is not so serious, under normal circumstances, to the age when men and women are suitable for marriage, if there are more men and fewer women in some places, the state will match several different places, match places with more men and places with more women, organize some blind date activities similar to autumn fairs or Tanabata, let these men and women of the right age choose freely, if they go to participate in blind dates, there is no solution to the single problem of people, Penalties may apply.
Perhaps we have to admit the fact that in ancient times, because of the influence of war and feudal ideas, in fact, many dynasties were very short of women, so in order to promote more single sticks to marry wives, in the Spring and Autumn Warring States period or before the Tang Dynasty, widows would be encouraged to remarry, so that widows whose husbands died in the war or other situations would remarry, reducing the burden on the country and society, and promoting population growth.
Before the Tang Dynasty, this phenomenon was relatively common, especially in the Tang Dynasty and the Western Han Dynasty, women remarried several times, it was normal, there was no restriction after the Song Dynasty, the princesses of the Tang Dynasty royal family, whether it was Princess Taiping or Princess Anle, were remarried several times, but no one would feel anything strange, after all, this is all for the purpose of population growth to contribute, there are not so many complicated constraints.
All in all, in ancient times, not only the age of marriage was very small, thirteen or fourteen years old belonged to the age of marriage, and if you did not want to get married, then the state would find trouble for you, either punish you, or arrange for you to go on a blind date, if you did not listen to these, the state directly arranged marriage for you, there is no freedom to speak of, once you do not agree, the consequences are very serious.
It is in this historical context that it is completely normal for ancient women to marry at the age of thirteen or fourteen, just as normal as it is for women to marry at the age of twenty now, nothing strange, but we are not in that historical background, so we do not understand the situation at that time, and will mistakenly think that ancient men like little Lolita.
epilogue
Although men from ancient times to the present are very single-minded, generally like young and beautiful girls, but the ancients like to marry thirteen or fourteen-year-old girls, not because they like little Lolita, but because at that time thirteen or fourteen years old is already the marriageable age, and once the ancients reached the marriageable age, the state will have many policies to urge you to get married early, if you have to stay up until you are in your twenties to get married, in the eyes of the ancients, you are not marrying late and having children later, but breaking the law, light is fined, and even your parents are tied up by you, pulled to jail!
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