In China's five-thousand-year history, strange dynasties abound, but no dynasty can be like the late Qing Dynasty, where new things collide with old objects, and old ideas and new ideas are intertwined, showing the most absurd scenes.
These scenes, after the introduction of photographic technology to China, were also preserved in the form of video materials. Through these photos, the state of life in the late Qing Dynasty is unreservedly presented in front of us.
Dark landlord and beautiful concubine
Now most people say that the first thing that ancient men think of is three wives and four concubines, and even many people are envious of this. However, this is not the case.
In the ancient feudal society, men can indeed legally own many women, but there can only be one wife, the so-called flat wife, partial wife are a kind of concubine, if anyone dares to marry two wives, they will commit the crime of "having a wife and marrying more".
This is what we now call the crime of bigamy, and according to the laws of each dynasty, the degree of punishment imposed by the government for this crime is also different. Therefore, the three wives and four concubines are just talk, and they should not be true.
However, I think that the reason for this kind of regulation should be related to the inheritance system of the eldest son in ancient Confucianism, where the family can be harmonious and orderly, the wife manages the family house wholeheartedly, and the descendants do not compete for the family property.
But there are not so many worries about marrying concubines, as long as you don't make any ugly things, no one will talk nonsense. In the late Qing Dynasty, this phenomenon continued.
There is a saying that when you marry a wife, you take a concubine. This means that if you marry a wife, you must marry a large family to cultivate it, and you can learn to be a good person, so that you can manage the housework internally, teach your husband and children, communicate with foreign people, and welcome guests; concubines must find young and beautiful, red sleeves to add incense, and satisfy the taste of life.
In the photo we are going to talk about below, there is a tall and dark-faced old man who is more than half a hundred years old, and next to him stands a concubine wearing a light-colored flag suit and quite a posture, the two look at the camera, their brows furrowed, and their looks solemn.
The most striking thing in the photo is the height difference of nearly half a meter between the two people, and the ancients often said that petite women are more endearing, which is true or false.
The woman in the photo, the gaze is slightly restrained and cramped, a glance can make people have a desire to protect, but the man is generous to look directly at the camera, without fear. Considering the social conditions at that time, coupled with the clothing on the two people, it can be determined that the man's family is thick.
The bad habit of girls wrapping their feet, feudal decay
The second photo is related to one of the most criticized feudal bad habits of modern people, that is, women wrapping their feet. There are two theories about the origin of foot binding, which is now the most popular and recognized.
First, Li Yu, the lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty, was the monarch of the subjugated country who "just like a river of spring water flowing eastward", and by chance, he saw the palace women wrapping their feet into the shape of a "crescent moon", walking like a weak willow supporting the wind, and immediately praised a beautiful sentence, which attracted the palace women to imitate, and later spread to the women of the people and became a fashion.
Another theory is that during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Xiao Baojuan had a favorite concubine named Pan Yu'er, in order to maintain the honor of favor, Pan Yu'er found someone to make a delicate lotus platform, deliberately placed on the road where Xiao Baojuan passed and stood on it and danced to attract Xiao Baojuan's attention.
Sure enough, Xiao Baojuan was attracted by Pan Yu'er's feminine and moving posture, especially Pan Yu'er's small and exquisite jade feet, dancing like a lotus blooming at her feet, so there was also an idiom of step-by-step lotus.
Folk girls also began to imitate after learning about this matter, but they couldn't grow the little feet like Pan Yu'er, so they had to wrap them in cloth to look like that. Sure enough, in the feudal period, the emperor's hobby was the vane of fashion.
In this way, the bad habit of wrapping small feet was left behind, and it was not until the establishment of the Republic of China that this bad habit began to be abolished.
Coincidentally, there was a photo in the old photo of a little girl sitting on a chair with Erlang's legs crossed, revealing her wrapped little feet, and the girl's face did not have a trace of the childishness and vitality that should be of that age, her eyes were scattered, her expression was numb, and her face was full of vicissitudes.
We don't know what happened to her to make her show that kind of expression, but it is certain that the girl in the photo must have experienced the dangers of the world and seen the dirty humanity of this world.
The empress dowager is trendy, and the feet are high heels to take photos
After the Qing soldiers entered the customs, with the gradual Sinicization of cultural customs and living habits, their aesthetics gradually resembled those of the Han people. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, women did not have the custom of foot binding, and it was the Xianfeng Emperor's addiction to three inches of golden lotus that set off a wave of foot binding among Manchu girls.
According to Ye Shi, one of the Xianfeng Emperor's favorite prostitutes was the standard three-inch golden lotus. Therefore, Empress Dowager Cixi, who was still "heavenly foot" when she entered the palace, did not conform to the aesthetics of people at that time.
It is also for this reason that Empress Dowager Cixi has been reluctant to show her feet in front of people. Later, with the signing of a series of treaties, many foreign women followed their husbands to settle in China, followed by various dresses and shoes.
By chance, Empress Dowager Cixi saw the foreign envoy's wife wearing high heels and walking in a swaying posture, which was beautiful. Empress Dowager Cixi was amazed that this kind of shoe was similar to the bottom of the Manchu flower pot, and it was the use of the method of increasing the sole to make people look tall.
After careful questioning, the foreign envoy's wife told her that these were foreign high heels. Cixi, who had a sharp mind, immediately thought, if this idea was added to the bottom of the flower pot, would it make her more beautiful?
Soon, this idea was put into action, and the raised bottom of the flower pot was made, and the hem of the flag was lengthened to perfectly cover Empress Dowager Cixi's big feet.
Photographs of Empress Dowager Cixi before and after this can corroborate this matter. In the early stage, Empress Dowager Cixi never showed her feet when taking pictures, but in the later stages, only the soles of her shoes could be seen.
Of course, Empress Dowager Cixi's shoes are exquisite and abnormal, and rare treasures such as sapphires and Hetian jade are set on them, which can be described as beautiful.
epilogue
The late Qing Dynasty was a dark era, the mountains and rivers were broken, the people suffered hardships, and the Chinese nation survived under the iron horse of the Western powers; the late period was also a beautiful era, with ideological enlightenment, the dawn of dawn, and people with lofty ideals standing in front of people to save the country.
Therefore, even the most difficult predicament can not give up hope, our ancestors are such a group of people, because their do not give up, do not retreat, China's spiritual flame can be passed down, we have the opportunity to stand under the red flag, born in the sunshine.
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