In ancient times, the rich and noble families had slaves. As the wealth of the family increases, so will the number of slaves in a family. "Hordes of slaves" is a style of the rich and noble.
In fact, not to mention the rich and noble families, even if they are ordinary families, it is not uncommon to have slaves. For example, Jia Yun in "Dream of the Red Chamber", as a descendant of the declining Jia Fu, Jia Yun's family is very poor, but there are still little girls in their homes. The Xing family was also very poor, living by renting a house in the Miaoyu Temple when they were in Jinling, and there was still a little girl named Huan'er around Xing Xiuyan.
This is partly because slaves are tenured, and once they are sold to their masters, they cannot leave for life, unless the master is gracious, releases them, and returns the deed of sale to them.
In the homes of the rich and noble, the slaves have to serve their masters for generations, which becomes the "family child". The children of the family and the masters are more intimate and have a closer relationship with each other. As these slaves multiplied, the slaves of a rich and noble family would naturally increase.
In order to create job opportunities for the children of the family, the young masters and ladies of Jia Fu were surrounded by more and more slaves.
When Lin Daiyu first entered jia province, the slaves around each young master in Jia province were a wet nurse, four teaching grandmothers, two big ladies who were in charge of The Chu Ju Mu, and five or six little ladies who went back and forth and swept the house. After they had received Yuan Chun's edict and moved into the Grand View Garden, each young master's young lady had two more grandmothers and four little ladies to her side.
In this way, there were a total of seven grandmothers, twelve young ladies, and nearly twenty slaves around each young master.' Later, the drama team of Jia Fu was dissolved, and Fangguan, Lotus, Aiguan, Ruiguan and others were all assigned to each room, so that in Xiaoxiangguan and Yihongyuan, there were twenty slaves in Zhenzhen' children.
One master, twenty slaves, what do they do every day? In other words, how many jobs did each young master's room have, and how many slaves were needed to handle it?
The responsibilities of two of the big guys are very clear. They are closely responsible for the ladies' work such as the lady's cupping. We all know that the ladies of the rich and noble families have a huge amount of valuable gold and silver jewelry. In the words of Wang'er's daughter-in-law, these wives, grandmothers, and ladies have gold and silver jewelry, "if they are folded, they are enough to live a lifetime." With so many valuables, it is natural to have a special person responsible. The purple cranes and snow geese in the Daiyu room; the waiters and cuimo in the spring exploration room; and the siqi and embroidered oranges in the yingchun room are all responsible for this work.
Because of Yingchun's cowardice, Siqi's dereliction of duty, and Yingchun's tired Jinfeng, she was once stolen by her wet nurse Grandma Wang to be used as silver. This is also the only rare thing in Jia Province.
At the same time, these big ladies are also responsible for the diet and living of the ladies.
Nurses and grandmothers are generally responsible for teaching ladies etiquette and cultivating their good habits. This role is often not liked by the ladies, but the ladies must obey them. Therefore, when Lady Xing rebuked Yingchun and said that she had indulged Grandma Wang, Yingchun said very humbly: "She is a mother, only she said mine, not me." ”
Yingchun's sentence also reveals that these wet nurses and teaching grandmothers have a high status in the master's room. Although they were slaves, even their masters did not dare to despise them. It is no wonder that Grandma Wang and her daughter-in-law dared to be so brazen in the Spring Welcoming Room.
As for the other dozen or so little girls, the work they were responsible for every day was to water the flowers, sweep the floor, feed the birds, boil tea, and run errands for the masters and the big boys.
Nominally, they do "rough work", but in fact, these tasks are not heavy, and there are not many, and they definitely do not need so many little girls. Therefore, these little ladies, to a certain extent, are only used to "fill the numbers", that is, to show the pomp and circumstance of these ladies.
It is precisely because these little ladies often don't have much to do that Wang Xifeng and others will think that there is a need to lay off the bridesmaids. Madame Wang, for the sake of the so-called "pomp and circumstance", resolutely disagreed with the abolition.
Among the 7 grandmas and 12 ladies around Miss Jia Fu, the busiest person to work is actually the two close-fitting big girls, and the most status is actually the ladies' wet nurse, who is actually teaching Mama. As for the other little girls, although their status is low, in fact, the work is not heavy, and they can also take shifts and shifts every day.
Nearly twenty slaves took care of the daily life of these noble ladies, and it was enough to support the dignity and pomp of these ladies.