Wen Duan Honggang
When people talk about Confucius, they will immediately think of him as a great thinker and educator in ancient China, the founder of Chinese culture, and influenced the course of Chinese civilization. He founded the "Confucian School" and revised the "Six Classics", and was the first person in Chinese history to establish a private school, with 3,000 disciples, and the most famous is the "Seventy-two Sages of Confucius".
But what many people don't know is that the ancestors and grandchildren of Confucius, who laid the foundation of Chinese culture, have all been divorced, which may be related to family customs or social background at the time.
The Confucian family was originally an aristocracy, but it gradually declined in Confucius's generation. Confucius lived during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when the royal family practiced a "patriarchal system" to protect the interests of the nobility, under which only the eldest son (the first son born to the main wife) was entitled to inherit privileges. It is inevitable that the descendants who are not descendants will gradually decline.
Confucius's father's name was Shu Liang Su, born in Liyi of the Song Kingdom, erudite and talented, able to write and be good at martial arts, and later in order to avoid the war, he came to Lu to make a living with medical skills, and his talent was appreciated by the nobles of Lu and became the minister of Lu State.
Uncle Liang Su and his wife Shi gave birth to a total of nine children, but unfortunately they are all daughters, he was unwilling, and later, he gave birth to a son with the side house, named Meng Pi. Unfortunately, Meng Pi was born with a foot disease and was unable to be an heir. In order to let the family have a qualified heir, as a last resort, Shu Liang Su married Yan Zhengzai of Lu State as a concubine again.
Shu Liang Su, as a powerful class of Lu State, married a woman who was nearly 50 years younger than himself, which was not in line with the etiquette system at that time, and violated the norms, so the two could only live secretly in the mountains to live together, and people called this combination "wild combination".
It didn't take long for Confucius to be born, and the family finally had a qualified heir. However, at this time, Confucius's father's uncle Liang Su was nearly 70 years old and was about to come to the end of his life.
After his father's death, his father's wife, Shi, couldn't tolerate Confucius and Yan, and picked on the mother and son every day. In the end, Yan Zhengzai could only take Confucius and Confucius's half-brother Meng Pi with him, wandering to find his own way out and live a precarious life.
This kind of life tempered Confucius's will and made him realize that if he wants to change his life and destiny, the only way to study hard is to Xi study hard, do a good job in learning, and become one of the upper classes.
By the time he was 15 years old, Confucius's knowledge was already quite high, and he was already a blockbuster among his peers at that time.
At the age of 19, in order to facilitate his frequent return to his ancestral hometown of the Song State to worship his ancestors, Confucius married a Song native Qi Guan, who was one year younger than him. A year later, they gave birth to a son, just in time for Lu Zhaogong to reward Confucius with carp, so they named their son Kong carp, the word Boyu.
Qi Guan's family hoped that her husband would become a promising man in the future, and at that time, most people believed that a promising man was first and foremost an intellectual, and he was also a big official in the court and had a high social status.
Confucius was born into a declining aristocratic family, and although he lost his father at an early age, due to his family style, he received a good education from an early age and was very familiar with the "Six Arts", which provided him with great help in his future work.
Qi Guanshi is a traditional woman, although she has not received much education, but she can be called a good wife and mother, she gets up early every day, greedy for darkness, husband and children at the same time, the life of the family is in good order. She hopes to work hand in hand with her husband to realize the great wish of "having both children and daughters, and honoring husbands and wives" as soon as possible.
The two have been married for a few years, and the wish of "having both children and daughters" was quickly realized, but the wish of "husband and wife" has not been seen for a long time. From their marriage to the present, Confucius is still a petty official, and his career has not improved at all.
With the growing population of the family, the little money of the petty officials can no longer meet the living expenses of the family. It was in this context that Qi Guan's complaints about Confucius grew.
Seeing his wife complaining, Confucius was very upset, so at the age of 27, he made the decision to open a private school, hoping to relieve the pressure on his family with the help of the tuition fees paid by students.
In society at that time, there was an unwritten rule: only the nobility was eligible for education.
Confucius did not continue the view of the family at that time, after all, he still wanted to rely on the tuition fees of the students to solve his own life problems, so he made this rule: whether the scholar is a nobleman or a commoner, as long as you can bring 10 pieces of jerky, you can enroll.
Confucius did not look at his identity and recruited students indiscriminately, which seriously violated the etiquette system handed down by his ancestors, and it stands to reason that he should be severely punished. Fortunately, at that time, Zhou Tianzi was entangled in various things, and the various vassal states were busy competing for hegemony and dividing interests, and no one came forward to take care of this matter, so Confucius took the opportunity to become the first educator in Chinese history to open a private school.
During the glory days, there were more than 3,000 students under the command of President Kong, and the students handed in countless dried meat and other food, and the whole family no longer had to worry about eating and drinking, and the standard of living continued to rise.
However, Qi Guan was still disappointed in Confucius. In her eyes, although Confucius's lectures have improved the lives of the whole family, lecturing is not a long-term solution after all, and he is not a successful man.
So, what kind of man is considered a successful man?
In fact, as mentioned above, the consensus of people at that time was that a successful man was a big official.
Seeing that Confucius was becoming more and more enthusiastic about lecturing, Qi Guan's anger did not come to one place. She felt that since her husband had such a great knowledge, he should go to the right path and become a big official, but he did not do his job, so what was the use of lecturing on these crooked ways.
After years of sarcasm and sarcasm by his wife, at the age of 51, Confucius was finally reused by Lu Dinggong, and successively served as the little Sikong and the big Sikou. In particular, the chief secretary, who is equivalent to today's president of the Supreme Court and minister of public security, is a veritable official.
Seeing Confucius become a great official and fulfill the expectations of his family for many years, Qi Guan's face towards Confucius instantly improved, and the relationship between the husband and wife also improved greatly.
It is a pity that Confucius's official hat has not yet been worn steadily, but due to frequent political disagreements with Lu Gong, he was slowly excluded and neglected. Thinking that it was difficult for him to survive in this complicated environment as a scholar, Confucius decided to resign, leave the officialdom completely, and take his students to travel around the world and live a life without constraints that he wanted.
In 496 B.C., at the age of 55, Confucius set out from the kingdom of Lu and began to travel around the world. Because of this incident, the marriage between Confucius and Qi Guan once again lit up a red light.
As for the specific reasons and details of the divorce between the two, there are only a few words recorded in the history books.
It is recorded in the Book of Rites: Tan Gong:
When the mother of Boyu died, she was still crying, and the master heard it and said, "Who is with the weeper?"
The doorman said: "Carp also." ”
The master said, "Hey!
Boyu heard it and got rid of it.
A year after the death of Bo Yu's mother (Qi Guanshi), Bo Yu couldn't help crying a few times because he suddenly missed his mother. When Confucius heard this, he asked who was crying, and after learning that it was his son Boyu who was crying because he missed his mother, he immediately scolded him, since she has passed the mourning period for a year, it is too impolite for you to cry at every turn now.
At that time, Confucius and Qi Guanshi had divorced, and Qi Guanshi had become Confucius's "wife" and Kong Boyu's "mother".
From this record, it can be seen that Confucius really had no feelings for the Qi Guan. Even though his wife had died at the time, he still complained about her, otherwise he would not have reacted in this way when his son mourned his mother.
"The Book of Rites: Tan Gong" not only records the story of Confucius and Boyu, but also records the story of "Confucius III's wife". It shows that in the Confucius family, divorce is a very common thing, and compared with other people at that time, the people in the Confucius family were very advanced in thinking and never thought that divorce was a shameful thing.
Although Confucius is called the sage of Confucius, he is a mortal in the flesh, he has the joys, sorrows, sorrows, seven emotions and six desires of ordinary people, and he and his wife divorced because of the contradiction of the three views, there is really nothing unusual. "Confucius III's wife" will not affect the great image of Confucius in people's minds.