Preface
There is often a scene in TV dramas where a woman kneels on a busy street with a sign next to her: "Sell yourself to bury your father."
At this point, some people can't understand that since they are really poor, why not bury their parents at will, so that they can be better, it's not that they don't want to, but they really can't do it......
How did the culture of filial piety come about?
We can often see some stories or truths about filial piety from some ancient books, so the question is, how did filial piety come about?
In fact, in the matriarchal society, there was no filial piety culture, because at that time, people generally "only knew their mothers, but not their fathers", and if anyone gave birth to a child, the child would be raised by the entire tribe.
However, when the time entered the agricultural society, this situation changed greatly, if the life of people before was upside down, only able to live a hungry life.
Then, after entering the agricultural society, people can not only have a fixed source of food, but sometimes there will be some food leftover, so that the relations of production have changed.
Men occupy a major position in production, and at the beginning of the patriarchal society, there are some problems that need to be solved at this time, since men occupy a major position in labor, if they produce something, they must want to leave it to their descendants.
Therefore, monogamy appeared, so that the family was the unit, and the blood relationship of the offspring could almost be determined, and a family would raise a child, and when they were old, the child would inherit the mantle of the family.
However, there is still a problem here, that is, what if this child treats them badly when they are old? So the culture of filial piety emerged.
More importantly, the ruler tied filial piety and loyalty together, if anyone was filial, then he was very likely to be a loyal minister, in the Han Dynasty, filial piety was a very important inspection system.
How much importance was attached to filial piety in ancient times
And the twenty-four filial piety in ancient times, it was regarded as a classic by many people, there are indeed some very reasonable things here, but there are some things that make our current people look a little incredible.
For example, Guo Ju's "burying his children and serving his mother", the protagonist of this story needs to save a lot of money even because his family is really poor.
In this way, the share that belongs to Guo Ju's old mother will be less, so he discussed with his daughter-in-law and buried his son to support his mother.
He thought that if he was a son, he could have another one with his wife, and if he was a mother, he could only have one in his life, so he began to find a place to start digging a pit.
However, when he was digging the pit, he dug up a lot of gold, which was given to them by God, because God moved them with filial piety.
In the eyes of our modern people, such a story is simply incomprehensible, and if it has to be said, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is foolishness.
At that time, the whole society, all the people would stare at to see whether the person was filial or not, if the person was not filial, it was not his own family matter, and the court would punish these unfilial people very seriously after knowing about it.
Not only to parents, but also to one's elders to maintain a certain amount of respect, and the dignity and humility in ancient society were almost impossible to challenge.
And in the imperial court, if an official's family has a death of his parents, he also needs Ding Wei, which means to go home to his father, or his mother to keep filial piety, at that time, no matter how old his official is, he needs to go home.
The period of filial piety varies from dynasty to dynasty, but the time is not short, and there are many restrictions during the Ding Wei period, and many things cannot be done.
You can't marry, you can't entertain, you still need to separate from each other, and after the wake is over, if you want to show your filial piety, you can build a small shed on your parents' graves to guard.
It can be seen from this that in ancient times, how much importance was attached to filial piety, some people may wonder, what does this have to do with "selling oneself to bury one's father"? If you really want to say it, this has a lot to do with it.
The reason for "selling oneself to bury one's father".
Because the ancients attached great importance to life and death and filial piety, when a person leaves, he needs to do a big job, and as a child, he has a great obligation to let his parents go beautifully.
This funeral ceremony, even if it is very simple, requires a lot of money to support, for us modern people, as much as we can do.
If you don't have money, it's just a little simpler, we can't understand their practices, and more importantly, we didn't live at that time, so there are indeed some customs that we don't understand at that time.
When they don't have enough money, they are likely to take such extreme measures to raise some money, but this is only one of the reasons for "selling their bodies to bury their father", and there is another reason, which is also crucial.
In ancient societies, almost all the land was owned, and if I had to describe it in one sentence, it would be:
The rich have no land, and the poor have no place to stand
In ancient times, the social hierarchy of our country was "Shi Nong Gong Gong", so people attached great importance to land, and under the land annexation of landlords, it was very difficult to maintain the land of the poor.
When there is no land in his hands, the problem of the burial of the poor becomes a problem, maybe he thinks that there is no owner in this place, but in fact there is an owner.
If they are found by the owner of the land, they will be punished very severely, and if they throw out their relatives, it will be a great disrespect to this person.
Moreover, the ancients also paid great attention to feng shui, and the destruction of the tombs of the ancestors was a very bad thing, which was very difficult for those poor.
Some poor people have fled to other places because of the disaster, so they have almost nothing but themselves, and out of helplessness, they can only sell themselves as a commodity to bury their relatives.
In ancient times, it took courage to make this decision, after all, if you sold yourself in ancient times, you needed to become a slave, and the status of slaves in ancient times was very low.
If the master is a little unhappy, he may be angry with the slaves around him, and if the master accidentally kills the slaves, he only needs to cover up a little, and he can hide from the world.
It is also very difficult to get rid of the status of slaves, so it is really not when there is no way, no one will make this choice, after all, who wants to put their future in the hands of others?