The reason why ancient men married were to marry thirteen or fourteen-year-old, fifteen or sixteen-year-old girls, it was because they had no choice at all, if they didn't want to marry these teenagers and young people, then they could only marry those who were already married in their twenties, such as Cao Cao and Cao Pi father and son, for the sake of eugenics, they ended up with the title of a "lover wife", Cao Cao is too difficult!
In addition to these teenage girls getting married, in fact, most of the ancient boys also got married in their teens, the status quo of these teenage marriages is the national conditions of the mainland dynasties, and it is good to say that in the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, but in the pre-Qin and Qin and Han dynasties, if you don't get married in your teens, you will be looked down upon by others as a stranger, and there will even be legal punishments, and you will pay the "single tax" in advance.
Because the society is developing too fast, but the population is small, in order to meet the country's huge agricultural needs, war needs, stimulating the rapid growth of the social population has become a necessary national policy, so in ancient society, teenagers were their marriageable age.
Different from the scientific marriage concept of our modern men's marriageable age is 22 and women's marriageable age is 20 years old, the ancient ancestors really raced against time to create people when we were still studying.
But it has to be said that the strength of the vitality of the Chinese nation comes from such an "unkind" marriage policy.
In the pre-Qin era, the Yue Kingdom took the lead in dividing a strict "marriage line" in the Goujian era, the original practice of the Zhou Dynasty was that women were fifteen years old, but they did not have to be forced to marry before the age of twenty, and about men, they were twenty years old, and they did not have to be forced to marry before the age of thirty, this marriage line was still relatively humane, and close to the modern concept:
"Twenty eyebrows and crowns, thirty and a room to take care of men's affairs, women ten have five years and a wife, twenty and marry"
In order to achieve rapid development, the country has directly worked the population policy:
"Jia Seventeen does not marry, and his parents are guilty. If a husband does not marry twenty, his parents are guilty."
It has to be said that the revival of the Yue country is inseparable from the ruling methods of the rulers of the Yue country. It is important to know that the gap between countries is opened in terms of soft power and hard power, and the increase in population production in Vietnam is a kind of high-level resource advantage, and the development of the country is driven by institutional advantages, which is the charm of population policy.
If a woman is not married at the age of seventeen, and a man is not married at the age of twenty, then the parents are breaking the law. Of course, women are thirteen or fourteen years old, but most men are fifteen or sixteen years old.
Getting married so early, whether you want it or not, the rules are like this, there is no way.
Especially during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, a proper population mixer, vassal states went to war with each other, and there were major wars every day, once there were one or two battles of this scale in the Battle of Changping, they could directly fight a vassal state to collapse, so after a long time, everyone did not abide by the etiquette and law, what women only marry at twenty, and men at thirty before they marry, simply point, directly learn from Yue Guo, and lower the marriage line.
Some are a little more ruthless, even if they don't marry at the age of fifteen, even if they are illegal, they are stricter than the Yue Kingdom, so that the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period have such a strong vitality to fight each other every day, I have to say that the number of people who disappeared in our pre-Qin era was several times that of other civilizations of the same era, and even the circulation of social population was comparable to all civilizations, so why not be strong for the Chinese nation.
In the Qin and Han dynasties, this logic still hasn't changed.
The Qin Dynasty was short-lived, but it also perfectly inherited the social concept of "early birth and early childbearing", so that so many people could have a big war in the Central Plains.
And Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, is often "ridiculed" by everyone in Pei County, which is related to the fact that he is not married when he is old, Liu Bang is an outlier of that era, but it also shows a characteristic, it is such a person who breaks social conventions, but it is easy to stand out. However, Liu Bang himself married late, but it does not mean that people in his empire can marry late, and the Han Dynasty still inherited the strict marriage age line.
The emperors and princes of the Han Dynasty all got married early, and Zhang Yan, the Empress Zhang of Emperor Hui of the Han Dynasty, was only about ten years old when she married him, and the later Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty, and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, none of them were not early marriages and early childbearing, not generally early, they were all in the range of eleven or twelve years old, perhaps the social concept has developed this marriage habit.
Because the law of the Han Dynasty clearly stipulates that those who marry late and have children later should be "fined":
If a woman is over the age of 15 to 30 and does not marry, five counts.
If a woman is not married between the ages of fifteen and thirty, then all the taxes are five times, and this tax is added to the family, so it can be seen that under the law of the Han Dynasty, thirteen or four years old may be regarded as "late marriage", and you have to marry at the age of ten to be insured.
At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, the number of people in the Han Dynasty was as high as more than 60 million, and the result of this huge number of people came from these "marriage policies".
Cao Cao at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, but whenever he fights, he has to covet other people's wives, in fact, Cao Cao was forced to become such a mate choice in the context of "early marriage and early childbearing". Thirteen or fourteen-year-old women have a great risk in childbirth, but those who have been married and have passed the risk period of childbirth are safer.
This concept of marriage is prevalent, but whenever the ancient society is in chaos, the policy of early marriage and early childbearing will be intensified, and this phenomenon has been intensified with the development of ancient society.
However, in the Tang Dynasty, this marriage policy of early marriage and early childbearing had a new highlight, that is, the "government allocation object":
"If a man is 20 or more than 15 and has no husband, the state and county will hire him to marry"
Twenty men and fifteen women, as long as they exceed this bottom line and are still single, then the state and county governments have the obligation to solve their marriage difficulties.
But in fact, the Tang Dynasty was already an international society, the population boundaries were blurred, the policy was the policy, the social atmosphere was much more open, and the most important thing was that the commodity economy at this stage developed rapidly, and there were many more industries among the people.
In the Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty government did not have so much leisure to force everyone to marry and have children early, so the Song Dynasty was an era when thirteen or fourteen-year-old girls got married the least. In the Song Dynasty, there were also female figures such as Li Qingzhao and Zhu Shuzhen, and the status of women in the Song Dynasty was improved, and they were no longer simple fertility machines.
In the later era, the germ of capitalism began to appear, if you have money, you can marry well, and if you don't have money, you may be singles for a lifetime, this series of phenomena is not unusual, but most of the nobles in the Ming and Qing dynasties have maintained the habit of early marriage and early childbearing, such as the emperors of the Qing Dynasty, from Shunzhi to Qianlong, there is no one who does not marry early, and a large number of princes are married early, and there are countless wives and concubines at the age of thirteen or fourteen, so that everyone thinks that they like thirteen or fourteen-year-olds, and they have quirks.
But for them, this is normal, if you marry a twenty-year-old woman, then it is equivalent to marrying an older leftover girl, and you can't care about it, and whether there is an older leftover girl is two words.