I believe that the word self-combing woman is a completely unfamiliar word to many friends. If you have seen Hong Kong veteran director Zhang Zhiliang's "Self-combing", you must know what is called self-combing women, Liu Jialing played by Yuhuan and Yang Caini played by Yi Huan, vividly interpreting the resistance of women after being exploited by the patriarchal society under the oppression of the old society, and finally voluntarily becoming "self-combing women".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" >, self-combing female origin</h1>
The term comb girl arose during the Qing Dynasty and flourished in the late Qing Dynasty. In the course of the times, some women are no longer inferior in status, humbly living with patience, igniting anger at the challenge of patriarchal society, they are unwilling to marry and have children, go out to work to support themselves, and do not rely on men to live. In order to distinguish themselves from unmarried young girls with double braids, they comb their own hair, which is named "self-combing women".
The emergence of "self-combing women" is the awakening of women's self-consciousness and a signal of the collapse of the old society. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, with the loosening of the policy of closing the country to the outside world, Western countries gradually entered a closed and backward Chinese society. With the introduction of capitalism, which brought not only advanced science and technology, but also the idea of equality and freedom, the Western countries introduced factory machinery and assembly line operations to China in large quantities, and opened factories for employment relations such as textile factories and cotton factories.
In the social background at that time, there were not only capitalist factories, but also the Westerners headed by Zuo Zongtang, who also followed the example of Western capitalism in building factories, which created sufficient employment conditions for the late Qing society at that time. Ordinary people no longer use the traditional male and female weaving farming work, as the only way of survival, the remaining labor force in the family (such as women, children, the elderly, etc.) have entered the factory, of which the women in the family are the main force to work in the factory.
Women have a large economic income, not only can they support their own lives, but also after entering the factory, they are the first to come into contact with the essence of free thought in the West where everyone is equal. With money, vision, and a platform for freedom, then it is logical for women to awaken to their free minds.
In the feudal society of the late Qing Dynasty at that time, men occupied the main position in society, and women could only listen to men's voices throughout their lives. Birth is arranged by the father, after reaching the marriageable age, arranged marriage by the parents, married to the husband who has never met, if the husband is a person who is lazy and lazy, spending days and drinking, the wife cannot change the embarrassing marital situation, but just do a good job as a wife, have children and filial piety to the elderly.
Women with independent personalities began to advocate women's social status, opposing the married life of "marrying chickens with chickens, marrying dogs with dogs", and men could not dominate women's life destiny. To rebel in behavior, that is, not to marry, not to have children, to rely only on the woman herself for a lifetime, not to rely on the life of a man at all, not to accept the oppression of a man's marriage, and to completely control her life by a woman. This is the earliest "self-combing woman".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" > second, self-combing female life</h1>
"Self-combing woman" is not a casual word on a whim, if a woman strongly wants to become an independent "self-combing woman".
First, a tedious and solemn self-grooming ceremony is required. When the fortune teller calculates the auspicious day in advance, the place is the local "aunt's house". After determining the time and place, he took an aromatherapy bath three days in advance, ate and prayed to the Buddha, and swore in front of the Buddha and Bodhisattva that he would not marry in this life and would voluntarily not marry for life.
Secondly, after that, the formal self-combing begins on auspicious days, usually by the elderly self-combing women to help the new self-combing women to comb their hair. In the process of combing, the elderly self-combing women recite the eight blessings of one comb, two combs, three combs, four combs of peace, and so on. After combing their hair, the self-grooming women would change into new clothes that were carefully sewn, and the powerful and wealthy families would also feast on the guests.
Finally, parents prepare a separate house for the self-grooming girl at home. After the baptism of the self-combing ceremony, the self-combing women are independent women, no longer need to be attached to anyone to live, can independently support a family.
From the moment of completing the self-combing ceremony, the surrounding parents, relatives, friends and neighbors will no longer force the self-combing women to marry and have children, and the self-combing women can also show their faces every day, carry out normal work and social interaction, although there will be some opposition in the society, but more and more people recognize the self-combing women and join the ranks of the self-combing women, which is particularly strong at the end of the Qing Dynasty.
Not only some marriageable women have voluntarily become self-combing women from the beginning, but also some women who have suffered unhappy married lives have also joined the ranks of self-combing women, who boldly rebelled against feudal patriarchal society and spoke out for women's freedom and equality.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="17" > third, the old age of the self-combing woman</h1>
Once the self-combing woman joins, she cannot regret it for a lifetime. Feudal society believed in the theory of gods and ghosts, when they first joined the self-combing women, they swore an oath to the Buddha and Bodhisattva that they would become self-combing women for the rest of their lives, and if they violated the oath, the gods would send disasters to punish those who were not honest. At the same time, it will also be discussed and excluded by the neighbors around it.
Under the social background of the late Qing Dynasty at that time, the traffic conditions were extremely scarce, and the common modes of travel were only walking and horse-drawn carriages, which could not meet the needs of family relocation. Therefore, the moral and public opinion pressure of the people is very terrible, if a person lives in an environment of indifference and discrimination every day, it is bound to crush a person's will and eventually lead to death.
In some extreme areas, if the self-combing women have trespassing behavior, there will also be self-combing women who will repent, severely whipped, hang their hands in the sun, and even put them in pig cages and throw them into the river to drown alive. After his death, his parents were not allowed to collect the buried bodies for burial, and only other self-groomed women wrapped in straw mats and buried in the wilderness ridge grass.
The self-groomed woman who is old or sick can only return to the "aunt's house" to live. Self-combing women are not allowed to die in their parents' homes, and after death, no one will sweep the tomb and sacrifice on the Qingming Festival and ghost festival, so some self-combing women are forced to become "tomb keepers".
The old age of the self-combing woman has some sad meanings, there is no lover's company and no children and grandchildren around the knees, only the same old and weak self-combing women as companions, when sick, it is likely to not be carefully cared for.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="23" >4</h1>
Although the extreme resistance of self-combing women's culture rebels against men's social status, it is not another kind of confinement for women, but this kind of confinement is re-reinforced in another way on women. This is a culture that is destined to be abandoned by the times, so after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, it quickly declined.
From the rise to the decline of only about 300 years of history, although time has not left a strong mark on the way forward of the times, it is also an important manifestation of the awakening of women's independent consciousness. But self-combing women are a sad song for women, who need to pay more in exchange for independence and freedom, so they eventually withdraw from the stage of history.