Today's law clearly stipulates that men and women are equal. Women enjoyed the same status as men in every respect, and any act of oppressing women, persecuting women, and not treating women as human beings was punished by law.
Women can have today's status, not in one fell swoop, but through the protracted struggle of countless predecessors, the reform of the social system again and again, and the efforts of women themselves. Today's women enjoy the right to education, the right to work, etc., and have achieved economic independence and can dominate their own lives.
Women in the old society, with no financial resources, could only live dependent on men. Men then regard women as tools: tools of labor, tools of procreation, tools of desire... Women have no status, no dignity, no voice.
In this context of the old society, the act of pawn wives arose. Pawn wife: It is to give his wife to others, to have children for others at the agreed time, and to pass on the generations. After the end of the ceremony, the woman returns to the original family, and the woman is turned around like a commodity.
Yan Jiangang's film "Mother as a Slave" is based on Rou Shi's novel of the same name, starring He Lin, Liu Zifeng and Bai Han, and was released on April 20, 2004. The film tells the story of a place in eastern Zhejiang during the Republic of China period, where Ah Xiu was given birth to a child by her gambling ghost husband.
01
Li Xiucai's family is a large family, the family is rich, but Li Xiucai is only 50 years old, there is no son, the couple is worried. In the old society, only sons could pass on the generations, and a family without sons was equivalent to extinction.
Li Xiucai's family has no sons, who should pass on the wealth of the Wanguan family? There is no successor, which is also filial piety to the ancestors. The clans reprimanded Li Xiucai and asked him to be his wife. Mrs. Li did not give birth to a son, and could not enter the ancestral hall of her husband's family before she died, and could not enter her husband's ancestral grave after her death.
Lady Li immediately entrusted someone to help Li Xiucai find an object, and with the help of the intermediary Shen Po, Lady Li found Ah Xiu. Ah Xiu is very beautiful and healthy, and she has given birth to two children. The eldest is a daughter, but unfortunately, after being born, her husband Ah Xiang thought that the child was a girl, so he drowned the child.
The child that Ah Xiu had worked so hard to give birth to was drowned in this way, and Ah Xiu had no choice but to cry. Half a year after the death of her daughter, Ah Xiu became pregnant again, and the second eldest was finally a boy born, named Chunbao.
In the eyes of men, women are like a hen laying eggs, and they don't talk about feelings at all. Serious patriarchal mentality allows men to kill their children, and such men are not worthy of being fathers. But in the patriarchal society, the husband is the sky, the wife has to listen to the husband for everything, and she has no right to speak.
02
Ah Xiang was originally a cobbler, but he did not work well and became infected with gambling. Now that he had a debt of an ass, he started the idea of Ah Xiu and gave Ah Xiu to Li Xiucai's family with 100 pieces of Ocean Codex.
After Ah Xiu knew that her husband had pawned her, she cried, but she had no choice but to endure the pain of leaving the 5-year-old Chunbao.
After Ah Xiu arrived at Li Xiucai's house, Li Xiucai was a gentle person, but Lady Li was very powerful and guarded against her everywhere. Lady Li asked Li Xiucai to go to Ah Xiu's room, and after doing that, she would leave and was not allowed to spend the night in Ah Xiu's room.
Li Xiucai saw that Ah Xiu looked very beautiful and liked it in his heart, so he quietly told Ah Xiu that as long as he could give birth to a son, he would definitely be good to Ah Xiu. Ah Xiu was very angry and soon became pregnant, and Li Xiucai asked the maid to take care of her with care. Mrs. Li did not dare to be too harsh on Ah Xiu, for fear that the child in her belly would slip up.
Children are of great importance to women, and women in the old society who could not have children were subject to all kinds of discrimination. Lady Li did not give birth to a son, so she could not enter the Li Family Ancestral Hall and could not enter the Tomb of the Li Family Ancestors. Ah Xiu can have children, but she is pawned by her husband, and she is actually a fertility tool.
Whether it is Mrs. Li or Ah Xiu, in the old society, they were all women controlled by male power. If Lady Li wanted to maintain her position, she was wary of Ah Xiu, afraid that Lady Li's seat would be taken away, but in fact they were all poor people.
03
After getting pregnant in October, Ah Xiu gave birth to a boy, which made Li Xiucai's family happy! Li Xiucai even asked Ah Xiu to name the child, and When Ah Xiu thought of chunbao at home, he named the child Qiubao, and Li Xiucai was very satisfied.
Li Xiucai was better for Ah Xiu, and Mrs. Li was very jealous, so she immediately went to ask for a wet nurse. She did not let Ah Xiu take the child, afraid that the child would kiss Ah Xiu, she let Ah Xiu do the rough work done by people.
Mrs. Li also repeatedly reminded Li Xiucai that Ah Xiu was only a pawn wife, that there could be no feelings between Li Xiucai and Ah Xiu, and that as soon as the ceremony period arrived, Ah Xiu would return to his home. But Li Xiucai thought that after the expiration of the three-year ceremony, he would find a way to let Ah Xiu stay as the child's aunt.
Li Xiucai also privately gave a family heirloom bracelet to Ah Xiu. Ah Xiu is in her own home, her husband never treats her as a person, and now Li Xiu is so good to her, she is very moved, and she gradually forgets a little about the original family.
A woman who has always lacked love, when someone is a little nicer to her, she will be flattered, and then thank Dade. In fact, Li Xiucai's kindness to Ah Xiu, that is, a little charity from the rich to the poor, is not real love.
Ah Xiu couldn't figure out his own position, and acting on his own goodness alone would be easy to be deceived. Mrs. Li knew her position, knew how to judge the hour and size up the situation, and went with the flow, so although she could not give birth to a son, she could still firmly sit in Mrs. Li's position.
04
Li Xiucai's family was overjoyed, everyone came to say hello, and Ah Xiang also came. He said that he had come to find Ah Xiu and wanted Ah Xiu to go back to see Chun Bao, but Li Xiu knew that his intention was nothing more than to ask for money. So Li Xiucai rejected Ah Xiang, then gave Ah Xiang two yuan and sent him away.
When Qiu Bao held a full moon banquet, Ah Xiang came again, and he told Ah Xiu that Chun Bao was sick and needed money to treat his illness. When Ah Xiu asked, he realized that the original 100 pieces of ocean had been squandered by Ah Xiang.
Although Ah Xiu lived well in Li Xiucai's house, he did not have any money at hand. Now in order to save Chunbao, she can only go back to the room to get the bracelet that Li Xiucai gave her, and wants Ah Xiang to sell it and treat Chunbao again.
When Ah Xiu was holding the bracelet, she happened to be seen by Lady Li, and Lady Li thought that Ah Xiu had stolen it. As a result, when the two people were fighting, the bracelet accidentally fell to the ground and shattered. Li Xiu was disappointed after learning this, and he felt that no matter how good he was to Ah Xiu, Ah Xiu was always thinking about her former home.
Children are the heart of a woman, and when she hears that her child is sick, her first reaction is to save her child. In order to save the child, Ah Xiu thought of selling the bracelet that Li Xiu gave her, but she did not know that if she really gave the bracelet to Ah Xiang, Ah Xiang might not go to see the child, and the gambler's heart only gambled.
05
After Qiu Bao turns one year old, he can walk and call people. Usually, Lady Li always does not let Ah Xiu get close to Qiu Bao, and deliberately prevents their mother and son from getting close.
On this day, when Ah Xiu was doing housework, Qiu Bao suddenly ran from the room. Ah Xiu was overjoyed and immediately ran over to let Qiu Bao call her "Mother". Ah Xiu does not want to be Qiu Bao's aunt, Qiu Bao is the flesh that fell from her body, she is Qiu Bao's mother.
Lady Li just happened to see this scene and was so angry that she immediately drove Ah Xiu out of the Li family. Li Xiucai's heart for Ah Xiu has also been cold to Ah Xiu since the last time the bracelet happened, so he did not stop madame from driving Ah Xiu away.
Ah Xiu could only return to his original home, and When Ah Xiang saw her, he looked disgusted, snorted coldly in his mouth, and went outside the door. Chun Bao, who had grown up, did not know Ah Xiu at all, and Ah Xiu wanted to get close to him, but he refused to let Ah Xiu go thousands of miles away.
Ah Xiu looked at Chun Bao, who did not recognize herself, and thought of Qiu Bao in her heart, her heart was about to be torn apart.
In the old society, the fate of many pawn wives was very pitiful, and when they were pawned out by their husbands, they were good family women. But when they returned, their husbands hated them, and some of them directly threw them out of the house. Some wives have become dusty women in order to survive; some choose to commit suicide.
epilogue:
The brutal economic exploitation and class oppression of feudal society firmly nailed the working people to the lowest level of society. The upper class also used feudal morality and so on to mentally enslave and oppress the industrious and kind toiling masses, which overwhelmed people.
Ah Xiu is industrious and kind, she does her duty and acts in a down-to-earth manner, but her fate is not under her control. She was always a tool for others, and her husband used her to give birth to his son Chunbao, and then he pawned her out and exchanged her for 100 oceans, using her as a cash cow.
Li Xiucai's family took Ah Xiu into the door, and the purpose was more clear, that is, to borrow Ah Xiu's belly to give birth to a child. As for the mother-child relationship between Ah Xiu and the child, in their eyes, there is no existence, Ah Xiu is just a tool, and the mission of the tool is completed, and it kicks her out of the door.
Ah Xiu himself was confused, did not understand his position, did not fight for himself, so he finally ended up with a pitiful end. Kindness is a virtue, but there must also be a bottom line, and obedience will only fuel the arrogance of bad people. Women also have to learn to fight, to work hard to change their destiny.
【Picture from the network】