Ancient women's dowry rights belonged to themselves? Can remarrying still be taken away from the husband's family? Don't dream first, see which dynasty you live in, if the Yuan Dynasty was OK before, the Yuan Dynasty and the future Ming and Qing Dynasties, or less crooked.
This series of articles is about the dowry rights of feudal women in different eras, as well as the inheritance rights of property in the in-laws' families, and does not involve the property of the mother-in-law. This article is the last in a series, covering the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="67" >01, the property rights of women in the in-laws of the Yuan Dynasty</h1>
When the time came to the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols did not have so many rules, basically continued to follow the original customary law of various ethnic groups, and the marriage customs, marriage laws and inheritance rights of women in the Yuan Dynasty also continued to follow the old system of Jin and Song.
Due to years of war, which led to a sharp decline in population and economic depression, the Yuan Dynasty government especially encouraged women to remarry in order to increase the population and revive the economy.
Whether it is a divorced, righteous or widowed woman, they can quickly remarry, and their parents and in-laws even take the initiative to arrange for them to remarry, resolutely opposing the act of observing the festival, so that there is a oolong, a certain female widow, who voluntarily observes the festival to serve the mother-in-law, and the mother-in-law advises the daughter-in-law: "The wives of the world are like this, and people have not thought it wrong, so why is it shameful to be alone?" In the end, the mother-in-law married first, leaving a stunned daughter-in-law.
Throughout the early period of the Yuan Dynasty, it can be called a remarriage into the wind, "the death of his husband, the twilight marriage", "the tears of Qi decline have not dried, and the feast of flowers and candles has revived".
It is precisely because of the chaos in the world that the shackles of etiquette and rules are limited, so at that time, many husbands died on the front foot in society, and wives and concubines ran away from the back foot to remarry, so that the government had to intervene in the restriction.
Then, with the recovery of the economy, the deepening of the degree of Sinicization, and the expansion of the influence of theoreticians, Cheng Zhu Lixue, who was abandoned at the turn of the Song and Yuan dynasties, resurrected, and the problem of women's chastity was picked up by men and began to restrict remarriage. The most effective means of preventing women from remarrying is naturally economic sanctions.
In the seventh year of Emperor Chengzong's reign (1303), the imperial court issued a new regulation: In addition to divorcing women who remarry for no reason, whether they are husbands and wives or widows, if they remarry, the dowry property at the time of the first marriage is disposed of by the ex-husband's family.
Seven years before Dade, the Yuan Dynasty government continued the old practice of the previous dynasty, and was still relatively tolerant of women who were allowed to carry dowries to remarry, but the law of the seventh year of Dade completely deprived women of their property rights, which naturally meant that the property rights of feudal women were further weakened.
For the widowed and childless festival-abiding women, like the Tang and Song Dynasties, they can inherit the husband's position and analyze the property, if there is no one to support, the government can also give subsidies, the Yuan Dynasty government this point of humane subsidies, in fact, to put it bluntly, or encourage women to keep the festival for their husbands.
If the widow is unwilling to observe the festival and wants to recruit a porter or remarry, all property must be filed in the government office and handed over to the heirs after the children of the ex-husband are fifteen years old.
Obviously, such a provision deprived women of the Yuan Dynasty not only the right to inherit the husband's property, but also the right to share the dowry with their husbands.
If a woman wastes her ex-husband's furniture after recruiting her husband, from herself to her husband to the matchmaker, she is guilty.
Even women who observe the festival for their husbands are not allowed to sell the population of the farmhouse without reason when the children are young, which shows that women in the Yuan Dynasty still only have the right to manage the property in the husband's family, but do not have the right to dispose of it.
In short, women's property inheritance rights were further deprived and weakened after seven years of Dade, although there are still cases of women successfully remarrying with their property, but compared with the Tang and Song Dynasties, there are very few.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="70" >02, the property rights of women in the in-laws of the Ming Dynasty</h1>
After entering the Ming Dynasty, with the establishment of the "compulsory heir system" by the government, women's property inheritance rights became weaker and weaker, and when a female husband died childless and observed the festival, she could inherit the husband's throne and divide the property, but the patriarch must choose the heir of zhaomu, and could not enjoy the freedom of the southern Song Dynasty women who wanted to establish an heir and did not want to stand.
Obviously, this regulation of the Ming Dynasty tied widowed women to heirs, and widows were no longer eligible to inherit the property of their deceased husbands, but could only establish heirs for their husbands and supervise the property for their heirs.
On this point of trust-based escrow, women have to pay the price of abiding by the festival for a lifetime, once remarried, even this right is not; at the same time, they also lose their own dowry rights, and compared with the power that women in the Song Dynasty can enjoy, the gap is really big.
In the Song Dynasty, women's dowry rights were only shared with their husbands, and their fathers and mothers-in-law could not touch them, but in the Ming Dynasty, once women married, let alone said that they were not eligible to share the dowry rights with their husbands, the dowry had to be directly subject to the control of the husband and father.
Zhang Jiangling, the first assistant of Daming, the only girl to marry, the dowry was locked up by father-in-law Liu Yiru, Zhang Jiangling as the first assistant of Daming's first cattle, enough domineering, right? If women in the Ming Dynasty could have the right to dowry as stated in "Jin Ping Mei", why didn't Lao Zhang give his girlfriend a head?
People who like to say that women in "Jin Ping Mei" have the right to dominate the dowry are actually caught in a misunderstanding, that is, the women in the book who can dominate their dowry are all spicy goods, and none of them are the following rules and regulations that follow the three from four virtues and three principles and five constants.
In the Song Dynasty, there were also evil women who did not support their mother-in-law after the death of their husbands and remarried with their property, and when their mother-in-law died, they returned to compete with the servants who served their adoptive mother-in-law ("Ming Gong Shu Sentenced Qingming Ji • Wife Has Changed to Suitable for Occupying Her Ex-Husband's Property"), this kind of example can represent the overall women of the Song Dynasty?
More representative in the Ming Dynasty is embodied in the "Huo Wei Jia Training": whoever marries a woman has a field, one-third, listens to her daughter, and returns to the ancestral hall with two-thirds.
Huo Weigao is one of the upstarts of the Great Gifts, Huo Tao, from his family training can be seen, in the Ming Dynasty, as soon as a virtuous and virtuous woman entered her husband's family, the dowry right was deprived of her husband's family, and she had no right to dominate at all, let alone remarry and take it away.
Unless the strong Liang women, such as the widow Yingshi in "Mengshui Zhai Cun Mu Luo Four Volumes , Contending for The Field Production liu yuanmo", and the widow Deng Shi in "Mengshui Zhai Cun Mu Luo , Extinction Zhang Xingxiang", they are all in a hurry to remarry after the death of their husbands, and entrust people to sell their husbands' inheritance in order to remarry with their property.
There is also the widow Zhou Shi in the "Commentary on the New Language of The Prison Folding, Volume I, Marriage, and Deception", who framed the heirs for taking the property, and took the opportunity to loot the husband's family property and transfer it to the new husband's family.
In the "Jiaqing Taicang Zhou Zhi", Xu Zhong of taicang hundred households, the widowed mother-in-law committed adultery, but instead falsely accused his concubine Xu Zhong of rebellion, encountered a misjudgment by the fainting official, and the Xu family's land property was occupied by the mother-in-law, including the dowry of Xu Zhong's wife Wang, and both husband and wife were killed by the mother-in-law.
All the above-mentioned women were able to successfully remarry with their children, but they were all objects of condemnation and criticism in the eyes of scholars, and could they represent the image and status of women as a whole in the Ming Dynasty?
In a word, the property rights of women in the Ming Dynasty can be said to be the smallest in the dynasties and dynasties, and it is necessary not to be a wicked woman, or to use the "matriarchy" to pose the prestige of the old mother when the son is in charge.
Therefore, if you want to write through the female struggle in the cross-novel, or don't wear it to the fucking Daming, even if you can't wear Qin Han, at least you have to wear it to the Tang and Song Dynasties!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="71" >03, property rights of Women in the in-laws of the Qing Dynasty</h1>
Although the Qing Dynasty inherited the Ming system, such as the mandatory establishment of heirs when the husband died and had no children; the inheritance of the daughter-in-law was allowed when there was no heir; when a woman wanted to remarry, the property and dowry inherited by the husband were to be decided by the ex-husband's family, and so on; the rights enjoyed by women in the Qing Dynasty after marriage far exceeded that of the women of the Ming Dynasty.
Before the Qing Dynasty, after a woman married, the patriarchal power had to give way to the husband's power. However, in the Qing Dynasty, the father and husband had the same power, that is to say, the mother's inheritance of the daughter could be interfered with or even recovered.
Even if there are two mountains overhead, under the balance between the two sides, the Dowry Rights of Qing Dynasty women in the husband's family have a certain degree of independence, and there will be no situation where the dowry is dominated by the husband and father like the Ming Dynasty.
Judging from the relevant historical data, women and husbands in the Qing Dynasty shared the right to use and own the property, but did not have the right to sell and finally dispose of the property.
In particular, the ownership of the field, in general, in the dowry of women in the Qing Dynasty, the woman only has the right to the surface of the field, that is, the right to lease or produce income from the field, but the right to the bottom of the field, that is, the ownership of the land, still belongs to the mother's family.
Of course, if the mother's family gives the daughter or grandson the ownership of the field and the right to the income of the field, it is necessary to sign a special contract for the record to avoid disputes over property.
There is an example in the "Qing History Manuscript Biography of the Spirited Daughter": the daughter of the Pu clan of Tongxiang, because her mother was jealous and her father was childless, when she got married, her mother gave her all the money in the family, as well as the farmhouse, slaves, and various items, resulting in her husband Wu Sheng becoming rich overnight.
However, this little girl who had been poisoned by the three from four virtues since she was a child was too foolish and filial, and the old pity her father had no son, and repeatedly persuaded her mother to give birth to a concubine for her father, and was scolded by her mother.
This heartless girl did not dare to provoke her mother, so she secretly prepared a bed-warming maid for her father, and then invited her father to live in her house for a while, and the maid really gave birth to her brother, and this stupid girl sent her brother back to her mother's family to go to the family tree, hated her mother so much that she took back the farmhouse, slave maids, wanjin, etc. that accompanied her, and did not see her for life.
And The husband of the Pu woman, Wu Sheng, went from marrying a wife to becoming extremely poor, and he was so angry that he almost wanted to kill the Pu woman, and the rebellious Pu woman finally committed suicide, not knowing what her scumbag was doing when she died.
The Case Of the Great Qing Dynasty Canon volume 753 households were kept childless
Judging from this tragic example, it is likely that the mother of the Pu woman did not write a contract at the beginning, so she could withdraw the gift to her daughter, and it can also be seen that the Qing Dynasty women's inheritance, the mother's family has the final interpretation.
Therefore, when encountering women with strong personalities, or women who survive until their sons are in charge, they can use the mother's power to control the family's property power in practice, of course, this situation is not only unique to women in the Qing Dynasty, but also appeared in women of all generations.
In addition, in the twelfth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1673), there was a new rule: and divorced women could take away the dowry. The introduction of this regulation is somewhat in line with the Tang and Song dynasties, in Chinese history, only the Yuan Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, the two Raji dynasties, forbade women and took away dowries.
At the same time, the Qing Dynasty also had a rule: if the widow wants to remarry, the dowry should not be thought of, and the mother's family must return the dowry originally given by the husband's family, and then the daughter can be taken home to marry another. Compared with the encouragement of the Yuan Dynasty and the forced observance of the Festival of the Ming Dynasty, the Braid qing is still relatively humane.
Cases of the Great Qing Dynasty Canon, Volume 756 Marriage and Wifebirth
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="74" >04, Monkey said</h1>
Since entering the patriarchal society, the decision of women to obtain family property lies in the grant of men, who are the legal owners and heirs of family property, that is, how much dowry a woman can have is not determined by law, but by the owner of the right to family property.
Compared with men, the weakness of women's property inheritance rights in ancient China is obvious, whether from the perspective of productivity or from the patriarchal system, the status of men and women is unequal, under the dual oppression of patriarchy and husband power, women can only become appendages of men.
Men also use etiquette to curb women's economic advancement, instill in women the concept of "selfless goods", praise women's behavior of dedicating dowries to men, and through honor and encouragement, shape women into marionettes who help, support their husbands' families, and unconditionally sacrifice for men, thus proving that they are "virtuous helpers" and making them feel self-moved.
These are obviously the persecution of women by the patriarchal society, but the terrible thing is that there are many women who are good at self-touching and eat this set, and really think that they should dedicate everything to men, even if they enter modern society, there is still no shortage of such women.
Even more women who receive modern education but are confused, from a few ancient "humble women" special cases feel that feudal women as long as they are in the status of wives, have two lifetimes of dowry, can sit on an equal footing with their husbands, look at the concubines, the days are simply more moist than modern women.
But I don't know, feudal men will only condone women a little when women have not violated the interests of men's power, once what women do violate the interests of men's rights, no matter what he wives and daughters, in front of the feudal male power, you are nothing!
Just like the story of "Awakening to the World Hengyan Wang Dayin Burning Baolian Temple", most of those who go to Baolian Temple to ask for children are noble wives, how many concubines are qualified to go to the temple to ask for children?
But after the filthy incident at Po Lin Monastery, did the husband's wife ever remember the love of husband and wife? As a son-in-law, have you ever taken into account the attitude of the Yue family? As a father, have you ever had a father-son affection for the concubines and concubines that your wife has asked for?
In the past, women used to ask for children in monasteries, give birth to men and women, their husbands refused to recognize, the big ones were expelled, and the small ones drowned. Many women are ashamed of themselves, and the people's customs have been correct since then. ("Awakening to the Everlasting Word", vol. 39, Wang Dayin burning The Baolian Temple)
Some naïve modern women really take for granted the status and property rights of ancient women, and in the era of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, women may be able to protect their property rights to a certain extent because of the power of their mother's family.
But to think that all female wives in ancient times were able to handle the dowry independently, and the husband's family had no right to interfere, it is simply a fool's dream, even the modern legal society can not guarantee that women's premarital property will not be eroded, let alone the patriarchal system, the feudal era in which the husband power system was raging?
In the past five thousand years, women can have an equal and independent personality, legal property rights, and the highest social status, or it depends on the present dynasty! Stop distorting how nourishing the ancient wives who were under the unquestionable authority and dominance of patriarchal and husband-in-law power were!
That's it.
The image comes from the internet intrusion and deletion. The picture information is compiled by Monkey Grid.
References: "Dayuan Tong system", "Daming Huidian", "Daqing Huidian", Chen Peng's "Draft History of Chinese Marriage", He Yanxia's "Historical Investigation of Women's Property Inheritance Rights- Entanglement of Legal Principles and Legal Customs", He Zhaoyan's "Research on the Female Property Inheritance System in the Ming Dynasty", Ma Gaojie's "Civil Legal Status of Women in the Ming Dynasty", Wu Lili's "The Civil Legal Status of Women in the Qing Dynasty", Mao Liping's "On the Qing Dynasty's Tiantian", etc
Through appearances, we search for historical truths, take history as theory, tell personal opinions, and refuse excessive interpretation and conspiracy theories that are divorced from the human environment. Friends who like Liaoxia Jinyuan and Zongmiao Qianqi and harem gossip can pay attention to monkey grid.
Related Links:
Ancient wives' dowry rights (part 1): The Qin, Han, Wei, and Jin dynasties that could be independently controlled and taken away by Hugh
Ancient wives' dowry rights (middle): shared with their husbands, and divorced and remarried can also take away the Tang and Song Dynasties