|| Wang Guan Lingyi
There was a xiucai, because he had no sons, he was already fifty years old, and he wanted to buy a concubine; and because his eldest wife did not allow it, he was only allowed to pawn one, and for three or five years, he asked me to find a woman of the same kind: about thirty years old, who had raised two or three sons, who should be silent and honest, and who was willing to do things, and who would bow his head to his eldest wife.
- Roushi, "Mother of Slaves"
"Mother for Slaves" is a very famous short story by revolutionary writer Roushi, who indicted the history of women's undignified fertility and blood and tears under the canonical wife system, and the contrast between the weakness and helplessness of women and the strength and indomitability of mothers is in stark contrast, which is lamentable!
The canonical wife was a sinful temporary marriage system of the old era, and women were traded like commodities and reduced to reproductive tools.
For men, they are no different from prostitutes, their status is low and humble, but as mothers of children, they also have strong emotions that are difficult to let go, and their love and sacrifice are selfless, but they are also trampled in the dirt and cannot bloom.
Compared with the despicable nature of abandoning her son after a certain star is now surrogate, the "surrogate" mother in "For the Slave's Mother" is not sure how much nobler than a certain star who is dressed in fine clothes!
At that time, the famous French writer Romain Roland read Roushi's "Mother of Slaves" in the French edition of International Literature, and wrote to the editorial department: "I am deeply moved by this story. ”
I think the touching thing about the novel is that although this mother lives without status and dignity, the spiritual quality of enduring humiliation and accepting is worthy of praise, and at the same time reflects the bottomless human evil of men in the patriarchal society.
How disgraceful it is to pawn his wife to someone else to have a child for his own selfish purposes, but in that year of imbalance between men and women, there are too many such tragedies!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13" > the numb humanity behind the wife is more terrible than the poverty</h1>
Her husband is a leather dealer, who usually does some farm work, and helps people plant seedlings in the spring, which is a beautiful job.
However, the business is not easy to do, coupled with heavy taxes, the husband owes a lot of debts, the temper becomes grumpy, smoking, drinking and gambling, and the family's situation is worse than a day.
Due to constant corruption and tossing, her husband became poor and sick, his whole body became yellow, people said that he suffered from jaundice, and the children next door gave him the nickname "Yellow Fat".
Huang Fat was so poor that he reached the point of smashing pots and selling iron, so he started his wife's idea and wanted to pawn her out.
After a creditor Wang Wolf came to collect the debt, Huang Fat confessed to his wife, saying that he had pawned her out through Shen Matchmaker.
The wife was so shocked that she could not speak, and asked the husband why he did not say it earlier. Huang Fat shamelessly replied that he did not want to live and wanted to jump into the river to die, but he did not have the courage, and happened to meet Shen Matchmaker, who came up with an idea:
Son, you only have one, reluctantly. But the wife, though hairy, is poor and has no law. What else do you do at home?
Shen Mediabo said that there is a Xiucai surnamed Li, 50 years old and no children, want to pawn a woman to give birth to a child for herself, Huang Fat wife conditions are very consistent, the two will privately trade, one hundred yuan canon for three years, if you can't give birth to a child, it will be pawn for five years.
Poverty is terrible, but seeing here, the husband's numb and selfish ugly human nature is even more sad, in the old society, men treat women as improper people, the poorer the place, the more miserable the status and situation of women, they are cattle and horses, in times of crisis, they have to be like commodities, used by the closest people, the only remaining goodness and beauty of human nature, squeezed dry by poverty.
Huang Fat's wife, who is also Chunbao's mother, the child is only five years old, weaned soon, what should I do without a mother and child?
Huang Fat said that the child was taken by him. However, Chun Bao Niang still did not dare to imagine how miserable her child's life would be without herself.
In the midst of her crying, she remembered that a year earlier, she had given birth to a daughter herself, and after giving birth she was lying powerlessly and painfully in bed, with the umbilical cord and placenta still around, but at this moment, the fierce husband walked in with a bucket of boiling water and threw her daughter into the bucket.
Her heart was dripping blood, but she didn't even have the strength to struggle to stop it. It is said that tigers are poisonous and do not eat children, but the inhuman yellow fat, like a butcher killing a lamb, strangled his own children with his own hands.
Perhaps in Huang Fat's heart, women are useless except for having children and working. His daughter's life was worth nothing to him, but it was a burden to eat and feed. With this terrible thought, it is strange that his life can get better!
Although Chun Bao Niang was reluctant to give birth to another man, her fate was already doomed, and she could not resist. Chun Bao was still foolishly asking where niang was going, and he had to follow, otherwise he would be with his father, and his father would beat him again.
Chun Bao's heart was like a knife, and the night before she left, she mended all the worn-out clothes for the children, and even took out the tattered cotton jackets to be worn in winter and explained them to her husband one by one.
Li Xiucai's family, who was a rich family, sent a palanquin to carry her early in the morning, but she was reluctant to chunbao in the end and cried for a while.
The sedan laughed at her: Isn't it the bride crying? Shen Mediabo also snatched Chunbao from her arms, saying that going to Li Xiucai's house was to enjoy wealth and wealth, and it was not the same pain to give birth to a child in the past!
In this way, she was forced to leave her children and go to another family to face an unknown fate and complete her mission of passing on the generations.
Poverty makes people backward, and this statement seems to be true. In the face of poverty, money distorts human nature, people's minds become numb and barren, in order to live, you can give up dignity and sell your soul, but what is the point of living like this?
The pawn wife is a cancer in feudal society, the evil result of the idea of succession, although ashamed to say it, but between the bottom who have no life security and the rich who are conservative in their thinking, a tacit understanding has been formed.
Huang Fat and Xiu Cai's adultery killed a woman's happiness!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13" > powerless to save and fight, is the sacrifice for the child worth it</h1>?
Life in Xiucai's home is another form of suffering for Chun Bao niang, although the living conditions are much better, she still has no status.
Xiucai's wife is not a poisonous woman, she and Xiucai lived together for thirty years, gave birth to a boy in the middle, but unfortunately died of smallpox at ten months, and has not been regenerated since then. The husband originally wanted to marry a concubine, but she was jealous, so she had to get a temporary wife in the end.
Xiucai is also gentle with Chunbao Niang, after all, she is a reader, much better than Huang Fat, but she still misses her old home and Chunbao from time to time, and she always dreams of Chunbao in her dreams.
However, as the days passed, the old home and Chunbao gradually drifted away in her mind, like a dream of nothingness.
In Xiucai's home, she has a lot of work to do, and it is more and more varied every day, and she is like a maid and a coolie. Xiucai's wife also often monitored her every move, fearing that she would seduce Xiucai's soul, and sometimes scolded the maid.
Fortunately, Chun Bao Niang arrived at Xiucai's house for less than two years, and she became pregnant.
This Coke spoiled Xiucai, and became better for Chun Bao niang, not only personally went to the street to buy kumquats for her to eat, but also let her work less, and also read to her the poem "Guan Guan Ju Dove".
But Xiucai's kindness to Chun Bao Niang has aroused the jealousy of his wife, who not only scolds Chun Bao Niang for being delicate, but also maliciously mocks her, saying that she used to be in her own home, "I am afraid that like the female dog on the street, she has a belly puppy in her belly, and when she is about to give birth, she still has to run everywhere for food." ”
Hearing such a sneer, Chun Bao Niang cried bitterly, fortunately, Xiu Cai came to comfort her and gave her a green jade ring.
Pregnant in October, Chun Bao Niang gave birth to a big fat boy, this Coke bad Xiucai, he went through the "I Ching" and "Book Of Books", wanted to take a good name, expressing the joy of his old age, but it was difficult to find the right one.
At this time, the Chunbao Niang on the side remembered her own Chunbao, so she said, "Wasn't he born in the autumn?" Autumn Baby – or call him 'Autumn Baby'. ”
Xiucai was very happy, and he himself explained that he had reached the autumn period of his life, and autumn was the season of maturity of all things, and there were also words in the Book of Books that "there is also autumn", which is really a good name!
However, who knows the heartache of Chun Bao Niang and now Qiu Bao Niang, just in order to give birth to a child who inherits the family business to a rich family, she will be forced to leave her helpless child, what a inhuman thing.
Qiu Bao grew up day by day, and he couldn't do without his mother for a moment, but he wasn't very affectionate with Xiucai and his wife.
Xiucai wanted to spend some more money to buy Qiu Bao Niang forever, but zheng's wife did not agree, she only allowed Qiu Bao to call herself Niang, and to her biological mother, she wanted to call "aunt".
When she was a mother, her heart was extremely conflicted: the three-year deadline was approaching, on one side was Chunbao, on the other side was Qiubao, both were her children, and she couldn't bear to give up any of them. In Xiucai's house, she was as intolerable as a maid to her wife, but when she went back to her old husband, she would have to be separated from Qiu Bao forever and endure Huang Fat's rough treatment.
Chun Bao Niang also tried to resist fate, she knew that Huang Fat was terminally ill and had no medicine to save, afraid that she would die in a few years. She wants to bring Chunbao to Xiucai's house as well, so that the two children will be reunited with her.
However, Xiucai's wife did not agree to it, and even Xiucai's request to renew the ceremony for three years did not agree, and she did not care that Qiu Bao left her mother before she was two years old, and she could take care of herself.
When Qiu Bao was one year old, Xiucai's family set up a banquet for one year. On this day, Huang Fat, who was already a ghost and a ghost, also came, and he secretly found Chun Bao Niang, saying that Chun Bao had been ill for a long time, and he had been too thin to look like a man, and he would die no matter what, and he came to borrow money.
Of course, Chun Bao Niang didn't have any money, she was so anxious that she gave Huang Fat the jade ring that Xiucai had given her, asking him to quickly go back to treat the child.
This matter was only known to Xiu, and he was very angry and sighed:
Always good for ex-husbands and ex-children, no matter what I do to you! Originally, I would have liked to keep you for two more years, but now, you will leave until next spring!
Chun Bao Niang was haggard day by day, and there was no radiance in her eyes, and she often worried about Chun Bao's illness. When the deadline arrived, her fate of being separated from Qiu Bao forever had already been decided, and she had no use value and was abandoned like a grass.
Without a palanquin to carry, she walked more than thirty miles back to her old home. Although Chunbao was still alive, his clothes were ragged, his hair was disheveled, and he was as tall as he was three years ago, and he was only alive.
Moreover, Chunbao became very strange to her, and at night she and the equally dry Chunbao lay on the narrow slab bed, incomparably desolate, and her future days and fates, like the cold and dead long nights, could not see the dawn.
Everything seems to have not changed, but the mother has lost a son and has more of a heartache.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13" > Conclusion: The brilliance of maternal love transcends human nature</h1>
"Mother of Slaves" was written in 1930, during the Republic of China period, although the phenomenon of pawn wives declined, it was still very serious, and it disappeared until the founding of New China after liberation.
In 2003, director Yan Jiangang adapted Roushi's novel into a movie, telling the story of a mother in the backward area of eastern Zhejiang, who was pawned by her husband, full of humiliation and reluctance, and three years later, she returned painfully and hesitantly, and the gray tone of the film was full of depression.
Wife ceremonies are more prevalent in Zhejiang and other places, and local folk customs "still have a vicious trend of selling wives." The man's family is poor, and he marries and sells his wife to support himself, and the woman's family does not interfere. ”
In the old society, women were appendages of men, had no social and political status, and after marriage, husbands and wives were honored, husbands were damaged, and in the face of survival, there was no dignity and humanity to speak of.
However, as a mother, she has feelings that cannot be separated from her children. Chun Bao Niang in "Mother of Slaves", as a wife, she cannot resist her husband's misdeeds, and can only choose to suffer all the pain silently, even if her daughter is strangled and forced to leave her son.
The era and environment she lived in did not allow her to fight, she could only use cries and tears to scrub the wounds of fate, she was not afraid of living a hard life, not afraid of being humiliated by different men, afraid of cutting off her feelings with her children.
Chun Bao Niang's awakening, perhaps in Xiucai's house, for the first time she felt that women could also be loved and treated as people, even if they were servants, it was better than fertility tools and goods to be bought and sold. But she does not covet the glory and happiness of Xiucai's family, she only has children in her heart, which is her greatness.
Huang Fat can abandon her, but she can't abandon Chunbao, Xiucai and Zheng's wife can not regard her as family, but she will always be Qiubao's mother. It's just that the reality is cruel, and she has to be forced to make a choice.
As a mother, she chose Chunbao, who is weaker and needs her care and care more, if she destroys her humanity, she can completely please Xiucai and marry her as a concubine, so that there is also a life guarantee, and there is also an Autumn Treasure, but her maternal love and conscience make her unable to do that.
Qiu Bao was born in a rich family, although he would cry and make trouble when he left his mother, but after all, there were still Xiucai and his wife to take care of him, so he was destined to be a rich young master, and he would not be bad, and whether he had a mother or not was the same.
But for Chun bao, it is completely different, when the father's yellow fat is naturally unreliable, he only has one mother who can love him. If his mother does not return, then his fate is doomed to be extremely tragic, and it is unknown whether he will live to adulthood.
Sacrificing herself and leaving the Xiucai family, which may change her destiny, she returned to Chunbao's side, which is already a victory of human nature, and the sacrifice has value.
There is no such thing as the best of both worlds, but there is always a bottom line, and keeping the bottom line also holds the dawn of human nature.
What do you think of the phenomenon of the pawn wife and the fate of Qiu Baoniang? Welcome to leave a message to discuss.
I am Wang Guan Lingyi, focusing on literary and historical review writing, welcome to forward comments to like the collection, pay attention to @ Wang Guan Lingyi words literary history, we read wonderful historical stories and characters together.