What are the disadvantages of polygamy?

How harmful was polygamy in ancient China?

In ancient times when polygamy was legal, rich people were proud of polygamy and kept up with each other. Whether they are literati bureaucrats or landlords and businessmen, concubinage may be their first consideration after they have the right to get rich.

Han Feizi said, "Wei people have a husband and wife praying for' let me get a hundred bundles of cloth for nothing', and his husband said,' Why not?' Yes, I will buy a concubine. Mencius even said: "Qi people beg for food, but also have wives and concubines." ? On Dian in Han and Wei Dynasties: "Wang Yu, the Taiwei of Shangluo, sealed Hou with merit, and his wife wept in it, fearing wealth and polygamy." This shows that polygamy has a profound influence on the concept of ancient people in China.

Polygamy, especially royal polygamy, is too expensive in many periods and even affects the stability of the country. When Chen Fan wrote in the Eastern Han Dynasty, he said, "Ten people will be hurt five or six times compared with the previous year, and ten thousand people will be hungry and cold, not to mention their lives. However, it is impossible to gather thousands of women for meat, clothing and clothing. There is a common saying that' you can't steal five women's doors', and women are poor. Won't the daughter in the palace be poor in the future? It would be sad to get together without being royal. " (The Biography of Chen Fan in the Later Han Dynasty) Chen Fan made it clear that polygamy was enough to make the country poor.

To a great extent, the rise and fall of polygamy can be regarded as a barometer of China's ancient economy. Generally speaking, at the beginning of each dynasty, the economy was relatively fragile. After a long war, the people are not yet stable, the land is barren and the population is sparse. The ruling class witnessed the demise of the former dynasty, and more or less realized that the corruption of the former dynasty, especially the infinite expansion of the harem, was an important reason for its demise, so it controlled polygamy in number. However, after decades of development, economic recovery and social stability, the lessons of the demise of the former dynasty have faded, and polygamy has entered a prosperous period. The emperor first began to possess women crazily, without limitation. For example, when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was in power, "there were tens of thousands of people in the harem, begging for foreign soldiers and prospering the inner palace".

It can be speculated that polygamy had a far-reaching impact on the development of ancient population in China, both in terms of population quality and population quantity. Before the Ming Dynasty, the ancient population of China hovered below 60 million, which was an important factor besides various natural factors. According to the law of natural reproduction, there is little difference in the gender ratio between men and women in the same era, so as to keep the gender ratio balanced. However, polygamy, which prevailed in ancient China, broke this balance. In particular, the harem occupies a large number of women, and polygamy is practiced in all walks of life at the same time. Many men at the bottom of society have no wives to marry and remain single all their lives.

Polygamy, on the other hand, does not realize people's desire to have more wives and children, but only satisfies the physiological desire of "monogamy" and possessiveness. During the Western Han Dynasty, the average number of palace ladies in the harem was about 5,000, but the emperor of the Western Han Dynasty 15 gave birth to 58 children, with an average of less than 4 children each, which was roughly equivalent to the monogamous fertility rate of the people.

Polygamy seriously affected the quality improvement of the ancient population in China. There are many factors that affect the improvement of population quality, and modern science proves that heredity is an important factor. In ancient China, the emperor chose healthy, intelligent, beautiful and beautiful women to enter the palace, apparently for the sake of eugenics, hoping to maintain the noble lineage of the royal family. However, they have a lot of beautiful women who are extremely clever, and they "gather together but don't resist", which has brought great influence to the ancient population of China.

Because of polygamy, women who stay in the folk are extremely average in appearance and intelligence. According to genetic science, this practice is obviously not conducive to the improvement of the physical quality of the Chinese nation, especially the generation selection for thousands of years, which has far-reaching influence. As Liang Qichao said: "It is harmful to health, harmful to communication, harmful to education, harmful to learning, and harmful to the national economy."

Hope to adopt ~