As the saying goes, "Better die poor than marry". What is a wife? Why can't you marry the poor?

The word "wife" originated from the book Answering Su Wu Shu written by Li Ling in Han Dynasty. In the Western Han Dynasty, Li Ling had to take refuge in the Xiongnu, and Liang Wudi killed his family. Later, Su Wu wrote to persuade Li Ling to return to Han, and Li Ling had already returned to Answering Su Wushu as a gesture. He said in his mind what had happened to Su Wu, who had been to Xiongnu.

Previously, Su Wu was sent to Xiongnu by a corps commander, but was detained by Xiongnu. Su Wuning refused to surrender, and then he went to Lake Baikal to herd sheep. /kloc-for 0/9 years, he has gone through hardships, but he is indomitable. This is the story of the shepherd in Suwu.

Ding Nian is a mature age and is called the prime of life. White hair means old age. You went to Xiongnu in the prime of your life, and you can't come back until you are old. In nineteen years, your old mother died at home and your young wife remarried.

From here we can know that a wife refers to a woman whose husband is still alive but divorced.

In ancient China, the status of women was relatively low. Generally speaking, a woman who marries a chicken follows a dog after marriage can't remarry. If the couple really can't go on, only the man can divorce the woman. However, law and morality also have certain "protection" for married wives.

Because it is a great shame for a woman to be divorced by her husband, especially after the Song Dynasty, women are faithful to each other, and everyone strives to be a chaste and heroic woman. In this case, even if the husband dies, the woman will not remarry, otherwise she will not be chaste, let alone divorced.

So in ancient times, a man could divorce his wife, but he could not divorce casually. Only when their wives obey the seven rules can they conform to the law and ethics. There is a saying of "going to seven places" in Etiquette and Mourning, which gradually took shape in the Han Dynasty, but it was not strictly stipulated. It was not until the Tang Dynasty that the "seven walks" were written into laws and regulations. Of course, seven out is only a rule, not absolute. Specific things should be dealt with in detail.

The seven endings seem to protect women, but in fact they are extremely unfair to women, because in this way, the husband has reason to divorce his wife, and the wife wants to divorce, which is full of difficulties and harsh conditions and will be reviled. With the progress of thought, some people began to criticize the injustice of the seven endings to women in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Until the late Qing Dynasty, more scholars began to criticize the traditional view of marriage, but the seven endings continued until the early Republic of China.