What custom was popular in the Song Dynasty that makes men envious today but made men in the Song Dynasty afraid of their wives?

Regarding the Song Dynasty, domestic and foreign evaluations are very different. The domestic emphasis is on the weakness of the Song Dynasty, while the foreign emphasis is on the extraordinary civilization of the Song Dynasty. Therefore, there is a strange phenomenon of "flowers blooming within the wall and fragrance outside the wall", or "bad reviews at home and praise abroad". . Putting aside these debates, the Song Dynasty is definitely the cutest dynasty. There is a popular custom that makes men today envious. Of course it is not henpecked (fear of his wife), but something causally related to it.

People in the Song Dynasty were particularly henpecked. According to documentary records, among all Chinese dynasties, the Song Dynasty has the most records of henpecked people, and many of them are well-known historical celebrities, which simply subverts our traditional understanding.

Shen Kuo wrote "Mengxi Bi Tan", and his historical reputation soared to the sky. However, when facing his second wife Zhang, he was as timid as a mouse. Cunzhong (Shen Kuo) could not control him. After being scolded, his beard fell to the ground, and his children picked it up in tears. If there was flesh and blood on the beard, they cried out to each other. Zhang Zhong refused to forgive him. Instead of using his words but not using his hands, he punched, kicked and pulled his beard. Shen's beard and skin were pulled out. Old Shen didn't dare to say a word, and his children cried bitterly when they saw it. Of course, Shen Kuo was deeply devoted to Zhang. Soon after Zhang's death, old Shen died in depression.

As for the "Hedong Lion" and "Rouge Tiger" that we are familiar with, they are also deeds of the Song Dynasty. Su Shi's friend Chen Jichang had a Hedong Lion in his family, and Su Shi even used it to make fun of Chen Jichang, as did the layman Longqiu. It's pitiful that I can't sleep all night long just talking about nothing. Suddenly I heard the roar of a lion from the east of the river. I dropped my stick and felt confused? Rouge Tiger talks about the deeds of Lu Shenyan, the magistrate of the Song Dynasty. His wife Zhu was a Rouge Tiger. According to the "Qing Yi Lu" written by Tao Yu (g), a calligrapher in the early Song Dynasty, Zhu's daughter was miserable, cunning and jealous, and married Lu Shenyan. wife. Shenyan Zaiwei's family, politics is not his own, the officials and the people say "rouge tiger", Lu Shenyan not only listens to his wife in family matters, but also in political matters. Look how afraid of his wife this man is.

In the sketch between Chen Peisi and Zhu Shimao, there is such a sentence, even if you don't expect that you, Zhu Shimao, who has a dignified appearance, will actually betray the revolution? Also afraid of his wife.

If you look at the history of the Song Dynasty, you will find this wonder. Whether they are loyal ministers or treacherous ministers, henphobia is everywhere. A group of old men who scolded Fang Qiu in the court, and even villains who were insidious and cunning in plotting to kill heroes, all When I return home, I feel like a "grandson".

Wang Qinruo and Qin Hui are both traitors and villains, but they are both henpecked. Qin Hui was afraid of his wife. This is a well-known story to us. He often discussed with his wife Wang about his plot to frame Yue Fei. However, it is less known that Wang Qinruo was afraid of his wife. Wang Qinruo, a representative figure of the Zhuhe faction in the Northern Song Dynasty, served as Prime Minister twice and was one of the Five Ghosts. Once, Wang Ruoqin built a study in the backyard of his home, named "Sanwei Hall". His colleagues teased him, "You still have a fourth fear!" ?Wang Qinruo asked: ?What is it? ?The colleague replied: ?I am afraid of Madam. ?Became a momentary joke.

In addition to treacherous ministers, Zhou Bida, Xia Song, Yan Shu, Lu You and other loyal ministers who have left their names in history are also known to be henpecked. Note that what we are talking about here is the famous henpecked people. I don’t know how many less famous henpecked people there are.

In short, it was a common phenomenon for men in the Song Dynasty to be henpecked, so Zeng Gong, a scholar in the Northern Song Dynasty, left this emotion: In ancient times, women were content and kept to themselves, but in modern times (Song Dynasty), this was not the case. Being pompous in cars, clothes, flashing jewelry, having extravagant talk during family gatherings, being fierce and jealous, and being unworthy of the nobles. Marrying before they are adults. Once married, it goes against the conduct and is better than sex, making the man serve the woman and the husband is subjugated. A woman who doesn't care about her uncle and aunt's support, and who doesn't like her, will offend and be honest with her. Her husband can't blame her, and she can't help but look back on her relatives, which is rare. ?This sentence reveals a lot of information, indicating that women in the Song Dynasty had a high status, lived very freely, and generally pursued pleasure. What is relevant to this article is that ?make men serve women, and husbands submit to women?, which is a typical henpecked dynasty.

Speaking of this, people can’t help but be surprised. Why were men in the Song Dynasty so henpecked? In feudal society, men were superior to women, but it was reversed in the Song Dynasty. When Wu Zetian was in the Tang Dynasty, she had a relatively positive image, but in Sima Guang's writings, she became Si Chen the hen, and was extremely criticized. The main point was that Wu Zetian was a woman.

Judging from what happened to Wu Zetian, the rise of Confucianism in the Song Dynasty should be a standard society where men were superior to women!

That’s what I say, but don’t forget that the truth about the status of men and women in the family does not lie in rhetoric, but in the economic foundation. What is very different from previous dynasties is that generous marriages were popular in the Song Dynasty.

The dowry given to Qin Hui's wife, the Wang family, was 200,000 yuan, equivalent to tens of millions of yuan today. According to the "Three Dynasties Northern Alliance Collection", after Qin Hui and the Wang family were released by the Jin soldiers, they wanted to He got rid of Wang, but Wang scolded him angrily, "When I married into your Qin family, it was a matchmaker's marriage. The dowry alone was worth 200,000 yuan. What can I do to you?" ?

The daughter of Su Che, one of the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties, was given a dowry of 9,400 acres of farmland on the outskirts of Kaifeng. It was definitely an astronomical dowry.

Fan Zhongyan, a famous minister of the generation, formulated the rules of the Suzhou Fan clan: when a boy gets married, the dowry is 20 guan; when a girl gets married, the dowry is 30 guan. It can be seen that the social custom in the Song Dynasty was to marry generously, and the woman's dowry was heavier than the man's betrothal gift.

There are many similar records. When people in the Song Dynasty married a girl, they would always get a big gift package thrown at them. They had no rationality and were only willful. They made the groom dizzy and felt a sense of happiness. Modern men also envy them. !

Some people don’t understand that when you marry a chicken, you marry a dog. After the dowry is given out, you are not at the disposal of the husband, the head of the family. Although the wife has a large dowry, it only makes the man fat.

In fact, the power to dispose of dowry in the Song Dynasty has always been in the hands of married women, not in the hands of their husbands. The "Song Xingtong" of the Northern Song Dynasty and the "Qingyuan Articles of Legal Affairs" of the Southern Song Dynasty stipulate that dowry is the only reliable private property of a married woman, and no one on the male side may covet or use it for any reason. And there is another important point: if the husband and wife negotiate for divorce, , the dowry must be returned to the woman.

Tell me, can the family status of Su Che's daughter, Qin Hui's wife Wang, etc. be low?

If the man wants to keep his share of the dowry, he must treat the woman with kindness and respect, otherwise he will be in trouble. Of course, if the dowry is too small and makes the man feel that it does not matter, then it is difficult to say whether he respects the woman.

Therefore, in order to improve the daughter's family status in her husband's family, fathers in the Song Dynasty often gave a generous dowry. In the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, a strange phenomenon occurred in Huacheng County, Sichuan. Hundreds of old girls who were not ugly in appearance refused to marry. After the county magistrate went to the countryside to investigate and investigate, he found that because the old girl's family was poor and did not have enough money to buy a dowry, the man asked for a generous amount. I can't afford the dowry, so I can only stay in the boudoir. Today there are no girls who cannot marry, only men who cannot marry a wife. However, in some areas of Fujian, it is still popular to marry richly, and even borrow money to marry richly. The dowry is often worth twice the bride price of the man. A few years ago, there was news in Fujian that a poor man borrowed a usurious loan to get married. Because once he got married, the woman had to pay double the dowry as a bride price, and the man could quickly repay the usurious loan. The men in this area make men all over the world envious, jealous and hateful.

In the final analysis, the economic foundation determines everything!

Because of the custom of generous marriages in the Song Dynasty, married women with money would naturally have a higher family status. Naturally, there were countless henpecked men in the Song Dynasty! Therefore, the Song Dynasty made men love and hate each other. Although the dowry was far more expensive than the bride price, it brought about a new problem of henpecking!

So, is it good to be henpecked? Some people think of the military weakness of the Song Dynasty, but Hu Shi, a great modern writer, has another opinion: "A country with many henpecked stories will be prone to democracy; and vice versa."