At the beginning, I knew that some people called their husbands and wives in the south, but when we were here, we had never called them like this, and we always felt that we were not used to such a title here, and even before going to the south, I didn't know what my husband called me like this? Everyone is calling their husbands the old man, this is what we call here, I don't know what it is, maybe it's a habit, it's called a habit, there are more people called, so everyone knows the meaning of the old man, but if it's a chat with a person from other places, it's still a formal title, if not, I think it's still not good, in the eyes of some people, how do they know what our old man here means? Sometimes, when it is said like this, they will be surprised not to know who it is, but our local people know it, and this is slowly like a dialect, with locality. When I first went to the south, I looked at their husband's husband's call, wife's wife's call, I really didn't get used to this kind of name, I couldn't do it, and at that time, I didn't have a husband, let alone such a call, sometimes I think about it, those who often call their husbands and wives are not necessarily a family, that time is a very special reality, we know a colleague in the factory, he always sleeps with his wife, where he goes together, or there is a husband and wife room to live, what to do is together, we always think that people are loving couples, but after a long time, We didn't find anything, and we went to the supermarket together that day, and they met in the supermarket, so let's go together, after shopping for a while, this husband wants to buy gold jewelry for his wife, we also think that this is the way it should be, but then when it comes, it is also the woman's words that make us instantly stunned, she said, which one of you buy it for your family, we hear it, what does this mean? I was all dizzy all of a sudden, I don't know what the situation is, it's obviously a husband and wife, why do you say this? Later, I learned that they were not husband and wife, and there was no marriage certificate or anything, but one was from this province and one was from that province, and they were all about 50 years old. It's really incredible, and then I found out that it's not a husband and wife, it should be accurate to say that it's a temporary couple, and I have a special opinion on these two people. What kind of quality is this? I guess the children on both sides are already very big, and I still don't understand this kind of behavior.

After that, I was also here, and I saw a lot of people calling their husbands and wives very kindly, not only in and out of words, but also in some public occasions like this to express intimacy, but whenever this time I will also look back, what is such a landscape? Later, I slowly got used to it, sometimes I also felt that such a husband was not good at all, and even sometimes felt that such a title should have been spread from abroad, and then when I was also called like this, I also felt that where did such a title come from?

According to legend, this title first appeared in the Tang Dynasty and has been around for more than a thousand years.

In the Tang Dynasty, there was a scholar named Mai Aixin, who felt that his wife was old and decrepit after he passed the examination, so he had the idea of disliking his old wife and accepting a new love. So, I wrote a pair of couplets and put them on the desk: "The lotus is ruined, and the fallen leaves return to the roots to become old lotus roots." It so happened that the couplet was seen by his wife. The wife sensed that her husband had the idea of abandoning the old and accepting the new, so she wrote the following couplet: "The yellow rice is ripe, and the bran is blown to see the new grain of rice." "Rice" to "lotus", "new grain" to "old lotus", not only very neat and appropriate, novel and popular, but also "new grain" and "bride" homonym, very funny. Mai Aixin read his wife's couplet, and was moved by his wife's quick thinking and love, so he gave up the idea of abandoning the old and accepting the new. When the wife saw that her husband had changed his mind and did not forget the old love, she wrote with a pen: "My husband is very fair. Mai Aixin also waved his pen and continued to write the following couplet: "My wife is a mother-in-law. ”

This educational story quickly spread and became a good story from generation to generation, and since then, the words "husband" and "wife" have been used in Chinese, and there is also a custom of calling each other "husband" and "wife" among husband and wife.

But now, we are gradually getting used to such a title, sometimes I think about it, this kind of title is not the original meaning, sometimes I also feel that such a title is not very good, there is another way of saying, I also think there is some truth. The explanation is as follows:

Nowadays, female friends often use "husband" to call their boyfriends or husbands, but they don't know that the word "husband" was the name of eunuchs in the Ming and Qing dynasties. The ancient eunuchs were known as the temple people, the yellow gate, and the mink, and they were called the inner erections, eunuchs, eunuchs, and eunuchs, and the folk were commonly known as husbands.

The Qing people's notebook "Zaolin Miscellaneous" records that after Li Zicheng entered Beijing, he expelled the eunuchs, and "the crowd called for the expulsion of the husband", and there was a saying of "beating the husband". In the Ming Dynasty, the eunuchs in the palace often bullied people, and during the Wanli period, there was a "mine supervisor tax envoy" who oppressed the people, causing the people to resist, so there were often "beating husbands".

The husband of the Qing Dynasty was a prostitute in the brothel and scolded the prostitute, and the prostitute scolded the prostitute, saying that you accompany your husband tonight, and the husband refers to the eunuch. Because in the palace, some eunuchs still have their hearts left, and they still like to visit brothels, although the money is also spent, but there is no way to complete it, so they torture the prostitutes very pervertedly to relieve the itch in their hearts. Prostitutes in the capital are most afraid of encountering such customers, and calling them "husbands" in private is actually a kind of contempt and insult to the eunuchs.

During the Ming Dynasty, the eunuchs were autocratic, and the officials were corrupt, and the officials respected the big eunuchs as "old husbands", and the middle-level eunuchs in the palace were called "fathers-in-law". From ancient times to the present, everyone likes to add the word "old" in front of some words, the teacher is called the teacher, and the older person is called Lao Zhang and Lao Wang, so in ancient times, it is reasonable to call the father-in-law (eunuch) the husband.

But this is already popular, so let's keep it that way. But I was also in the process of being infected, and gradually learned what my husband meant, and even when I was inadvertent, I quietly inquired about my husband's meaning, which turned out to be explained like this:

In ancient times, there was a custom of snatching marriages. When a woman chooses a husband, it depends on whether the man is tall and strong enough, and the height is generally one zhang as the standard. Based on this situation, the woman refers to the man she marries as "husband". The word "husband" in "Shuowen Fubu" explains the husband, saying: "The Zhou system is eight inches as the ruler, ten feet as the zhang, and the person is eight feet long, so it is called the husband." ”

The word "husband", in addition to referring to the woman's spouse, was also used in ancient times to refer to an adult man. "The Twelfth Year of Duke Wen" contains: "Men are twenty crowns, and crowns are husbands. Because the height of a person in the growth period is proportional to his age, it can be seen that calling an adult man a "husband" is also related to the measurement meaning of the word "zhang".

Ancient Chinese weights and measures were already relatively stereotyped in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and many revisions were made in later dynasties, so that the same unit of measurement had different values in different periods. In the Shang Dynasty, one foot is 16.95cm, and according to this scale, modern people are about one zhang high. Zhou Dynasty, one foot is 22.1cm today. According to the actual measurement of a large number of unearthed cultural relics in the Qin and Han dynasties, 1 foot in the Qin Dynasty is about 22.1 centimeters now.