Were women so free in ancient China? Still take the initiative to divorce and divide the man's property? Hong Tao knew that the status of women in the Song Dynasty was not as low as he imagined, but he didn't expect their social status to be so high. I originally thought that it was already very good to allow girls to study, do business, conduct scientific examinations, and show up as promoters, but I didn't think that I was wrong, the status of women in the Song Dynasty was so high that in many places it was even better than that of later generations. Especially in the commercially developed Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, many families prefer to have girls rather than boys, because boys lose money!

"From the Sui and Tang dynasties, the official has a book, and the family has a pedigree. The election of officials shall be made by the book of fish, and the marriage of the family shall be by genealogy. This ancient system, with the rope of the world, so that the noble have permanent respect, and the cheap have the prestige. Therefore, people are still learning genealogy, and the book of genealogy is collected. For only five seasons, the scholar does not ask about family affairs, and the marriage does not ask about the valve reading. This is a passage from Zheng Qiao's "Tongzhi".

What does this mean? That is to say, before the Song Dynasty, the social structure was clearly defined, the scholars were the scholars, and the common people were the common people. However, after the five dynasties of Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, and Later Zhou, by the Song Dynasty, the strict boundaries between scholars and commoners had been broken, and commoners could be promoted to officials through the imperial examination, and the principle of non-intermarriage between scholars and scholars was abolished.

What is the reason for the loosening of the class solidification that has been maintained for thousands of years? The answer is business! Because of the development of commerce in the Song Dynasty, the Song people's disregard for class was changed. The people of the Song Dynasty themselves were aware of the root of this phenomenon, and Cai Xiang once said in "Duanming Collection": Looking at the customs of the present, marrying his wife ignores the door. Seek their money. Rich and poor.

According to these Southern Song Dynasty businessmen. It's not just the people, it's the upper class who do it first, and it's because of the example that the people have to follow suit. Moreover, they also cited examples, saying that in the fifth year of Zhenzong Xianping of the Northern Song Dynasty (1002), the two prime ministers of the dynasty, Xiang Minzhong and Zhang Qixian, were hostile to each other in order to marry a widow surnamed Chai. In the end, it got into a lawsuit.

Is this widow surnamed Chai as beautiful as a fairy? No; Is it a prominent family? Neither is it! Cheng Yi said a word, saying the advantages of the Chai widow, he recorded this incident in "Ercheng Foreign Book", and commented like this: Because it has 100,000 bags!

See, this chai widow is rich! The two prime ministers of the current dynasty fought over the purpose of marrying a rich woman, will this kind of thing happen in other dynasties? It is already amazing for the prime minister of the country to marry a widow, but it is still because he wants to get rich, according to the old saying, it is very unorthodox. This shows the social atmosphere at that time, the Song people were not ashamed of seeking wealth, but were proud. It's a very, very pure commercial society, from top to bottom. Everyone is very pure!

Who did this Chai widow end up marrying? No one married! These two prime ministers made too much trouble, which made the emperor very faceless, so they demoted the two of them, one went to the household department to be Langzhong, and the other became Taichangqing.

There is another thing that is unique to the Song Dynasty, and there may be books that have also been written, but it only exists in the Song Dynasty, and if other dynasties have it, it is misinformation. What's the matter? It is the atmosphere of "catching sons-in-law under the list". Zhu Yu (Yu) of the Northern Song Dynasty wrote in "Pingzhou Can Talk": In recent years, rich businessmen and vulgar people married daughters with thick Tibetans, and also caught sons-in-law under the list, and caught money to bait and lure people, so that they could bow down, and one son-in-law to more than 1,000 min.

Every time the list is released on the day of the scientific examination, the local tyrants of the Great Song Dynasty go to the place where the list is released to grab students, what method do they use to grab it? Throw it with money. When he caught a college student, he took out a thousand yuan and begged the college student to marry his daughter. Hong Tao is very envious, he wants to marry a daughter-in-law in the future, and the identity of Guang University Student is useful! Even if you are a doctoral student, you don't have a car, a house, or a deposit, and you're still doomed! I have only heard of local tyrants driving to the gates of major art colleges to find Xiaomi for themselves, but I have not heard of local tyrants going to the gate of schools to find their sons-in-law.

This situation can only appear in a purely commercial society, if you go to the Ming Dynasty, the old Zhu family has destroyed you, not to mention the Qing Dynasty, dare to do this, your daughter will not be able to marry for the rest of her life, and the female ring has not been learned well, so learn to be an old girl at home. At the same time, this also shows a problem, that is, in the Song Dynasty, the separation between the shishu no longer existed, and if you are educated, you can marry a woman from a merchant family, and if you are rich, you can also catch a poor college student and come back as a son-in-law.

In addition to the breaking of the class barrier between the scholars, the status of women in the Song Dynasty was also very high, and this high was not a folk custom, but a legal law. It is recorded in the "Minggongshu Judgment Qingming Collection": In the law, the parents are dead, the children are divided, and the women get half of the men. The meaning is not much to explain, in a word, the daughter has the legal right of inheritance, and the inheritance share is half of the son's.

Some people may ask, this law exists, but did the Song Dynasty enforce it? Let's take a look at Liu Qingzhi's record in "The General Record of the Ring": The virgin is also the head of the house, and she is proud of herself in the court, and she competes with Brother Qi for dowry. Here is a record of a woman who has not yet been married and went to the government to file a complaint, who is she suing? Sue her brother! Sue what? sued her brother for not giving her the dowry money.

This part of the property inherited by the daughter is usually called the lián property, and if the parents are alive and the daughter is married, this part of the property will follow the daughter as a dowry. When a woman gets married, she will send a document called "Dingti" to the man, which not only details the woman's identity and birthday, but also the jewelry, gold and silver, articles and the fields and houses that accompany the marriage, which is the property. According to the maritime merchants, the property given to their daughters by ordinary families near Guangzhou and Quanzhou is generally worth 10 acres of ordinary paddy fields, which is higher in Lin'an, and lower in the poorer places in the interior.

According to the law of the Great Song Dynasty, the wealth obtained by the wife's family is not limited! That is to say, the property brought by the wife cannot be divided when the man's family is divided, and the woman must be in charge of it. If the husband and wife divorce or the wife remarries, the woman still has to take this part of the property with her. Of course, she can also choose not to take it away, but the control is up to the woman. And how much to take away, the "fixed post" placed before the two people got married is indicated, and this "fixed post" is the notarial certificate of premarital property in the Song Dynasty, which has extremely high legal effect.

So why did this Boss Huang even lose his property when he divorced? Could it be that he was at fault, and the judge sentenced him to pay more compensation to the woman? It's really not, the Song Dynasty didn't have such detailed legal stripes, and it was not illegal to raise a lover in the Song Dynasty, it was public. The reason why Boss Huang lost his wife and money was mainly because he was too treacherous. For fear of being divided by his brothers and sisters in the family in the future, he put a lot of his property in his wife's name, which was counted as the inheritance brought by his wife. As a result, when his wife divorced him, she pretended not to know about it and took away his property. Boss Huang is dumb and eats Coptis chinensis, and he can't say anything about his suffering. This kind of behavior is illegal, not only will the government not help him come back, but it is estimated that he will have to be punished, and he can only be ruined to avoid disasters.

Did only women in the Song Dynasty have the same right to inherit property as men? The answer is yes. There is a decree in the "General System Rules" of the Yuan Dynasty: In the future, a woman should be married, regardless of the divorce before her death, her husband is widowed, but if she wants to be suitable for others, her yuan will be married with the dowry and property, and listen to the ex-husband's family. The "Daming Huidian" and the "Daqing Statute" also have the same provisions, widows can remarry, but they can only leave the house, their husband's property and their own makeup, and listen to the ex-husband's family.

As for the matter of divorce, it is also common in the Great Song Dynasty, and Song Yingjun wrote in the "Qintang Edict and Customs Edition": For a woman, she regards her husband's family as a passing house, and she meets by accident and leaves suddenly.

In the "Continuation of Capital and Governance Tongjian Long Edition", the regulations on women's divorce in the Song Dynasty are described in detail, and it is said that the unscrupulous people marry wives, give their wealth and die, and the wives cannot support themselves, from now on, they are allowed to change; The husband has been away for three years and does not return, and listens to his wife's adaptation; The husband cohabited with a strong family, although it was not successful, and the wife was willing to leave this, listen.

The meaning of these words is that if the husband is unable to provide for the family, the wife has the right to divorce on her own initiative. If the husband has not returned home for three years, the wife also has the right to divorce on her own initiative; The wife is divorced by her husband's family, regardless of whether she succeeds or not, the wife has the right to take the initiative to divorce; For these three situations, the government supports the woman, and the other situations will be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.

Cheng Yi, the initiator of Zhu Cheng Lixue, supposedly he should oppose giving women so many rights, right? In fact, this is not the case, and later generations have misinterpreted his meaning. In the "Henan Cheng's Testament", a passage of his words was recorded in detail: The husband died and married, so it was a loss of moderation, but there were also those who had no choice, and the saint could not forbid it.

Fan Zhongyan once set a "Yizhuang Rules" for his family's manor, which clearly stipulated: 30 yuan for marrying a girl, and 20 yuan for remarrying; Twenty times for marrying a woman, and not for remarrying. See, remarriage is more money than marrying a daughter-in-law.

This is true for the people, for the literati, and for the royal family. In the Song Dynasty, there was a Liu E, the queen of Zhao Heng of Song Zhenzong, the first regent of the Song Dynasty, the empress dowager of the Song Dynasty, with outstanding achievements, often and the Han Dynasty's Empress Lu, Tang Zhiwu Empress and said, the history books said that it "has the talent of Lu Wu, but not the evil of Lu Wu". This queen, who is comparable to Wu Zetian and Empress Lu, first married a silversmith when she was young, and then her family was in the middle of the road, and Liu E was born beautiful, so she remarried Zhao Yuankan, the king of Xiang at that time. Later, Zhao Yuankan became the emperor, that is, Song Zhenzong, Liu E was directly named the queen, and the old Zhao family did not dislike her at all for being a second marriage.

Song Renzong's Empress Cao is also a remarried woman, it is said that the Cao family was married to a family surnamed Li, but the groom ran away on the wedding night and never came back, and later this Cao family was elected to the palace and actually became the queen. Hong Tao has always wondered, the draft girls of the Great Song Dynasty Palace and the like, it is not only necessary to be a virgin, but also to those who have been married, the taste of the old Zhao family is really different, it is too characterful! (To be continued.) )