Hearing Guo Kang's argument, everyone began to think again.

"You've really thought about a lot of things." Zhu Wenkui sighed: "I never thought that there was such a problem......

"I can't help it." Guo Kang shook his head and said: "We are people who seek the country, and we must think more." Moreover, these moral principles, which are essentially the needs of the people, cannot be ignored. ”

He did think about this seriously. Moreover, I still remembered it when I listened to Tuohuan's bragging.

At that time, Guo Kang told him about Cao Jianjia. Tuhuan complained that in fact, concubinage or polygamy should be opened, so that a bunch of troubles can be hopefully solved. Otherwise, with the current probability of premature death and death, no one knows which generation they will be extinct.

Guo Kang didn't care much about this. He felt that this matter was too far away, and he had no right to speak, so he didn't care what he was doing. But he began to wonder why monogamy was happening in this place.

The early barbarians were themselves polygamous, and later changes were influenced by the church. And the rules of the Church were inherited from Rome.

Compared to other civilizations, the origin of this custom is not difficult to find.

At the same time, the Central Plains was also monogamous. Since the Warring States period, there have been strict laws and regulations that strictly limit the scope of concubines and concubines.

Generally speaking, commoners can only monogamy, and officials can only take two concubines at the level of secretary. The laws were harsh, especially during the war years, and bigamy was a felony punishable by beheading.

As for the princes, they often adopted the system of marriage marriage, that is, marrying multiple women from the partners of marriage at once. But correspondingly, according to the etiquette law, the princes will no longer marry wives and concubines after that.

The emergence of this phenomenon is the result of the game between the upper and lower classes and between the families.

At Guo Kang's time, many people mentioned ancient times, that is, three wives and four concubines. But at that time, the vast majority of men supported monogamy. The reason is also very simple, if you can marry wives and concubines at will, then women will quickly be taken over by the middle and upper classes, and the lower classes can only be singles.

Although the lower-class male household members have no money, they are the most popular and the most capable of fighting. As the military backbone of the country, their opinions are also important and cannot be ignored. Therefore, the final rule must be compromised for both sides. That is, on the one hand, an opening for concubines, and on the other hand, strictly limit the level and number to avoid having an impact on society.

And the marriage of the princes is actually a kind of alliance. The so-called marriage is actually the result of a compromise with the woman's mother's family. In order to prevent the married daughter from not having an heir, the woman's family will stuff several women in one go, so as to ensure that the grandson must be their own and ensure their influence as a relative. In the same way, after a marriage, he will no longer marry a wife and take a concubine, which is also to prevent other families from intervening in the competition.

Therefore, these rules, in the final analysis, are the result of the game of all parties.

The Romans also developed the same system - institutionally, for most people, it was monogamous, and the upper class had little constraint on pleasure and pleasure, and it was possible to supplement heirs through adoption, which of course included illegitimate children and stepsons. Such a comparison is not a coincidence.

Therefore, Guo Kang speculated that this kind of "etiquette" that everyone acquiesces to is actually to look at the power of lower-class male citizens. The stronger the power of this group of people, the higher the right to speak, the more inclined society as a whole is to maintain monogamy.

And this kind of moral principle cannot be evaluated as absolute "morality". For the virtue of one group may well be the tyranny of another.

Ordinary male citizens believed that the large number of concubines of the great nobles harmed their interests and must be restricted; But Guo Kang also investigated the women who were mistresses of the great nobles through Cao Daoxing's mother. On the contrary, they want to be officially concubines, because although this is not a decent status, it will indeed be easier than their previous days, and provide these women with generally low backgrounds with an opportunity to rise.

Therefore, Guo Kang suspects that this kind of thing cannot be evaluated by good and evil. In today's social environment, he doesn't know what kind of practice is to oppress women. Obviously, the moral experience of the previous life cannot be directly applied, not to mention that in those years, different people also had completely different definitions of morality.

In such a society where citizens are strong, morality is not set by the top, but is forced by the male citizen to be accepted by the top. To put it bluntly, whoever is the best at fighting is qualified to formulate morality. It probably doesn't make much sense to think too much. The most important thing is to understand the logic behind these ethical rules, so as to avoid risks and borrow help.

"We study morality and etiquette, not only to study the itself, but more importantly to understand the ins and outs." He said to the crowd, "It's like the topic just now—why is it rude? Because for them, etiquette and morality are not in the best interest of this group. ”

But on the other hand, these morals are morals because it is in our own best interest to act according to them. In other words, behind the conflict of moral concepts, it actually means that there is an irreconcilable contradiction in the way in which both sides benefit. ”

"Therefore, it is very simple to make them accept morality, and it is enough to intervene and adjust it artificially. For example, through tribute, mutual markets, crusades and other means, the gains and losses of the barbarians have been artificially changed. ”

"Originally, it was a loss to abide by morality, but now it is to be earned; Originally, you could earn money by not abiding by morality, but now not only do you not earn it, but you may also lose your life. No matter how brutal the barbarians are, they also know how to seek advantage and avoid harm. After a long time, this morality will be accepted. This is probably what we often call 'edification'. ”

"But now, you also know that the world is much bigger than what the kings thought in the era of Yao Shun and Wenwu. This huge world is full of barbarians, and no matter how capable the court is, it can't take care of it. ”

"The biggest problem of these barbarians is that they have too little knowledge and live too smoothly. They lack history and have not encountered any major setbacks or dangerous situations. So it is simply not understandable why we have these morals. ”

"In this case, unless you beat him hard and make him understand the reason, it will definitely be difficult to communicate. Rather than that, leave it to us. ”

"Barbarians can't communicate, it doesn't matter, we live here, and we're very good at communicating with barbarians." He proposed: "Where the Celestial Empire is beyond its reach, we can do it for us." At the very least, it's easier to deal with us than with those people directly. ”

"When we really need to, we can organize the various powers around the Mediterranean to go together for tribute and trade. We can use it as a primary node, and we can also set up other sub-nodes in places like Italy and France that are easy to deal with. Wouldn't it be much more convenient for everyone to organize a network that was responsible for both trade and education? ”

(End of chapter)