However, in the Song Dynasty, with the emergence of Neo-Confucianism in Zhu Cheng, especially Zhuzi Thought became the official orthodoxy, the concept of "starvation is small, dishonor is big" was widely popular in the society, and the restrictions on widows' remarriage became more and more severe. Especially in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the rulers praised chastity women and set up chastity archways and martyrs shrines for chastity women. For example, in the first year of Hongwu (1368), Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of Ming Dynasty, wrote a letter: "Any civil servant widow whose husband died before the age of 30 and did not change her manners after the age of 50 will be ordered to watch the door, except her own servant." During the reign of Zheng De in the Ming Dynasty, a monument was erected for the daughter who kept her virginity. The emperor also ordered inspectors to report cases of chaste women every year, which was commended by big banks. According to the records of the Qing Dynasty, in the fifty-fifth year of Kangxi alone, the emperor personally rewarded nine women who refused to rape and died. During the Yongzheng period, letters were sent to all parts of the country to collect chaste women from remote mountainous areas and poor families. After Tongzhi, chastity temples were set up in various places to encourage women to be widowed and chaste. (See China Encyclopedia of Sexology, edited by Liu Dalin, p. 445th).
If there are good people in the world, there will be nothing in the next life. On the one hand, because of energy saving, it was commended by the court and won family glory; On the one hand, chastity itself has always been regarded as a virtue. Therefore, in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were so many chaste women that chastity archways were lined up in many places.
Women's chastity is worthy of respect, but from today's perspective, it is more worthy of sympathy. Because, behind the chastity archway, there are many women who suppress the painful life. There are many women who have no choice but to keep the festival, because once they remarry after their husbands die, they will face a very terrible situation: their families may sever their kinship with you, their people may regard you as an alien, and their neighbors will look at you with contempt. This situation will make your life worse than death.
Therefore, those poor women who have lost their husbands have to suppress their desires according to the requirements of secular concepts and be a well-behaved and virtuous woman. Of course, I'm not saying that all virtuous women stick to it out of helplessness. There were indeed many chaste women in ancient China, but it should be no problem to say that more than half of chaste women's chastity was out of helplessness. Therefore, in this part, I will try to reproduce the real situation of women's chastity in ancient China, especially in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, including social environment, secular concepts, the mental state of chastity keepers and related social problems.
Commemoration should be voluntary.
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, although the chastity of widows became a social atmosphere because of the court's praise of the daughters of chastity, the chastity of widows faced many specific problems in real life. The first is the livelihood of holiday widows. Of course, this is not a problem for a big family, but it is a big problem for ordinary people.
When a woman gets married, she always lives on her husband. Now that her husband is dead, she can't remarry. She can only support herself by her own labor. This is very difficult to do in ancient society with extreme inequality between men and women, especially when widows give birth to children. Secondly, the widow's physical problems.
As long as normal people have sexual desire, widows can only suppress their sexual desire, and when some widows can't stand this repression, all kinds of immoral things will follow. There are countless examples in Ming and Qing dynasties. The third is social atmosphere and social security. In ancient villages and towns in China, there were always some single men who could not get married because of family poverty or personality problems. When widowed women appear in their neighbors, these widows can easily become their coveted targets, and a series of unexpected things will happen. As the saying goes, "Widows have a lot to do", which is in this respect.
It is in view of these actual situations that some people of insight put forward their own views on the issue of widow chastity. As Zhu Shi, a great scholar in the Qing Dynasty, said, "If we want to make women stick to the righteousness of obedience to the end, we will be lonely even if we don't sue, and we are afraid of the rule of Yao and Shun, and the world will be powerless." ("Zhu Wenduan's Public Collection" Volume III) A Qing Qian Yong also said: "I said that before the Song Dynasty, it was a shame to remarry, and moralists were all wrong." He even agrees with the saying that "women will never marry again, and if they don't marry, they will celebrate for life." (Qian Yong: Walking in the Garden)
In some novels of Ming and Qing dynasties, the author often advises the world with concrete examples: the widow's chastity cannot be generalized, and she should consider both the widow's actual living environment and her own real thoughts. For example, in the novel "The Story of Awakening Marriage" in the Qing Dynasty, according to the author's in-depth understanding of the social situation, widows are divided into three categories, and it is considered that it is "first-class good people" who clearly express their unwillingness to be sober after death and want to remarry; I want to remarry in my heart, but I am embarrassed to say that all the people who find various excuses to achieve the purpose of remarriage are "second-class good people"; The third category is widows who cry for chastity and secretly commit adultery. Therefore, the author's point of view is that whether a woman is willing to keep the festival depends entirely on her own decision:
A woman in the world, whether she wants to stay after her husband dies, depends on her own heart. Only I am willing to keep the festival and never return; Or persecuted, or persuaded, turned and married. No one doesn't want to keep this festival. If the person next to you can stop him, you can stop his body, you can't stop his heart. Better listen to him.
There are also those women who are not willing to keep the festival. They made it very clear, "It is difficult to keep a festival, so it is better to start without finishing, and eventually be careless." Obviously no children, but needless to say; If you have a child, you give it to your parents-in-law, or to your uncle, and if you don't take his property away, you will marry someone else quietly. There were many outsiders, so they had to say, "When a woman saw that she had a child, she refused to keep the festival and married." There is no other right or wrong. It is such a good man, although he has no integrity with his husband's family, he has never ruined his family style.
The other class has a son and a daughter, who can live as much as possible in family affairs. They are eager to get married, but they won't say anything. They must bear a bad name with others. If there is an aunt, she said that because of her son's death, she regarded her daughter-in-law as an outsider, with an eccentric personality and no concern for food and clothing. Or if you have an uncle and a brother-in-law, just say how hard it is for your sister-in-law. Uncle protects his wife and bullies widows. There are no aunts and uncles in the world. I have a strong and pregnant son and a considerate and diligent daughter-in-law. As long as you marry yourself, you have to endure saying in your heart that your son is disobedient and your daughter-in-law is not virtuous, looking for trouble. At home, he swore, but he was afraid that he didn't have any credentials. Holding a handkerchief and wearing a shirt with a collar, he ran to a busy city and said that his son and his wife were unfilial and wanted to send him to the government. After many people stayed to persuade him to come back, he committed several crimes in a row before saying, "My son and daughter-in-law are unfilial and can't live at home, so they have to get married and run for their lives!" " I rolled up the soft things, left some things, and left my new husband alone, so that my son and daughter-in-law could not be a good person all their lives and would make him a second-class good person.
If there is another crooked evil product, just like the pig in the pen, the dog in the grass and the donkey and horse behind, tell the lie of the king, and earn a "green headscarf" with his husband regardless of his family style; No matter how decent his son is, and the title of "forgetting eight lambs" is his shadow. Just like the mother who asked for relief, just like Nanzi of the Wei Linggong family. My son doesn't care about him, and others just laugh at him. Compared with the old example of the Empress Dowager Tang Chaowu, it is even more unscrupulous. Heaven and earth help him to do evil and bless him to live a long life, so that his children are really "tofu hanging in the ashes, blowing dust"! (Biography of Awakening Marriage, back to 36)
In the novel Bieyouxiang in the Ming Dynasty, the author said sympathetically: virtuous women are really difficult to be, and only those women who have lost their normal heart can be virtuous women. The author even said: there are always martyrs, but virtuous women don't, because martyrs can do it on a temporary decision, but virtuous women need patience for a lifetime:
Wholehearted people, people with a little money and a little power, are waiting for others, so that they can have a buried daughter and a daughter-in-law who has not kept the festival. So whether he can't stay or not, he is quite willing to stay. In my opinion, there are many martyrs, but not many virtuous women. However, how to call a fierce woman? If the husband is killed by a thief at one moment and forced to obey at the other, he will definitely be angry, or fall off a cliff, or suffocate, or go into the water. He would rather die than be polluted by thieves. Once the Tao is strong, women can do it, and there are many historical records uploaded. So, I said, there are often fierce women. How do you call a virtuous woman? If the husband dies of illness and misses his usual love, he is willing to live and die together. Although his aunt advised him to find another place, he was single-minded, or disfigured, or titled, or extinct, and lived day by day; Live for a year, raise for a year, and die. This is called a virtuous woman. Is there really no virtuous woman? But I didn't see much. Why are there fewer virtuous women? Or the men and women left by their ex-husbands, they are duty-bound and helpless; Or covet family wealth, can't bear to pay others, but have no choice but to stay; Or forced by ethics, if you don't show your face well, you can't keep it; Or be nice to others on weekdays, saying that a mother is sorry for his forbearance, so she marries. The woman advised him not to keep it if he lost it, and he was afraid of being touched, so he had to keep it. He doesn't really want to support the word "rule" and live up to his husband. Besides, it's hard to be alone after a long time. I don't want to recruit men, but I can't get rid of the curse of complaining. Rarely angry, I knocked on the table with my fist and chest and cried, "My man, you have gone to peace, and I can't suffer here." Judging from his remarks, do you really want to be a virtuous woman? So if you have no heart, you will take the bait. (Biexiang, the fourth time)
It is precisely because of the realization that a good wife is hard to do that the novel Ba Duan Jin in the Ming Dynasty said that for a young widow in her twenties and thirties, it is better to let her marry early than to let her keep a festival:
Just say that people are unfortunately widowed, or 50 or 60 years old. At this time, the anger has subsided, so that she can finally retain; If you are under 30 and over 20, at this time, your desire is burning, your anger is burning, and you are riding a fierce horse without reins. If you force her to keep it, you will have an ending. It is better to get married early than to make a difference. (Paragraph 8 of Baduanjin)
Li Yu of the Qing Dynasty also pointed out in Mime that although the court encouraged widows to observe the festival, the reality was that after all, they remarried more and observed the festival less. So he hoped that those men who died young would better persuade their wives and concubines to remarry after their death:
Widows in the world turn over a new leaf, but few get married. Any husband who teaches women should be serious; It's a woman's heart. Don't be too eager. In life, it is natural to be careful to prevent idleness and not let him move the slightest evil thoughts; If you die before your wife and concubine, you might as well persuade him to remarry. (Li Yu: "Mime" the twelfth time)