The popular custom of renting a wife in Qing Dynasty

In history, it is not uncommon to have a wife. In the Qing Dynasty, the custom of betrothal was popular in Ningbo, Shaoxing, Taizhou and other places in Zhejiang. At the same time, the situation is more complicated. Some people give their wives to others and get an agreed sum of money. When it expires, they will take out money to redeem it. Some of them have a term of five or ten years. Some women give birth outside, so that it is difficult to tell which one is her old husband later.

As Rou Shi wrote, short-term marriage, having a baby and getting it back then. Rou Shi, a writer, once wrote a novel called Slave Mother, the plot of which is well known. The scholar and the landlord's wife could not have children, so they rented a poor man's wife "Chunbaoniang" as a temporary wife until they gave birth to a son for the scholar. From the perspective of "Chunbaoniang", the author writes all the sorrows in the world in a sad style.

Coincidentally, there was also a custom of renting a wife in Gansu in the Qing Dynasty. According to records, this custom became popular during the Yong and Gan Dynasties in the Qing Dynasty. Among them, there are long-term rent and temporary rent. Some people want to have offspring because they are too poor to marry, so they rent a wife from others, and when they rent a wife, they sign a contract, indicate the time limit, or give birth to a son in two or three years. After the expiration, the original husband's family immediately "hurried back and couldn't stay any longer." (Qing) Zhao Yi: Miscellaneous Notes on the eaves, Volume IV, Zhonghua Book Company, 1982, pp. 76-77. Short rent is mostly temporary, such as foreigners, tourists and passers-by. After the investment, they can live with their rented wives. During the agreed period, most of them stayed at their ex-husbands' homes. When the guests arrived, their ex-husbands had to avoid them. Once the agreed time limit is reached, neither the ex-husband nor the woman will agree to live with the guests again, even the woman who has a good relationship with the guests during the rental period will not agree to continue living together; If you are willing to contribute, renewing the contract is another matter. This situation is quite similar to the custom of "rushing to shop" in Jiangsu and other places. The difference is that rushing to the store is mostly a one-time transaction, and it is a place that pays attention to traffic. The woman at home is used to entertain the past merchants, while the typical wife in Gansu and other places has a relatively long cycle and a contract.

When a man lives with him, the recruited man is responsible for supporting his family, including the woman's husband and children. There are two different situations for children born to women and children born to newly enlisted men. In some places, a woman's child is still her ex-husband's, and in some places, it is also her biological father's.

As for some places, a woman got married several times and then fled home. At that time, it was called "stood up". In fact, it is a trick to cheat money by marriage, which has little to do with the marriage custom itself. Putting pigeons in Shanghai is called "putting pigeons", and there is a story about putting pigeons in the yellow crane and never coming back. Yu Yue's Notes on Youtai Xiange (volume 1) records that there is a surname Huang in Beixiang, married Li, who is quite attractive, and Huang is poor and has no livelihood. He conspired with Li to "stand up" and sold Li to Cao Shi. On the third day, Huang came to Cao's house and wanted to escape with Li. As a result, Li not only stayed, but also claimed to expose his plot in front of Cao's family. Huang had to flee hastily.

The marriage customs mentioned here are typical cases in Han areas. Some researchers believe that this situation mostly occurred in areas with more immigrants in the Qing Dynasty. Due to the difficult conditions and less traditional restrictions in new immigrant areas, this kind of marriage custom has changed. For example, the "pimping" in the northeast is basically the same as the above-mentioned situation of raising a husband, and it is all produced in an immigrant society. However, some areas in Zhejiang, such as Nanjing, Shaoxing, Taiwan Province, Shaanxi, Hanzhong and Gannan, were not places with many immigrants in the Qing Dynasty, so special marriage customs had little to do with immigrants. For example, a daughter-in-law still wants to have children in most cases. This shows that among all the marriage principles in China traditional society, fertility is the most important principle. In order to achieve the purpose of fertility, other principles, such as the principle that women are loyal to their own lives, should give way to this principle. For example, there is a marriage custom in Jiaying, Guangdong Province, which is called "Waiting for Lang Sao". Refers to the local families without sons, but also married a child bride to raise, waiting to have a son, and sometimes it takes more than ten or eight years for the family to have a son. Therefore, it is called Waiting for Lang Sao (Qing Dynasty) and Liu Shengmu: Essays on Chu Zhai (65438+). This marriage custom is also related to the serious imbalance of the sex ratio of the local population.

This variation of marriage customs in the history of Han nationality needs further study.