Many people think that the Song Dynasty was the era when women’s social status began to decline, but examining history, the status of women in the Song Dynasty was by no means as low as people thought, and perhaps even the highest among all dynasties. We can cite some indicators to measure and judge, such as women’s property rights, the right to divorce, the right to remarry, etc.
In the Song Dynasty, when a family was divided, according to the customs and laws of the time, a portion of the property was to be given to the daughter, “In the law: when the parents are dead, the children are divided, and the woman receives half of the man’s property.” This part of the property, usually called “trousseau property”, that is, the property given in the name of dowry. The trousseau property received by the daughter was generally half of what the brother received. Because the law and customary law clarified the right of women to inherit property, there were even cases where women took their brothers to court for the family property, and “virgins were also forced to execute ultimatums and denounce themselves in the court house to fight for the dowry money”.
Song Dynasty has such a custom: two families to form a marriage, in the stage of marriage, betrothal, the female party to send the male party to the “wedding invitations”, in addition to writing the marriage is the first few daughters, and her birth date, but also “with a list of trousseau, jewelry, gold and silver, jewelry, treasures, moving, tents and other things, and The property listed here is the trousseau property that accompanies the marriage. The trousseau property of the rich and noble family is very amazing, such as in the reign of Emperor Li Zong, the trousseau property given to his daughter by a great master surnamed Zheng was “500 mu of trousseau rent, 110,000 Guan of trousseau equipment, and 5,000 Guan of connective outline”; there was a man called Yu Ai, “married Chen, and got 120 kinds of fields from his wife’s family, and he married with them. “; the more common trousseau should be around ten mu of fields.
The trousseau property was brought into the husband’s house with the married woman, “in the law: the property obtained by the wife’s family, not in the division limit. Another law: the woman’s property, and with the husband as the main.” That is, the law stipulates that the woman’s trousseau property with the marriage is nominally the common property of both spouses, and does not belong to the husband’s family, and the trousseau property cannot be divided when the husband’s family divides the property. In fact, the ownership and the right to dispose of the trousseau belonged to the woman, who could either dedicate it to her husband’s family or keep it herself. If a husband claimed his wife’s trousseau, it was often despised by the customs of the time. If the couple divorced later, or if the wife remarried, the woman had the right to take away her entire trousseau.
Yuan Cai, a Song scholar, observed that husbands “made their wives’ names for their properties, and when they died and their wives remarried, there were many who raised them to follow them”. It means that there were many married men in the Song Dynasty who, because they did not want to be divided by their brothers in the future, bought properties in the name of their wives, and when they unfortunately died, their wives took them all away when they remarried on the grounds that they belonged to them. Yuan Cai tells this social phenomenon in order to advise his family not to do the stupid thing of buying property in his wife’s name. However, Yuan Cai’s words prove from the side that when a woman remarried in the Song Dynasty, she had the right to take away all the property belonging to her. The law of Song Dynasty also protected this right of women. Once the trousseau has occurred, when the court, the former betrothal of the “definitive post”, the wife can take out as their own proof of property rights, which is a bit like the modern “pre-marital property notarization”. After the Song Dynasty, women lost the freedom to dispose of their property.
Can a woman file for divorce in the Song Dynasty? If we think that in ancient times only the husband unilaterally “repudiation”, but not both sides agree to divorce, then we are wrong. In ancient times, there were also divorces, legally called “peace divorce”. In the Song Dynasty, it was not uncommon for women to initiate divorce proceedings, so much so that the Song scholar Ying Jun lamented, “A woman who sees her husband’s family as a passing house, who happens to be together, and suddenly leaves.”
To see a few cases of divorce in the Song Dynasty: Pang Yuan Ying “talk about the Yabu” records: “Cao Wing Squire wife Shuo Ren Li’s, Yuyao big family women, began to marry Simeon Cao Xucai, and her husband did not get, separation and return, is suitable for Wing.” This is because of the couple’s feelings do not (do not get) and divorce the marriage.
Li Zhi Zhi “teacher and friends to talk about the record:” Zhang Yuanbi was married in the table Chen, very beautiful. Yuanbi appearance bed ugly, hobbyist. At the beginning, “Meishan set” has an engraved book, Yuanbi also got it, view forget sleep. Chen’s words, so he asked to go, Yuan-phil out of it.” This is the wife who asked for a divorce because her husband was ugly and had left her alone.
Wang Mingqing “Yuzhao Xinzhi” records: “Zheng Shen, the capital of the people, a few days to Bingzan ministry government, sitting tired of being expelled, poor basket of even. Wife abandoned to go to fit others.” This is the wife abandoned her husband’s poverty and took the initiative to divorce.
Hong Mai “Yi Jian Zhi” records: there is a rich merchant named Wang Bashang in Tangzhou, who had a second wife outside, and disliked his married wife. The wife, “the husband’s sleeve, went to the county, the county heard the divorce and in the share of its assets. The king wants to take the young daughter, the wife said: ‘the husband has no shape, abandoned his wife to advocate, if this woman followed, will be stray. The county magistrate righteousness, so get the girl and out of the residence in another village. The wife dragged her husband to the public court to get a divorce, but the judge granted the divorce and ruled that the wife could get half of the family property and custody of the daughter.
The laws of the Song dynasty also protected some of the rights of women to sue for divorce, such as “the people who are not successful in marrying their wives, deceive to take their money and die, the wife can not provide for themselves, from now on that is allowed to adapt”, meaning that if the husband is not able to support his wife, the wife has the right to divorce; “the husband went away for three years and did not return, listen to the wife to remarry “The wife also has the right to divorce if her husband has been away for three years and has not returned; “if she is raped by her husband’s relatives who live with her and she wishes to leave, she has the right to divorce if she is sexually assaulted by her husband’s relatives. This is an unprecedented legal recognition of women’s right to divorce.
However, in ancient times, it was a male-dominated society, and divorce required the husband to write a “letter of release of wife” as a legal proof. The “letter of release” in the Tang and Song dynasties was written in a very gentle and elegant manner, look at a “letter of release” unearthed at Dunhuang: “I heard that the couple’s love is deep, the couple’s language is heavy, the fm is happy, and the joy of the same prison. The couple is opposite to each other, just like the mandarin ducks, two flies and knees, flowers sit together, the beauty of the two virtues, love is extremely heavy, two bodies and one heart. Common bed pillow in the bed, die with the coffin in the grave, three years of bonding, then the couple and. Three years of resentment, then come to feud. Now there is no harmony, I think it is the previous life resentment family. If you have a grudge against each other, you will be more cynical as your offspring. The two relatives gathered for a farewell, all the search book. After the separation, the husband of the heavy official and double job is chosen, and he is in front of the court to show off his beautiful music and rhythm. I am afraid that I will not be able to talk to you, but I will never say goodbye to you, and I will be happy to give you a gift. Three years of food and clothing, and then offer a soft ritual. I wish you a thousand years of longevity. When x year x month x day x township people x A put a wife book.
This is not a book written by a scholar, but a sample of the popular “letter of release of wife” in the Dunhuang area. The couple is well together, not to leave each other not bad sound, is the performance of civilization.
When it comes to women in the Song Dynasty, many people will think of “foot-binding”. A common view is that foot-binding began in the Song Dynasty and was promoted by the Song Rationalists, and that the foot-binding showed that the women of the Song Dynasty were deeply oppressed by rituals. But in fact, foot-binding did not begin in the Song Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty has been the culture of foot-binding, as evidenced by the poem: Wen Ting Yun “brocade shoes fugue”: “Yao chong weaving girl’s feet”; Du Mu poem: “Tin ruler tailoring minus four points, slender jade shoots in light clouds.” From the Tang to the Song Dynasty, foot binding was only popular among the upper-class noblewomen and prostitutes, and the vast majority of women in society did not wrap their feet. In addition, the Song people’s foot wrapping refers to the female foot wrapping slim straight, called “fast on the horse”, and not the perverted “three inch golden lotus” in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
The rise of foot-binding also has nothing to do with the Song dynasty scholars. We can find no support for foot-binding in any of the Song dynasty’s books on science. On the contrary, we can see that some of the scholars were clearly against foot-binding. The Yuan dynasty notebook “Zhan Yuan Jing Yue” says: “In the Song Dynasty, all women of Cheng Yichuan’s family did not wrap their feet and did not wear their ears. After the Tang Dynasty, Liu was not as good as the footwear and barefooted. It is known that the Song and the Five Dynasties aristocratic women are not all foot wrapping.” Cheng Yichuan is the Northern Song Dynasty great scientist Cheng Yi. Cheng’s family until the Yuan Dynasty, are insisted not to wrap their feet. Che Ruo Shui of the Southern Song Dynasty also proposed in his “Foot Fetish” that “women’s foot binding does not know when it began, the child is not four or five years old, innocent, and make it suffer infinite pain. Wrapped little to come, I do not know what use?” This is probably the earliest complaint against the bad practice of foot-binding in Chinese history. Che Ruoshui, who made the complaint, was a disciple of Zhu Xi, the great philosopher of the Southern Song Dynasty.
By and large, the Song Dynasty foot-binding culture, only out of the upper class morbid aesthetic products, with the Western European waist, today’s breast augmentation fashion is similar. Only in the Yuan Dynasty, the implication of gender oppression. Such as the Yuan Yi Shi Zhen’s “Luang Huan Ji” said: “I heard the sage set up women and make it not lightly lifted also, is to its feet, so the residence but within the boudoir, want to go out of the apartment carload, is nothing to do with the foot.” But in the Song Dynasty, women were not confined.
(From “Rediscovering the Song Dynasty” by Wu Hook, Kyushu Publishing House, 2014-4)
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