Why did ancient men prefer to marry young girls?
In ancient times, emperors and empresses generally married at a younger age. For example, in the Han Dynasty in 192 BC, 11-year-old Zhang Yan became empress;In the Sui Dynasty in 557 AD, 14-year-old Dugu Jialuo married Yang Jian;In the Tang Dynasty in 613 AD, the 13-year-old eldest grandson and Li Shimin tied the knotIn the Song Dynasty in 1024 AD, the 12-year-old Guo and Zhao Zhen signed a marriage contract;In the Ming Dynasty in 1425 AD, 14-year-old Hu Shanxiang married Zhu Zhanji;In the Qing Dynasty in 1665 AD, the 14-year-old Hesheri married Kangxi.
Here are just a few examples, the youngest of whom is only 11 years old and the oldest who is only 14 years old. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg of ancient royal marriages.
However, if we regard this as a special limit on the age of marriage in ancient times, then we will continue to find that the emperor chooses the show girls every year, and the age of the show girls is also around thirteen or fourteen years old.
Even among the people, some wealthy families will look for thirteen or fourteen-year-old girls when they take concubines, and women over 18 years old are basically considered older leftover women. This is very interesting, why did ancient men always like to marry thirteen or fourteen-year-old girls?
Since the Qin Dynasty, the country has ruled for no more than 300 years, and the population plummeted after the Great Rebellion. For example, the population dropped to 13 million in the late Qin and early Han dynasties, and dropped to 7 million after the turmoil of the Three Kingdoms.
The population of the Tang, Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties all fell by more than 50% from their peak. In order to solve the population problem, the ancients advanced the age of marriage. According to the current average age of marriage and childbirth at the age of 25, there are only 12 generations in 300 years, but if the marriage age is brought forward to the age, there will be 23 generations in 300 years, an increase of 11 generations.
In ancient times, fertility was encouraged, and the population could quickly recover to its peak in a short period of time. The long-standing age of marriage has made people accustomed to the habit of marrying girls as young as thirteen or fourteen.
Therefore, the first reason is the ancient age of marriage.
The second reason is deeply distressing. If we know that we only have to live to be 40 years old, how can we deal with marriage issues in our limited time?
Undoubtedly, the answer is to address it as early as possible. Historically, the average life expectancy of ancient people fluctuated, but the highest did not exceed 50 years old, and some were even only about 40 years old.
In such a short life, in addition to supporting his parents, he also had to complete the task of passing on the family lineage, so the man had to settle the marriage problem at the age of thirteen or fourteen. In the same way, the object of marriage must be a girl of thirteen or fourteen years old, in order to achieve a balance.
In addition, marrying a wife means that there is an extra labor force in the family, and the young wife has the physical strength to help her husband take care of the elderly, do household chores, and even help with farm work.
However, when the wife became pregnant, new challenges arose.
In ancient times, people's lives were generally difficult due to the limitations of living standards and medical conditions. Despite the low life expectancy of ancient people, two figures were surprisingly high: the infant mortality rate and the dystocia rate for pregnant women.
In the case of the Shunzhi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, he gave birth to eight sons, but four of them died at an early age and did not live past the age of 10. Even the Kangxi Emperor almost died of smallpox when he was 3 years old.
Although the palace has one of the best medical teams in the country, the premature mortality rate is still more than 50%. Under the multiple pressures of war, plague and natural disasters, it is a very fortunate thing that the survival rate of private children exceeds 50%.
In ancient times, the danger of childbirth was extremely high, and there was an ancient saying called "go through the ghost gate before closing", which describes the difficulty of the production process. Due to the lack of modern medical equipment such as prenatal examination and ultrasound, doctors mainly judge the condition of the fetus by pulse, which has a large error.
Even experienced doctors can misdiagnose it. Therefore, in ancient times, men married thirteen or fourteen-year-old women not out of personal preference, but because of the pressure of reality.
Why, then, do some rich people and emperors also like to marry thirteen or fourteen-year-old girls?That's the fourth reason.
In ancient times, wealthy people took concubines for a variety of reasons, but one of the theories is that they took a fancy to the fertility of young women. According to historical records, girls enter the menstrual period at the age of thirteen or fourteen, which is considered to be the most fertile period.
This is because young women are in good physical condition, can get pregnant easily, and the process of giving birth will be smoother. However, if the girl is too young, they have not yet entered the menstrual period, they are not fertile, and even if they have, they will not be able to give birth to a child due to their thin body and lack of strength.
For older women, due to the aging of physical functions, the quality of the child may not be guaranteed, and there will be inadequacy during childbirth. Although this view was generally accepted in ancient times, in the eyes of modern science, the body of a thirteen or fourteen-year-old girl is still developing, and if she becomes pregnant and gives birth to a child, not only will the quality of the fetus be affected, but also cause great damage to the woman's body.
To summarize and analyze in depthThrough the above analysis, we can see that ancient men did not marry girls out of personal feelings, but mostly out of survival considerations.
Under the influence of the ancient concept of preference for sons, the woman's parents also hope that their daughters will marry as soon as possible. On the one hand, it can reduce the burden on the family, and on the other hand, if you can marry a rich person as a concubine, the family can also get benefits.
But no matter how you look at it, it is the woman who suffers. This is helpless, because ancient women had a low status, and could only obey the arrangements of their families, obey the mercy of their husbands, and become tools for childbearing.
Pathetic!100 help plan