The concept of marriage in the Republic of China, should the wife abandon the idea of old times ?

Mondo History Updated on 2024-02-01

After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, China ushered in a period of blooming flowers. Speaking of the first period, China at that time was facing thousands of years of turmoil, but also facing unprecedented changes and opportunities. To say that at that time, Western ideas poured into China in large numbers, and many learned people began to abandon the original old ideas, get rid of the shackles of the old times, and learn new culture. But in this way, many people are facing a problem, the wife who once married for himself in his hometown who is illiterate, and the confidante he met on the way to study, under the pressure of the family, the two sides are inseparable, what should be done?

Speaking of which, everyone must have thought of the story of Lu Xun and Xu Guangping. Mr. Lu Xun's family once took the initiative to marry Zhu An to him, to say that Zhu An is indeed a standard woman in the old era, naturally Lu Xun did not like her, and moved to the study on the night of the wedding. I didn't have any emotional communication with her in my life. It can be said that Lu Xun actually did not divorce Zhu An. But the two of them have no feelings, and Zhu An is responsible for taking care of Mr. Lu Xun's mother. It took a lifetime like this until Mr. Lu Xun died. And Xu Guangping is Lu Xun's student, although he did not say it explicitly, Lu Xun still called Xu Guangping his "assistant", but everyone also knows their relationship, the two of them finally gave birth to a child, some people say that Lu Xun is affectionate, but standing in that background history, in fact, Xu Zhimo is more affectionate.

The story of Xu Zhimo and his wife Zhang Youyi must be known to many people. Xu Zhimo feels that Zhang Youyi is a typical woman of the old era, and being with him is very different from his own thoughts. So he was vexatious, and even let his wife ** in order to divorce, after the divorce, he finally fell in love with Lu Xiaoman, but the ending was embarrassing. From our current point of view, these literati in society back then were also young people in the new era. Their attitude towards women in the old society is the same as they do towards the original Chinese culture. The overall Westernization, indiscriminate, as long as it is Chinese tradition, is wrong, the order of parents, the words of the matchmaker, and the traditional thinking are all useless things, and even Mr. Lu Xun also proposed "abolition of Chinese characters" and completely negated Chinese culture. This is naturally wrong from our current point of view, but in those chaotic times these ideas were held to the forefront. So much so that there were some strange trends in society at that time, such as helping with divorce and persuading people to divorce.

Continuing to talk about Xu Zhimo, one of the very important reasons why he divorced Zhang Youyi back then was that he was persuaded by the people around him to divorce. In their view, the wives of the old era will only become a drag on themselves, a heavy shackle for themselves, and if they want to be civilized and progressive, they must first get rid of this shackle. Xu Zhimo actually had such an idea in his heart for a long time, and it was even more natural that people would add fuel to the fire. But in fact, not everyone of the new youth at that time thought this way. This is the famous Mr. Hu Shi, Hu Shi and his wife lived a peaceful life. When he married his wife when he was young, he was ignorant, and his wife was quite fierce after passing the door, Hu Shi was rumored to have a reputation of "afraid of his wife", and for Hu Shi also self-deprecating to find the story of "afraid of his wife" from ancient times to the present, Hu Shi's family life is also very satisfying. And Mr. Hu Shi also had a lot of complaints about Xu Zhimo's divorce, calling him "unkind".

In the face of the first period, the collision of old and new ideas is unprecedentedly fierce. Whether it is free love or arranged marriage, there are good and bad endings, Chinese and Western cultures are simply incompatible at that time, and the changes in thinking are unprecedented. Marriage is not a shackle that imprisons a person, nor is it a tool to show whether the mind is free.

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