In the late 80s of the last century, I was a schoolboy. You must know that the school at that time was extremely wild compared to now, like a teacher beating a student is almost a matter of course, and it can also be blessed by the blessing aura of parents. I remember that the activation spell for this aura usually went like this: Teacher, if this bear thing doesn't obey, you can beat it hard, as long as you don't beat it to death, it doesn't matter if you break your leg!
More than 30 years ago, schooling was more like wild stocking than it is now.
You say, is it easy for our generation to jump around with no shortage of parts until now?
As a result, schools of that era often did things that would have maddened parents or scared them out of heart attack today. For example, I once experienced a horror story that originated from an outing organized by school.
On the same day, the school brought in several buses and pulled a large number of elementary school students, including me, to a barren mountain outside the city - it was a real barren mountain and a wild mountain, without any development, without any roads, and there were many graves mixed between the grass and trees, and there was no shortage of cliffs and deep pits, and it was said that there were poisonous snakes (and then they were hacked to death by a certain teacher with a sickle). Then the teacher hid a few notes on the top of the mountain, and then grabbed the students' butts and began to "hunt for treasures" all over the mountain.
I'm physically fit, so I'm at the forefront. As I ran up a gentle slope near the top of the hill, I saw something wrapped in a blue-and-white sheet under a large tree next to a wild grave. Anyway, martial arts movies were popular at that time, so to this day, I still like whimsical thoughts, and the first thought that flashed through my mind at that time was:
Could it be that the "Nine Yin True Scripture" has appeared?
Then I rushed over with lightning speed and lifted the blue and white sheets. Then came a vision that had appeared in my nightmares countless times for a long time after that—it was wrapped in a baby, apparently long dead, soy sauce-colored and rotting maggots. And the most impressive thing is that his eyes are rotten or cut out by something, leaving only two deep black holes, straight at me.
That's pretty much what I saw at the time.
How scary was that scene? Anyway, I was so scared that I lost my memory, and I can't remember how this matter was handled after that, whether I continued to "hunt for treasure", and how I went back to school and home. And I'm almost 10 years old, and I have to turn on the lights for more than half a year before I have the courage to sleep.
Many years later, the dusty memories of the past have long since scared me, and I also know that it is an abandoned baby. I also know that this bad custom of infanticide and infant drowning was once very common in the past few thousand years, and it was rampant in the Song and Qing dynasties.
Today, we're going to talk about the story behind the phenomenon of infanticidity.
Infant drowning does not necessarily refer to drowning a baby, but includes all acts that harm the life of a newborn. This phenomenon has been prevalent in all ancient civilizations in history, such as ancient Greece, ancient Rome, ancient India, etc., and of course in ancient China.
Because the most common method of infanticide is to put it in a wooden basin and throw it into a river, it is customary to refer to infanticide as infanticide.
The most fundamental reason for the existence of infant drowning is that the backward productivity is not enough to support the huge cost of raising a baby**, and the lack of contraceptive technology has made this problem worse. However, behind the phenomenon of infant drowning, there is also a profound social reality, taking ancient China as an example, natural and man-made disasters and excessive taxes are also the main reasons for the cruel reality that parents do not hesitate to strangle their own flesh and blood.
Let's talk about natural disasters and man-made disasters first.
Compared with other ancient civilizations, the Chinese civilization is the only one that has been able to survive for thousands of years, but the problem is that it has always been plagued by the constant change of dynasties. For example, we are familiar with the "300-year dynastic cycle" - as short as a few decades or as long as more than 200 years, there will inevitably be a new dynasty replacing the old one, which is often followed by large-scale and prolonged wars, which in turn cause serious damage to the productive forces.
The vast number of people who were difficult to fill their stomachs in the peaceful years will face the catastrophe of extinction in the war, and the records of cannibalism and white bones everywhere in the history books abound. You must know that as early as the Warring States Period, China's population reached the scale of 30 million, but in the middle of the Ming Dynasty two thousand years later, it was still hovering around 70 million, why did it grow so slowly? The large-scale wars that inevitably break out every one or two hundred years are to blame.
For example, in the third year of Yongshou (157 AD), the population size of the Eastern Han Dynasty reached its peak, with official statistics of 10.68 million households and 56.48 million people. Considering that a large number of people who were annexed by the Hao clan, slaves and maids, and Hu people who moved to the Han land were not included in the hukou, the total population at that time should have exceeded 65 million.
However, after the heroic and brilliant warlord melee in the late Han Dynasty, the population of northern China plummeted to less than 10 million (about 80% of the population of the Eastern Han Dynasty lived in the north), and by the first year of the Jingyuan Dynasty of Cao Wei (263 AD), the official registered population was only 800,000 households and 4.43 million people.
Every time there is a change of dynasty, it will cause a large number of population losses.
This means that in just 100 years, 50 million people have been lost to this terrible war and the disasters it brings.
Comparable to man-made disasters are natural disasters. Because of the backwardness of the productive forces and the lack of technical conditions, the ability of the ancients to resist natural disasters such as floods and droughts is insignificant.
The disaster relief capabilities of ancient dynasties are even more speechless. Like the so-called opening of warehouses and releasing grain that is common in film and television, the number of times it appears in reality is pitiful, and more often than not, the victims are driven to unaffected areas or barren mountains and wilderness to "eat", in fact, they are left to fend for themselves. For example, the two Song Dynasty also made a more sassy operation - as soon as the disaster occurred, they recruited young people from the disaster victims to join the Xiang army, which not only dissipated the potential main force of the rebellion, but also obtained a group of almost free labor. As for the elderly, weak, women and children among the victims who are not recruited, who cares if they die or not?
So after a natural disaster, it often means that there are many bones everywhere.
In such natural and man-made disasters, the first to be injured are infants and young children. Not only because they don't have any ability to protect themselves, but also because they are a burden to the whole family and even the clan. Between life and death, they are often the first to be abandoned.
In "Twenty-Four Filial Piety", there is a story of burying a child and serving his mother. It is said that there was a filial son named Guo Ju in the Jin Dynasty, because his family was poor and could not support his mother and son at the same time, so he chose to bury his son alive. As a result, when digging the grave, I happened to dig an altar **, and now the ending was happy, not only the mother and son could feed, the family lived a happy life, and Guo Ju's reputation of filial piety also spread all over the world.
The story of burying her mother is outrageous, I don't know why so many people still believe it.
There is always a happy ending in the story, but in life there is only the cruel reality - digging a grave and digging a jar of gold? Can you believe this kind of unbelievable thing? In fact, the prototype of Guo Ju's story of burying his mother, only stones were dug out of the pit, and it was his own son who was buried
"Guo Shidao, Huiji Yongxing people are also ......The family is poor, has no property, and supports his stepmother with help. When a woman gives birth to a man, the husband and wife discuss and say, 'If you provide for a child here, the cost will be greater.' 'It is weeping and weeping (pronounced yì, meaning to be buried)" (Book of Song, Volume 91, Lie Biography 51).There are countless examples of such cruelty in history, Guo Shidao's son is lucky, at least there is a place to be buried. In fact, most of the time, children who have just arrived in this world are thrown into a ditch or a stream by their parents, and they lose their traces in this world.
Natural disasters and man-made disasters are not in anyone's place, but don't underestimate the power of population reproduction. When the People's Republic of China was founded, the country's population was about 500 million, and today, more than 70 years later, it is nearly 1.5 billion, an increase of two times, and it is the result of more than 30 years of policy restrictions. Even in ancient times, it looked the same, for example, in the first year of Wude (618 AD) when the Tang Dynasty was founded, the official registered population was only 7.2 million, and by 130 years later, during the Tianbao period, this number became 80 million, a tenfold increase.
The glory of the Tang Dynasty was built on the huge population size and rapid growth rate.
But that's just how it looks. In fact, every time there is a war, due to the displacement of the people and the decline or even absence of the government's ability to rule, a large number of registered population is lost, so the population will decline by tens of millions every time the dynasty changes. As mentioned above, a large part of the 50 million people lost in the 100 years from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Cao Wei Dynasty did not necessarily die, but could not be included in the household registration population and could not be used by the government.
For the same reason, in the chaotic era of the founding of the Tang Dynasty, a large number of people were reduced to exiles or refuge in the mountains, and naturally they could not get household registration. Therefore, the official statistics of 7.2 million people at that time only referred to the part of the population that still stayed in their hometowns honestly, and had fixed land and property and paid taxes. As for how many ** people were in the world at that time, maybe 350 million, maybe 72 million, even Tang Gaozu Li Yuan himself couldn't figure it out.
When the rule of the Tang Dynasty became more and more stable and social order was gradually restored, the displaced people would naturally return to their hometowns slowly, and most of the people who had taken refuge in the mountains and wilderness would choose to settle down in order to obtain shelter and a stable life. As a result, the official population size will gradually return to its original level, rather than people suddenly being willing to have more children.
In fact, despite the concept and custom of having many sons and blessings, unfilial piety, and having three no queens, the Han people's desire to have children in the past thousands of years has not been strong. As a result, China's population growth nearly stagnated for nearly 2,000 years, from the Han Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, peaking between 70 million and 100 million. One of the biggest culprits that led to the Han people's reluctance to have children, and even abandonment or killing them at birth, was Ding Fu, commonly known as the poll tax.
Among the various harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes that have appeared in history, the poll tax is the worst and the most harmful.
The poll tax has been around since ancient times, but it's called differently. For example, in the Han Dynasty, it was called Calculation Fu and Gengfu, in the Tang Dynasty it was called Yongqian, in the Song Dynasty it was called Ding Qian, and after the Yuan Dynasty, it was basically called Ding Tax or Ding Fu. In addition to the Han Dynasty's calculation of the endowment for both men and women, the Ding endowment of other dynasties was basically only collected from men, and the money was lost - if there were several men in a family, a few taxes would be levied.
You know, this is not a small amount of money. For example, the Han Dynasty's calculation was 80 120 yuan per person per year, and the Song Dynasty's body money was 360 yuan per person per year in the Liangzhejiang region, which was fatal. You must know that for most of the time in history, most of the people at the bottom could only barely make ends meet, even in good times. Having an extra child not only has to bear the cost of raising at least ten years, but also has to pay a poll tax. If ten or eight sons are born in one go, even a well-off family can only go bankrupt.
Therefore, in that era when there was basically no contraceptive technology, a family usually abandoned or even killed the children after giving birth to two or three sons and meeting the basic needs of inheritance and domestic labor. In this regard, Zhu Xi's father Zhu Song once sighed:
"The people of my country have two more sons. If you don't ask, the boys and girls throw themselves into the basin and kill them. The parents tolerate the unbearable, and the brothers are afraid that they will be punished, so they will kill them from the side. (Wei Zhai Collection, Volume 10, Quit Killing Ziwen).So as long as the poll tax thing is still there, ordinary people don't want and dare not have more children, because even if you can afford it, you can't afford to pay the tax. So even in those so-called ruling and prosperous times that are touted to the sky, there has never been a lack of babies who have been abandoned just after birth in the ditches and rivers of the world.
But this phenomenon is unacceptable for the government. After all, as long as it is a serious dynasty, population growth is a good thing to increase face and add to the lining - one more population means one more source of tax and one more labor that they can call upon for free.
For the rulers, the people of the world are their walking ATMs.
Therefore, most dynasties in history have taken various measures to encourage people to marry and have children at an early age. There are three types of measures that are usually taken, the first of which is the threat of punishment. For example, in order to increase the population in the Spring and Autumn Period, the Yue State not only forbade the old cattle to eat tender grass, but also arrested their fathers and mothers for punishment if the children in the family did not marry when they reached the limit age
"Let the strong man not take the old woman, and let the old man not take the strong wife. If a woman is seventeen and does not marry, her parents are guilty; If the husband does not marry twenty, his parents are guilty. (Chinese, Vol. 20, Vietnamese).However, such simple and crude measures are obviously not harmonious enough and can easily lead to social contradictions. Therefore, in the Han Dynasty, the punishment for older leftover women who did not want to have children was changed from a criminal punishment to a fine: "If a woman is over 15 to 30 years old and does not marry, five will be counted." (Hanshu Volume 2 Huidi Ji II) is that women do not marry during the childbearing age, and must pay 5 times the annual calculation (about 400 600 yuan) - this is a burden that most ordinary families cannot afford, if you give birth to a few more daughters who refuse to marry, it will make the whole family bankrupt, so if you can marry, you should marry quickly.
The third measure is to induce them to take advantage. For example, in the Tang Dynasty, as long as a boy was born in the family and could still support him until he reached adulthood, he could get the land granted by the government: "Ding Nan gave Yongye 20 acres of land, and Kou divided the field 80 acres, of which men over 18 years old were also given by Ding Nan." This means that at least before the destruction of the Juntian system in the Middle and Tang Dynasty, giving birth to a boy was a good deal that would make a steady profit without losing money, and it also led to the rapid growth of the population in the early Tang Dynasty.
The problem, however, is that these measures do not address the symptoms. Even if the people are forced to marry and have children early, as long as the poll tax is not abolished, they still dare not have more children.
So why not abolish the poll tax? Of course, it can't be wasted, after all, who is willing to say that such a large sum of money is not wanted?
The dynasties with the most serious cases of infant drowning in history were the Song and Qing dynasties. But the reasons for the two are completely different, for example, in the Qing Dynasty, it is okay to say that he was unlucky, and it is reasonable to say that he will not die if he does not die.
In the Qing Dynasty, the phenomenon of infant drowning was so serious that in many places, there were baby towers, which were specialized buildings for the centralized disposal of abandoned babies.
In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, due to the continuous war, the contradictions between the Manchus and the Han Dynasty, and in order to encourage production and childbirth, the Qing Shengzu Aixin Jueluo Xuanye ordered in the 51st year of the Kangxi Reign (1712 AD) that the number of men in the country (about 24.62 million) in the previous year should be the upper limit of the collection of Ding Fu. In fact, this capped the upper limit of the Ding tax, reduced the tax burden of the people and the burden of childbirth, and greatly promoted population growth.
In the first year of Yongzheng (1723 AD), Qing Shizong Aixin Jueluo Yinzhen was widely implemented in the whole country to spread the Ding into the mu, that is, the fixed Ding tax was evenly spread into the field endowment, and the unified Ding Ding silver was collected, and the Ding tax was no longer levied on people.
This means that the poll tax, which has been squeezing the people for thousands of years, has finally been abolished.
This was undoubtedly good governance, and the effect was staggering - by the end of the Qianlong period, grain production had nearly doubled compared with the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, and the population had increased nearly fourfold, reaching 4Population peak of 500 million.
On the surface, the reform of the tax system has fully achieved its goal. After all, production has developed, and the population has also increased, which is a proper prosperous scene in which dynasty and generation. Even if it is a prosperous benchmark such as Wenjing and Zhenguan, has it ever produced so much food and fed so many people?
But in fact, we all know that the so-called Kang Yongqian era is nothing but a hungry age. In the Qing Dynasty, the number of babies abandoned because they could not afford to feed them was almost the highest in history - because the phenomenon of infant drowning was so common, there were even "baby towers" in many areas for people to concentrate on abandoning babies, so as not to lose them everywhere and ...... unsightly
Why is that? This is because the growth of the population exceeds the limits of what agricultural production can bear under low-tech conditions. Although the territory of the Qing Dynasty during the Kang Yongqian period was three times larger than that at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the main population was still concentrated in the 18 provinces of the Han Dynasty, and the growth rate of cultivated land lagged far behind the population growth rate. In the absence of modern agricultural technologies such as pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and super rice, it is basically impossible to rely on this land to fill the stomachs of hundreds of millions of people.
Although the number of acres of land and grain production in the Qing Dynasty increased dramatically, it was still vulnerable in the face of the more violent increase in the number of people.
Regarding the Qing Dynasty's ** fried, there are many people on the Internet who stubbornly attribute it to the introduction and promotion of high-yield crops such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn. I was in"The people of the Qing Dynasty are the credit of corn and potatoes? It's a big jokeIt was refuted in the article, but it was criticized and even abused by a large number of people, which is really helpless. If it weren't for the abolition of the poll tax, even if potatoes and sweet potatoes could make people eat enough to burst their stomachs - in fact, the grain yield per mu in the Qing Dynasty did not increase significantly due to the introduction of high-yield crops - but the still poor people could afford to pay tens to hundreds of dollars per person per year? And for every extra child, you have to bear double the tax, who dares to give birth in this situation, dare to have more?
It is precisely because the policy of apportionment into the mu has in fact abolished the poll tax that the burden of childbirth on the general public has been eliminated to the greatest extent, thus causing the first growth of the population in the short term. ）
So the rulers of the Qing Dynasty were stunned to find that they had completed the great reforms that the previous dynasties could not and did not dare to put into practice, and promoted the number of acres, grain production and population size to reach unimaginable heights before, but the final result was comprehensive poverty, and even their own people were raised.
If Kang Yong Qianquan had known, I don't know if he would regret it - if he hadn't done it more ...... the first time
Therefore, if the previous drowning babies were more because of tax pressure and could not be raised, the drowning babies in the Qing Dynasty could not find any other reason, that is, they could not raise them.
And they all made it themselves, and they couldn't find anyone to blame it.
If the epidemic of infant drowning in the Qing Dynasty was also due to the factor of the ruler's "good intentions doing bad things", the Song Dynasty formed another upsurge of infant drowning in history, purely because of the deep malice of the rulers.
The Song Dynasty was the most polarized dynasty in Chinese history, with the rich dying and the poor dying poor.
Whether in the history books or the current ** touting the economic prosperity and cultural prosperity of the two Song Dynasty, there are many people, which is not a problem. But if it blows about the king, the ministers, the virtuous, the social harmony, and the peace and happiness of the people, it will be pure nonsense.
It is said that the emperor of the Zhao family of the two Song Dynasty is indeed unprecedentedly good to the civil officials and doctors, and the generals and nobles can live happily like immortals if they do not fight for power and do not fight for power. Even those big landlords and big businessmen who are not in the position of officials can make a fortune by annexing land and embezzling property as long as they are attached to the powerful. But the problem is that although the two Song Dynasty are mercantil, the level of productivity is not necessarily higher than that of the previous dynasty, so where did the emperor of the Zhao family get so much money to feed so many powerful people?
Of course, they are desperately searching for the people at the bottom.
Therefore, most of the harsh taxes and bad governments during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period were inherited by the two Song Dynasty. Not only that, but they were also good at various inventions and creations to loot the people's fat and ointment, such as the infinitely expanded official system - the official system had appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period, but it was mainly limited to the salt and iron monopoly, and the two Song Dynasty courts directly plundered and monopolized all the business by which industry made money. For example, in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, Wang Xiaobo and Li Shun rebelled, because tea was included in the official camp, so that Wang and Li, as tea merchants, had no way out and had to take risks.
And what can force the people of the two Song Dynasty to kill their sons and sell their daughters, the worst disaster, is mainly the poll tax
"The land of the southeastern states......If there are many men, they will kill their men, and if there are many women, they will kill their women. That is, its local style, Xuan and She (now Anhui) are very much, and Jiangning (now Nanjing) is the second ......Between Qu and Yan (now Zhejiang), the people of the fields were tired of every worry, and gave birth to their children. It is also close to Jiangdong Rao and Xin (now Jiangxi). (Song Hui to compile the manuscript, Criminal Law II).What is said here is not lifted, please don't think crookedly! This is a customary name in the Song and Song dynasties, also known as not raising a child or giving birth to a child, that is, not raising a child, killing or abandoning it when it is born, in fact, it is drowning a baby.
Regarding the flood of infant drowning in the two Song Dynasty, there are many mentions or criticisms in the works of Su Shi, Wang Dechen, Cai Xiang, Zhu Xi, Fan Chengda and others, and even the semi-official history book "Records of the Years Since the Establishment of Yan" has to be ashamed to admit that "the people of today are the body of money, and the sons are not raised, and they can be Min also" ("The Records of the Years Since the Establishment of Yan, Volume 152").
The area where the phenomenon of child drowning is most serious is Fujian. Wang Dechen, a scholar from the Northern Song Dynasty, served in Fujian for two years, but even for such a short time, he was shocked by the prevalence of infant drowning in the area
"If Fujian has many children, the fourth son will not raise the rate, and the property is not enough to support him. If it is a woman, it will not be three. Often in the presence of the vessel to store water, only to produce that is, drowning, the above nine characters, the banknote for the storage of water drowning four words. It is called washing, especially in Jian (now Jian'ou) and Jian (now Nanping). (Lu Shi Vol. I).Why is the phenomenon of infant drowning in the southeast very serious? This involves the deep malice in the heart of the Emperor of the Zhao family mentioned earlier.
The Northern Song Dynasty started in the north, and after the founding of the country, it faced a serious national defense crisis - whether it was the Khitans further north or the party members in the west, the Song people could not defeat any of them, but were often beaten into dogs. Therefore, even if the emperor of the Zhao family scraped the ground and scraped out the sparks, he did not dare to go too far in the north, after all, he bullied the people so badly, and people would not go to Liao and Western Xia? This kind of enemy behavior will not be done even if they lack the heart and eyes. Therefore, at that time, the tax burden of the northern people was relatively light, but the labor was extremely heavy, and they often faced the danger of being captured or hacked to death by foreign invaders, after all, the officers and soldiers of the Northern Song Dynasty were too useless.
The people in the north are not easy to bully, so they have to bully the south. It just so happened that the Northern Song Dynasty originated in the Five Dynasties, and the south was the territory of the Ten Kingdoms, and it had a history of being conquered by the Northern Song Dynasty, and there was no external pressure, so it became the favorite and most ruthless object of the Zhao Emperor.
Compared with Tian Fu, a tax that needs to maintain the image of the imperial court, the most important tool for the Northern Song Dynasty to squeeze out the southeast is all kinds of miscellaneous taxes, especially Ding Fu - for example, the body money collected by the Northern Song Dynasty in Zhejiang has reached the level of 360 yuan per Ding per year, which is 4 times that of the Han Dynasty and nearly 5 times that of the Tang Dynasty.
Scenes like those depicted in "The Stone Trencher" are everywhere in the Two Song Dynasty.
And if people want to pay less money, the only way is to have fewer babies. But in that era of poverty and lack of entertainment, the only fun that most people can find when it gets dark is almost ...... making babiesCoupled with the backwardness of contraceptive technology, the result can only be endless babies.
If the baby is born and doesn't want to pay taxes or can't pay taxes, then you can only not raise a child.
In Fujian, because of the large number of people and the lack of land, there are many poor people, but the imperial court is also ruthless in scraping the land. According to historical records, in the fourth year of Dazhong Xiangfu (1011 AD), Fuzhou's field tax revenue was 7,600 yuan, and the income of body money was 22,000 yuan, which actually reached 3 times the field tax - this is still under the premise that the Fujian area is flooded without raising children.
Emperor Zhao also thought so. After all, if the people have more babies, they can collect an extra tax, isn't it the legendary "double happiness"? So they hurriedly shouted and severely cracked down on infant drowning in the name of hurting education and corrupting customs
"There are many people who kill people and sacrifice ghosts, and poor families often do not give birth to children, which hurts the customs. It can be ordered to report the state army by road, and to make the county, town and village to be informed, strictly aware, and allowed to be reported. (Song Hui to compile the manuscript, Criminal Law II).But the problem is that the imperial court forbade not to raise children in order to collect more taxes, and the people did not raise children in order to pay less taxes, which is an irreconcilable contradiction. So in the end, don't look at the court's joy, the people should not raise their children or not.
No matter how much the emperor of the Zhao family pretends to love the people like a son, his ultimate goal is to loot the last penny of the people from them.
This custom was even transmitted to the wealthy. For example, Pucheng Zhang's - that is a nest of Jinshi, in the two Song Dynasty, there are 4 top wealthy families just as the prime minister. But in the second year of Jingyou (1035 AD), when another male baby was born in the clan, Zhang Yu, the father who had been a doctor of Yinqing Guanglu, felt that he had enough sons, and there was no use in adding a young son except for sharing the family property in the future. So Zhang Yu found a wooden basin and prepared to load the little baby and throw it into the river.
Thankfully, someone stopped him. Otherwise, there would have been no main cadre of the Fa Reform faction and iron-blooded prime minister Zhang Dun after Wang Anshi.
Some people may say that giving birth to a male baby can only send infinite happiness to the emperor of the Zhao family, so it's always okay to give birth to a female baby, right?
In fact, the problem of having a baby is even greater.
Today, because of the car, house, and bride price required for marriage, people have created a meme called "Birth of a boy in China Construction Bank, birth of a girl in China Merchants Bank". In the Song Dynasty, the situation was diametrically opposite, a bit similar to today's India, where women basically posted money. At that time, if the man's dowry was very shabby, no one usually thought it was inappropriate; On the contrary, if the woman's dowry cannot be used, the in-laws will never have a good face, and the beating and scolding are light, and it is common to divorce directly. Therefore, if any family has too many daughters, the parents have no place to cry, and usually drown in the basin as soon as they see that the daughter is born. Especially in the southeast region, the folk customs are extravagant, and the cost of weddings and funerals is particularly high, if you don't want to go bankrupt for your daughter's dowry more than ten years later, the only choice for parents is not to raise children.
This is especially true in Fujian. Fujian has always been particular about marrying daughters - when the daughter of a rich family marries, in addition to the dowry, she must also prepare hundreds of thousands of dollars with the car, and send the son-in-law to the family in the car to show off all the way, otherwise she will be laughed at by the neighbors. Therefore, in order to marry a daughter, even if it is an official eunuch, he must do his best. Before marriage, for the amount of dowry, the in-laws argue like a lawsuit, and they often become enemies. Therefore, many Fujian people are reluctant to raise daughters, and the proportion of drowning of female babies is the highest in the country.
May such a tragedy never be repeated.