How much can an ancient maid buy one? What can she do if she buys it? Can you afford it

Mondo Social Updated on 2024-02-03

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In ancient China, wealthy eunuchs often kept a group of servants and maids at home, and the more servants and maids in the family, the more prominent the status of the owner of the family. Most of these servants came from poor families, and were bought and sold at a very young age, and even taken as the property of the master's family.

So, how much did it cost to buy a maid in ancient times? What are these maids responsible for?

Due to the ancient management system of human trafficking and ordinary in different dynasties, the ** of maids is also different.

According to the records of the historical books, in the Qin and Han dynasties, due to the continuous wars and the people's lack of livelihood, the maids at this time were very cheap, and they could buy one with only one stone of rice. Converted to modern RMB, it is only 60 yuan.

In the early days of the Western Han Dynasty, the political situation began to stabilize, and the emergence of the rule of Wenjing made the lives of the people gradually stable. The people at the bottom can afford to raise their children even if they are poor, and the ** of the maid at this time has risen to more than 20 stone of grain.

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, buying a maid usually required three taels of silver, which was improved compared to the previous dynasties, and it was not completely consistent.

According to the current price, one tael of silver in the Ming Dynasty is equivalent to 660 yuan now, and three taels of silver is about 2,000 yuan, and if it is the so-called "good quality", it can even reach 4 to 50,000 yuan.

Ancient maids were not like in TV dramas, where they could dress up or even wear decent clothes. The host family buys the maids back, and they are mainly responsible for the housework at home, such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, serving washing and changing, and almost most of the chores in the family are undertaken by them.

These maids often have a low status, and if these heavy work is not done in line with the master's wishes, they are often beaten or scolded, and the maids can only endure in silence.

In fact, the so-called maids are no different from slaves in ancient times, they have no personal freedom, their fate is in the hands of others, and they can only work hard to complete the heavy work in order to survive. For the owner's family, the maid is just like a thing, an item that can be disposed of at will, without any dignity at all.

The fate of the maid is often closely related to the master's family, even if they have not been beaten, starved, or abused, once the master's family loses power, they will be sold to other families, and may even be seated with the master's family.

Looking back at history, these maids who cannot control their own destiny are always miserable and helpless in the torrent of history, they have a low status and have no freedom in life and personal dignity.

With the development of the times and the progress of society, we have begun to abandon this system, and the status of women has also been significantly improved, and this hard-won progress in human nature is worth cherishing.

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