The Mystery of Ancient Representation of Marriage The Reality and Interpretation of Inbreeding Marriage and Deformed Children
Compared with the old society, we are very happy in the new society, bathed in the sunshine of peace, breathing the air of freedom, and everything seems so beautiful.
However, some extreme thinkers believe that they are not truly free because their code of conduct is not only governed by law, but also by morality.
We can't defend it, but the great thinker Rousseau said it well: freedom without limits is not true freedom.
For this reason, true freedom must be curbed, otherwise the social order will descend into chaos and the desire for freedom will become utopian.
In the case of marriage, for example, if there is no legal constraint, it means that even the most basic freedoms in mutual relations must be lost, so what happiness can we talk about?
Marriage is not child's play, but a lifelong commitment to each other, and unless there are legal restrictions, the additional burden of family welfare and the education of offspring will lead to an increase in consanguineous marriages.
The fact that the law does not allow close relatives to marry does not mean that the law is insensitive, but that the marriage of close relatives is too harmful.
Inbreeding is when two people are related by blood for three generations or less, and since they have many similar genetic factors, the offspring will not inherit the mutated genes from their parents, thus passing on the harmful genes in the body to the next generation.
To put it simply, the possibility of the next generation of deformed children is very high, and once the child is not healthy, the whole family will be shrouded in thick darkness, and happiness will become a dead letter.
By the way, some people may say that according to the current definition, cousins are also close relatives, so why did the ancient representative brother and sister get married, and why is it rare to hear that cousins and sisters gave birth to deformed children today?
This is actually a very interesting question for the simple reason that let's take a look.
In the past, marriage with the same surname was not allowed.
Many people now believe that in the past there were no requirements for marriage, especially for large families with a high degree of freedom.
In reality, this is not the case. Ancient countries not only set a minimum for men and women to marry"Legal age", and also restricting the marriage of close relatives.
Due to the relatively low age of the indigenous population, in order to further increase the population,** the age of marriage for the indigenous population is usually set very early, but the legal age of marriage varies from dynasty to dynasty.
For example, in the Tang Dynasty, men were required to be at least 15 years old and women were at least 13 years old, while in the Ming Dynasty, men were at least 16 years old and women were at least 14 years old.
In addition, both men and women must marry after reaching the required age. Late marriages cannot be tolerated, after all, the population must increase, and late marriages are not advisable.
During the reign of Emperor Xiaohui of the Han Dynasty, family members with unmarried daughters between the ages of 15 and 30 were each fined 600 yuan.
It is also recorded in Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty's "Book of Jin - Biography of the Ji Family":
If the child is over 17 years old and the parents are not married, the senior ** will choose the child as the groom.
In the winter and October of the ninth year, Emperor Sima Yan of the Jin Dynasty personally issued an order to Tai Shici, stipulating that if the girl in the family had reached the age of seventeen and had not yet married, the local governor had the right to find a husband for her.
Of course, the Chief Executive cannot be so relaxed. After all, in ancient times, so was marriage"The same surname is not married"This shows that the ancients had realized that it was problematic for close relatives to marry, so they formulated such a policy.
You see, some people think that this policy of the ancients is not scientific, and some close relatives with the same surname cannot get married, if so, it will definitely not work, because at that time, marriage registration was not as strict as it is now.
There are no restrictions on cousin weddings.
The principle that marriage cannot be contracted on the basis of the same surname applies only to cases where a man or woman of the same patrilineal descent (i.e. not cousins) cannot be married, but there is no such provision for cousins of the same matrilineal descent.
Therefore, in the old days, cousins married cousins, cousins married cousins, such marriages were very popular, after all, the ancients believed that both parties understood each other, and oil and water did not need to run to strangers' fields, which was also a very harmonious way of marriage.
In feudal kingdoms, intermarriage between cousins was also common.
During the Western Han Dynasty, the queen of Emperor Hui of Han was Zhang, and this Zhang was the biological daughter of Princess Lu Yuan, the sister of Emperor Hui of Han.
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was known for her eloquence, and his first empress was named Chen Ajiao, the daughter of Princess Guantao, the aunt of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and a typical cousin marrying a cousin.
This is true for the royal family, and there are more ordinary people. In the well-known "Dream of Red Mansions", Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai are close relatives.
Xue Baochai is the daughter of Jia Baoyu's aunt's family and Jia Baoyu's cousin; Lin Daiyu is the daughter of Jia Baoyu's aunt's family and Jia Baoyu's cousin.
Murong Fu in "Tianlong Babu" is also Wang Yuyan's cousin, but Murong Fu's heart has returned to the light, but he can't see Wang Yuyan's beauty, and in the end, these close relatives don't bloom, so they cheapen Duanyan's child, and they have beauty.
So why do we hear so little about deformed children, when cousin marriages used to be so common, and in the past, cousin marriages were not considered consanguineous marriages
Reasons for the low number of children with disabilities in cousin marriages.
Whether it is a cousin or a cousin's child, as long as the three generations are related by the same blood, they are close relatives. Therefore, it is somewhat natural that the aboriginal people stipulated that marriage could not be entered into solely on the basis of the same surname.
It has been scientifically proven that inbreeding is very harmful. Even if the aborigines did not understand the science, they could not avoid its inevitability;The harm caused by inbreeding to the indigenous people is unavoidable.
In ancient times, the probability of two cousins getting married and giving birth to deformed children would not be small, and even higher than now, and we believe that the main reason for the lack of deformed children is that it cannot be recorded in history, so in our opinion, there are certainly few deformed children in ancient times.
Ancient people were especially careful not to publicize family ugliness, and since the birth of deformed children was regarded as family ugliness, they were naturally reluctant to tell strangers that their family had a deformed child.
Due to the limited level of medical care and awareness at that time, deformed children often did not grow up well and were even demonized by their parents, who would drive them away as soon as possible and even do cruel things to them.
Ordinary people are rarely recorded in history, and of course, those nobles who are recorded in history do not allow historians to record any acts involving deformed children, because if they are talked about, they would tarnish the glory of the royal family.
In the past, consanguineous marriages were not completely forbidden, which paved the way for their unhappy lives. But in that era when men were inferior to women, even if it was forbidden for close relatives to marry, could they really be happy?
It's a challenging puzzle...
References: Book of Jin, Book of Han, etc.