PNB Chapter 123: Ghost Marriage
Chapter 123: Ghost Marriage
The video cover scared Li Ranran, "It's so late at night, and it's so heartless to make such a scary cover."
【Why ghost marriages continue to exist. 】
(The video starts with a chilling background music, and the screen is also accompanied by clips of ghost marriages from various movies)
[Ghost marriage is also called Yin marriage, ghost marriage, and bone matching. It is to find a spouse for the dead. The earliest origin can be traced back to the Shang Dynasty. After the establishment of the Zhou Dynasty, "Zhou Li·Diguan·Mei Shi" clearly prohibited and opposed ghost marriage, "forbidden to move the burial and marry the dead." During the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao wanted to arrange a ghost marriage for Cao Chong, who died young, and asked his subordinate Bing Yuan to marry his dead daughter, but Bing Yuan refused because it was not in accordance with etiquette.
During the Sui and Tang dynasties, Buddhism flourished, and people began to talk about cause and effect and believe in afterlife, and ghost marriages became more common. After Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, Li Xian, ascended the throne, he posthumously named his son Li Chongrun the Crown Prince Yide, and married him to the deceased daughter of Pei Cui, the Minister of the Imperial Academy, and buried the two bodies together. At this time, it was just a "reburial".
During the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, ghost marriages continued to develop. If two people had a marriage contract before their death, but unfortunately passed away before the marriage, the families of both the man and the woman would hold a ghost marriage and bury the two together. With the rise of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism in the Southern Song Dynasty, it had developed into "marrying the dead". In the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was believed that "a woman should not serve two husbands". If the man suddenly died before the marriage, the woman had to marry him according to the contract, remain a widow for the deceased husband for the rest of her life, and serve her parents-in-law until death.
If a man had no engagement during his lifetime and died before getting married, the family would look for a ghost matchmaker to find a match for him. If they found a suitable person, they would also have died before getting married and hold a ghost marriage. If they could not find a suitable dead person, they would find a living woman from a poor family to hold a ghost marriage. Many women were sold to their husbands by their parents and relatives. During the ghost marriage ceremony, they would be strangled to death and buried together.
At first, the ancients believed that "dying unmarried is a misfortune in life." Therefore, the living relatives would find a suitable person for the deceased to perform a ghost marriage. This is to make up for their inner regrets and fear of the deceased, and to let them rest in peace.
[As time goes by, ghost marriages have long since deteriorated. They are no longer a ceremony held by the living to mourn the dead, but have become a bad habit. In the modern ghost marriage market, the price of young deceased women far exceeds the bride price that should be given for a normal marriage. Some people will sell their own daughters for money and arrange ghost marriages with outsiders.
Women are often oppressed in the ghost marriage market, especially those with disabilities or intellectual disabilities. Today's ghost marriages are said to be for the deceased to be less lonely in the underworld, but in essence they are based on a desire for money and are made under the guise of comforting children. Although ghost matchmakers have always believed that they are doing good deeds, the main reason is to make money. Some ghost matchmakers have even engaged in grave digging and corpse robbing. 】
＜It is my blessing to see this video late at night [smile]＞
＜Didn’t some students choreograph a ghost marriage dance two years ago? That dance gave me a lot of creeps＞
＜The status of women really declined after the Southern Song Dynasty. I don’t even want to talk about the bad things passed down from the Ming and Qing Dynasties＞
＜If you are afraid that the deceased will be lonely and you are so reluctant to let him go, why don’t you go down and accompany him yourself＞
＜The ancients attached great importance to what happened after death＞
＜It seems that the ancients believed in the underworld after death. Then why did they think that if they did evil things, they would be fine in the underworld?＞
＜I remember there was a movie where the man died and the woman was buried alive in a coffin [Surprised]＞
＜Oh, if rich people are superstitious, they can do anything for you＞
＜From watching other videos, up is still gentle. After watching other videos, I realized how serious ghost marriage is now＞
＜The scenes in the video gave me chills. The bad habits in ancient times were basically aimed at women. They just oppressed women [rolling eyes]＞
＜The more I live, the more I return＞
＜The main reason is that ghost marriages have now formed a dark industry chain, which is difficult to eradicate...＞
＜Grateful to live in the modern era, I hope the country can crack down on these bad habits＞
......
The Song Dynasty issued an order to prohibit the phenomenon of "marrying the dead" and to ban ghost marriages. The light curtain also had a certain inhibitory effect on the people, and it was unknown how long the effect would last. As long as the upper level banned it, the lower level dared not do it openly.
The Song Dynasty also stipulated that "Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism" was not allowed in the future. First, the emperor publicly criticized the idea that "women should not serve two husbands" as a wrong idea, and then various literati wrote poems and essays to promote it.
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The 29th year of Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang Ying Zheng watched the whole process with a frown on his face. The picture and sound were so well matched that it was very refreshing to watch.
Ying Zheng knew something about ghost marriage, but he didn't expect it to have such a far-reaching impact. Ying Zheng was also an ancient man, and he often wondered what would happen to him after his death and how to build the imperial mausoleum...
"It is forbidden in the Zhou Li, so of course it should be banned." Ying Zheng's attitude was very clear, and banning ghost marriages would not have much impact.
After seeing the decline in women's status in the latter part of the video, Ying Zheng frowned again. Women are also part of the labor force, and it is really hard to understand why they have become like this. He made a random guess: "'Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism' has done a lot of harm to people."
Meng Yi: "I thought everything was good in the future, but it turns out there are bad things too..." This was said in the commentary of the light curtain video, saying that it is very difficult to uproot the industrial chain.
After a moment of silence, Ying Zheng said, "They also slowly explored the conclusions from their predecessors. For us, the era they lived in was very good, but perhaps it was also very ordinary for them."
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Wu Zhou Period
Wu Zetian was a devout Buddhist and believed in the Buddhist world. She blamed herself for the prevalence of ghost marriages in the Tang Dynasty, thinking that it was too much.
"A woman cannot serve two husbands? What's the logic behind this? A man can marry another man after his wife dies, but why can't a woman do the same?"
"Bullshit Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism."
Princess Taiping was so angry about the content of this episode's light screen video that she complained to Shangguan Wan'er.
"Don't let me know what else Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism contains, and don't let me know who promoted this doctrine, otherwise I will scold you on the screen every day!"
"Okay, don't be angry anymore. In our Tang Dynasty, there will never be such twisted logic." Shangguan Wan'er simply comforted the angry Princess Taiping.
Many noble ladies were also dissatisfied with Guangmu's video, and many people asked on Guangmu what life was like for women in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
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The 37th year of Emperor Kangxi's reign in the Qing Dynasty
Emperor Kangxi issued an order to ban ghost marriages halfway through watching Xuanye's video. This bad practice is not allowed to happen anymore!
His idea was relatively simple, just because ghost marriage was originally a custom of the Han people, and the Manchus did not have it. After Emperor Kangxi discovered that the Manchus would sooner or later become Han Chinese, he thought that it would be good for the Manchus to ban some of the Han people's bad habits as soon as possible, such as foot binding and ghost marriage.
Emperor Kangxi turned the ring on his thumb, but he still had to be considerate about the marriage between the dead. The families that would hold ghost marriages were mostly aristocrats and wealthy families, and poor families would not do it.
In order to show how seriously he took the prohibition of foot binding and ghost marriages seriously, Emperor Kangxi sent out the fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth princes, who were conferred the title of Beile this year, and asked them to strictly enforce the policy.