Text/Fu Huaxuan
Modern people advocate marriage freedom, between men and women who fall in love, there are no conditions, the three views are consistent, talk can be discussed, feelings have been established, marriage is registered, of course, some people want to have a house and a car to have academic qualifications, although some are secular, other aspects are still very open. However, more than a hundred years ago, when men and women married at that time, they had to follow the rules and regulations of feudal etiquette, and did not dare to cross the thunder pool half a step! The slightest carelessness will be commented on as: shame.
Today, I would like to talk about an anecdote about Mr. Cai Yuanpei, a celebrity of the Republic of China and the president of Peking University.
Cai Yuanpei, also spelled Heqing, also spelled Zhongshen, Minyou, and Minmin, was born on January 11, 1868 in Shanyin County, Shaoxing, Zhejiang. The Cai family was quite wealthy, Cai Yuanpei's grandfather Cai Jiamu was a famous local merchant, and his eldest son, Cai Yuanpei's father, Cai Guangpu, was the manager of Qianzhuang. Cai Guangpu has a kind personality and is gentle, he has seven children, Cai Yuanpei ranks fourth. Cai Yuanpei received a good traditional education from an early age, and he entered a private school at the age of 6 to study enlightenment books such as "Hundred Family Names" and "Thousand Character Text". When he was 11 years old, Cai Yuanpei's father unfortunately died, fortunately, the Cai family is very large, there are many people to take care of him, of which the sixth uncle Cai Ming'en is responsible for guiding him to study, Cai Yuanpei soon became familiar with the Four Books and Five Classics, laying a solid foundation in ancient Chinese.
In 1883, at the age of 15, Cai Yuanpei was admitted to the Qing Dynasty.com. The following year, Cai Yuanpei opened the library to accept apprentices and teach, and at the same time prepared to continue his studies. In 1889, the 21-year-old Cai Yuanpei rushed to Hangzhou to participate in the township examination and passed the examination. In this year, Cai Yuanpei married his first wife, Wang Zhao. The following year, he went to Beijing to participate in the examination, and then entered the Hanlin Academy and successfully entered the Hanlin Academy to take up the official position of Shu Jishi. Holding a prominent position in a clean and idle position, with some reputation, it is said that the new Hanlin should feel comfortable in life, but in the corrupt and incompetent imperial court, Cai Yuanpei, who is full of patriotic enthusiasm, is deeply distressed by the fact that there is no way to serve the country. In 1895, the Sino-Japanese War broke out, the corrupt Qing Dynasty was defeated, and in 1895, the Treaty of Maguan was signed. Cai Yuanpei was full of resentment at this, and he gradually got rid of the shackles of traditional ideas and began to contact Western democratic ideas.
After that, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and other reformers began to encourage the Guangxu Emperor to change the law and restore the new, and Cai Yuanpei was also very supportive of this. However, the Hundred Days Restoration soon failed, and the Qing government also killed Tan Sitong, a restorationist whom Cai Yuanpei greatly admired. Cai Yuanpei saw through the Qing government, which was strong and strong in the outside world, and he resolutely resigned his official post and went south, returned to his hometown in Shaoxing, served as the principal of the Shaoxing Chinese and Western School, and founded a new type of education. However, the conservative faction in the school was very powerful, and they interfered in Cai Yuanpei's reforms, and Cai Yuanpei could not stand this and resigned angrily.
In July 1901, Cai Yuanpei went to Shanghai to become a teacher at Nanyang Public School (the predecessor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University). At this time, Cai Yuanpei's wife Wang Zhao had died of illness, and many people learned of Cai Yuanpei's widowhood and persuaded Cai Yuanpei, who was just 33 years old, to continue his life to take care of his living life. This matter quickly spread out, and a large number of matchmakers ran to Cai Yuanpei's residence, all of which wanted to protect the famous Cai Yuanpei.
In the marriage relationship of that era, both men and women had to strictly obey "the orders of the parents and the words of the matchmaker". "Etiquette and Qu Li": "Men and women do not have a matchmaker"; "Men and women are not mediated, and they are not well-known". The preliminary procedure of marriage should conform to the "six rites", which are necessary conditions for the establishment of the marriage. The legal marriage of the rites must be completed through the "six rites" procedure, that is, "Na Cai", "Ask the name", "Na Ji", "Na Zheng", "Please Period" and "Kiss and Greet", and the six links are indispensable.
Cai Yuanpei has just passed the year of establishment, and his learning is full of Chinese and Western fame, which is really a fragrant feast for unmarried women! The matchmakers flocked to the door in turn, and the flow was endless. Cai Yuanpei was overwhelmed by the matchmakers and struggled to cope, so he immediately made a decision and boldly posted a standard for marrying a wife at the door, which was equivalent to putting a bombing mine on the campus and stunned people!
This criterion consists of five points:
The first is women who do not wrap their feet;
The second is literacy;
The third is that men are not allowed to marry concubines and wives;
The fourth is that if the husband dies first, then the wife can remarry;
The fifth is that disagreements can be divorced.
These five points in that era were not exaggerated in terms of strangeness and shocking vulgarity. Everyone figured it out, at that time, it was the Qing Dynasty when Empress Dowager Cixi was in power, the three-inch golden lotus was fashionable at that time, the three rooms and four concubines abounded, it was normal for women to be illiterate, women who died of husbands had to observe the festival, and daughters-in-law who married into the door could not be divorced. However, Cai Yuanpei's five bold demands broke through the worldly bottom line. After reading these five marriage standards, almost all the matchmakers were scared away. But after all, Shanghai is not an ordinary small town, the most not lack of courageous and insightful women, among which Huang Zhongyu, the daughter of The famous Scholar Huang Erxuan in Jiangxi, was attracted by these five standards, originally, Miss Huang knew the book, looked outstanding, a pair of heavenly feet, stretched generously, open-minded, novel views, she found a matchmaker, took the initiative, and the two soon got married under the matchmaking of friends.
On New Year's Day 1902, Cai Yuanpei held his second wedding in Hangzhou. This wedding is no longer a traditional Chinese wedding procedure, but a combination of East and West, which also reflects the transformation of Cai Yuanpei's thinking.
Shortly after the marriage, Cai Yuanpei traveled to Japan. Seeing that after Japan's new-style education, the momentum of forging ahead in the whole country has emerged, Cai Yuanpei was greatly shocked, he believed that the biggest gap between China and Japan was in education, and he deeply felt the poison of the Qing government's policy of the people. After returning to China, he began to talk openly about the revolution, and together with Tao Chengzhang, he established the Guangfu Association in Shanghai, where he was elected president and plotted to launch an armed uprising. In August 1905, the League was established in Tokyo, Japan, and Cai Yuanpei joined the League through the introduction of people.
During the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, Cai Yuanpei cut off his braids, took off his robe, and engaged in military training with young students, even imparting the knowledge of assassination to students, hoping to use uprisings and assassinations to destroy the corrupt regime.
In May 1907, with the help of Sun Baoqi, minister to Germany, Cai Yuanpei went to Germany to study at the famous Leipzig University, where he studied for four years. Cai Yuanpei's stay in Germany is completely self-funded, plus his wife and children in Shanghai also rely on him to support him, so he worked many odd jobs during his study abroad, not only as a tutor, but also for the Commercial Press to write textbooks, translate German works, and live a very hard life. But in such a tense and busy atmosphere, he changed from an old intellectual who only read four books and five classics to an educator who knew the essence of Western education. It laid the foundation for his future presidency of Peking University.