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Preface
When I accidentally saw the information that people from all walks of life donated materials and money to the welfare home when it was icy and snowy when I was on the Internet, those orphans who were abandoned for whatever reason finally had a place to stay in the welfare home, although it was impossible to be as cared for as the baby who lived normally around his parents, but at least he didn't have to suffer from wandering.
Seeing such news, I can't help but start to reflect, in the context of ancient social turmoil, some children were abandoned because of social factors, do they have a place to stay, so how did the orphanage run in ancient times?
The conditions for the creation of orphans in ancient times
In ancient China, children without a father were called "lost children", children without mothers were called "lost children", and orphans whose parents were not alive became "solitary dew" or "abandoned adoption".
In contemporary society, we know that although orphans cannot have a complete and happy family like children with both parents, at least under a relatively perfect social system, there are special institutions to help orphans, so that orphans are not in a state of displacement.
First of all, orphans are generally born in wars, ancient society was in turmoil, wars were quite frequent, and they were in an unstable political environment all year round, and almost all of the strong men of the right age were arrested to guard the country on the front line.
Among them, there are many male children who have not yet been born, or have just fallen to the ground, once they go to the front line, it means that there is a risk of no return, some men do not know the skills of war at all, and did not receive professional training before the war, so some people just went to the battlefield and were reported to be sacrificed.
In the past, men were the main labor force in the family, and the family generally counted on men to support the family, so when a man died in battle, the adults and children in the family were helpless, and some young women could not accept the news of their husband's death, and washed their faces with tears all day long, living at home without food in the jar, and had no money to buy food for their children.
Some people are forced to make the choice of abandoning their children, everyone is trying to survive, and the second type of orphan is actually very similar to the first, because once the baby is abandoned, it must be closely related to the relationship between parents and family.
Like in ancient times, there were some remote areas where the economy was not very developed, but a few members of a family only relied on a small piece of land to make a living, in addition, there was no other ability to make a living, and farming had to be left to fate, whether there was enough food to survive each year, completely depended on luck.
If there is a natural disaster in a certain year, or if the government vigorously loots the fruits of people's labor in order to collect food for the army, then it will be difficult for people's daily life to maintain, and it will be difficult for adults to survive, let alone the fragile life that has not been born for a long time.
Some families believe that abandoning their children may give them a glimmer of life when they meet rich people, but this is just the beautiful imagination of the abandoners, and generally children are abandoned on the side of the road or at the door of the rich people's homes, and passers-by will not even look at them, and some orphans will either starve to death or freeze to death.
Some will be resold by traffickers for money, anyway, there are not many children who can become the adopted children of rich families, and the last reason for becoming orphans is due to some unpredictable natural disasters.
The children who survived natural and man-made disasters will lose all their families, and some will lose both parents, and where these children will go and how they should grow up will be a question that the ancient government should consider.
Ancient solves the problem of orphans
Under the influence of the ancient feudal system, one of the most hateful ways of forcing women to be orphans was the most unacceptable, because many families favored sons over daughters, and the birth of women could increase the financial burden on the family, so some people simply abandoned the girls.
In fact, after the birth of orphans, some ancient dynasties on how to solve the problem of orphans, also implemented many measures, one is the government subsidy, in fact, as early as the Shang and Zhou dynasties, ancient China has established charities, mainly used to accommodate those orphans who have no one to take care of.
In the Han Dynasty, the social welfare system for orphans was relatively perfect, according to relevant historical records, the rulers of the Han Dynasty would reward the orphans with cloth and food from time to time, so that the orphans could be fed and clothed, and survive well under the condition of meeting the basic materials.
Moreover, the Han Dynasty also stipulated that if the orphan loses his parents, but there are relatives alive, then the relatives of the orphan can also receive subsidies from the imperial court within a certain period of time, the purpose of which is to let the relatives extend a helping hand to the orphan on a daily basis under the welfare subsidy of the orphan.
Although there were already adoption agencies in the Han Dynasty, such institutions were only in name only in name for themselves without funds to maintain them, and since the adoption agencies could not be effectively operated by the imperial court, they naturally could not maintain the normal life of many orphans.
Therefore, children in adoption institutions often get financial help from nobles or politicians, and some nobles will build a bridge of adoption with some childless families in the private sector.
Some children may go to work as slaves in families that can maintain food and clothing, while some children may meet good families and change their fate, of course, the adoption process is not completed casually, and it needs to be strictly implemented in accordance with the legal steps of the Han Dynasty.
In the Southern Song Dynasty, the regulations for helping orphans were more refined, and the imperial court would send people from time to time to send food and money to those families with financial difficulties, just to stifle some people's idea of abandoning their children from the source, and there were also regulations that some families would directly prohibit childbirth if they could not afford to raise children.
Moreover, in the Song Dynasty, specifically to the Southern Song Dynasty, the Juzicang was set up, which was set up specifically to help the poor people and families with very difficult economic resources.
Moreover, the Song Dynasty also stipulated some specific measures to encourage the people to adopt children, and the law stipulated that if the child was adopted, the biological parents would never be able to recognize the child, and the child's adoptive parents would also give financial help.
summary
In ancient times, a variety of relief measures were established to help orphans survive, and these measures had a far-reaching impact on later generations, and the matters of orphan assistance in later generations were more detailed, which were the foundation laid by ancient rescue measures for orphans.