The ancients did not have a long lifespan, so they were married early, many people have heard that the ancients got married at the age of fourteen or fifteen, is this really the case? Is there no leftover women, and the ancients also had the phenomenon of son preference, so how can there be fewer women? So let's come down and take a look
In fact, the marriage age of the ancients is not a layer of change. Rather, it changes with social situations, moral concepts, official policies, and other factors. Therefore, when we examine the age of marriage of the ancients, we should look at it in time periods.
As early as the pre-Qin period, there were regulations on the latest age of marriage for men and women. For example, the "Book of Rites" stipulates: "Those who are 30 men and 20 women and have no husband, and those who do not marry when they are outdated, the matchmakers will join them." The meaning here is that when a man reaches the age of 30 and a woman reaches the age of 20, if you are not married at this time, the government will force you to get married, generally sending official media to force you to introduce the object, you must go to see. So this means that China had forced blind dates before 2000.
The literature here only records the maximum age of marriage stipulated by law, but what is the general age of marriage in reality? In the pre-Qin period, the relevant literature records were relatively small, so we can only understand the situation of ordinary people at that time through the ages of several Lu monarchs recorded in the "Zuo Zhuan" at the time of marriage. According to statistics at the time, the ages at which they were married were: before the age of 30 for Lu Yingong, about 18 years for Lu Henggong, 37 for The Duke of Luzhuang, before the age of 25 for the Duke of Lu, before the age of 23 for the Duke of Lu Wen, before the age of 14 or 15 for the Duke of Lu Xuan, and before the age of 25. Here, we can see that most of the marriage age of the Lu monarch is between 18 and 30 years old, and most of them meet the rules for marriage before the age of 30. With the exception of Duke Lu Zhuang, who married at the age of 37, I don't know if the monarch was unmarried at that time, would there be courtiers who would forcibly arrange blind dates?
At the end of the Warring States period, the unification war was extremely destructive to society, coupled with the influence of the tyranny of the Qin Dynasty, at this time, the population declined significantly. In the early years of the Han Dynasty, in order to speed up the reproduction of the population, the Han Dynasty government changed the latest legal age of marriage for men 30 years old and women 20 years old, which greatly reduced this age, especially for women to the latest marriage age for women to 15 years old.
Unlike the pre-Qin government's method of forcing blind dates, the Han Dynasty government used tax policies to encourage marriage. In the han huidi six years of order: women over 15 years old to 30 years old, do not marry, five counts. The "calculation" here refers to a unit of calculation when the Han Dynasty government levied taxes, which was equal to 120 yuan. That is to say, if the woman is 15 years old and has not yet married, she will have to double the tax, up to five times, until you are 30 years old. If you are not married at the age of 30, the government will "abandon the treatment". What was the general age of marriage for men and women in the Han Dynasty? According to the "Han Dynasty Marriage and Funeral Customs" recorded in the "Han Dynasty Wedding and Funeral Customs", the common age of marriage in the Han Dynasty was 15 to 6 years old for men and 13 to 14 years for women. That is to say, today's high school boys and junior high school girls, crossing back to the Han Dynasty, is a common group of marriages.
In the Tang Dynasty government, there were also regulations on the minimum age for marriage, and in the 22nd year of Tang Xuanzong's new century, the pardon was "15 for men and 13 years for women over 13 years old to listen to marriage leave". That is to say, the legal age of marriage in the Tang Dynasty was over 15 years old for men and 13 years old for women. What would be the marriage age of the average person at that time? Here there are scholars on the "Tang Dynasty Epitaph Compilation" recorded in the "Tang Dynasty Epitaph Compilation" recorded in the first marriage age of the 344 upper-class women, among them, the youngest age is 11 years old, the largest age is 27 years old, under 13 years old and over 20 years old are a minority, generally 14 to 19 years old married mostly, of which 14 years old and 15 years old are more. If this is today, the average girl can basically get married after graduating from junior high school, and the marriage age of men is slightly higher than that of women. But overall, the marriage age of the Tang Dynasty was slightly a year or two later than that of the Han Dynasty.
The legal age of marriage in the Song Dynasty followed the regulations of the Tang Dynasty, but in fact, the age of marriage was much higher than that of the Qin Dynasty. Some scholars have counted the 60 women recorded in the tombstones of the Song Dynasty, and the average marriage age is 17.67 years old, and most of them are married between the ages of 17 and 19. According to statistics, the average age of marriage in the scholar class is 24.15 years old, and most of them generally marry between 20 and 25 years old. The scholar class married late, or it may be to take the imperial examination! I usually spend my time studying. If it is the general public, it is earlier, and it is generally common for men to marry at the age of 20. So why did the Song Dynasty people get married so late? First, the urban civilization of the Song Dynasty was developed, even if you don't get married, you have something to do, from this point of view, the Song Dynasty is really the eve of modern times; the second is that the Cost of Marriage in the Song Dynasty is relatively high, and the general bride price and dowry are very expensive, which may also be the reason for the late marriage.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the marriage age of men and women was similar to that of the Song Dynasty. Huang Zuo, a Ming Dynasty man, recorded in the "Taiquan Township Ceremony": "When a man and a woman are married, the man is not yet 16, and the woman is not married before this matter. Baskets of more than 25, women of more than 20 unmarried, it is called obsolete. "That is to say, most of the men in the Ming Dynasty were married between 16 and 25 years old, and most of the women were married at 14 to 20 years old. According to the statistics in the "History of Ming", some scholars generally married at the age of marriage around 17 years old in the Ming Dynasty, which is consistent with Huang Zuo's record, and the Qing Dynasty also continued the tradition of the Ming Dynasty, and between 17 and 20 years old is the marriage age range for most men and women.
Here, some people may have to question, no! In the TV series we watch, when the emperors of the Qing Dynasty and their concubines were married, most of them were 13 to 14 years old, and Kangxi had already had children when he was 13 years old! Yes, the marriage age of the general Qing Dynasty royal family is small, but that is also the tradition of the Manchus inherited, and the marriage of the Han people is not so early.
Based on the above data, the age of marriage in ancient times showed a trend of getting late and later. Taking today's age as an analogy, the Han Dynasty people were already married in junior high school, the Tang Dynasty people were married in high school, and the Song, Ming, and Qing Dynasties, if you want to get married, you have to graduate from high school, if you are a song dynasty reader, you have to graduate from college if you want to get married!
From these data, we can see that from ancient times to the present, the marriage age of men is later than the marriage age of women, and in ancient times, there were many families that preferred sons to daughters, and, in some relatively poor families, if there were two men in the family, plus women, the money in the family would generally favor men's weddings, which led to many unmarried women who had not yet married when they reached the age, so that the government would introduce corresponding countermeasures to ensure the growth and reproduction of the population.