In the scorching summer of Renyin, an ancient puppet show called "Menghualu" became a hot topic. The show was well-produced and featured a star cast of beauties and handsome men. Once it was aired, it was widely praised.

In the scorching summer of Renyin, an ancient puppet drama called " Meng Hua Lu " has become a hot topic. The show was well-produced and featured a star cast of beauties and handsome men. Once it was aired, it was widely praised. But as the plot develops, "Menghualu" has received more and more negative reviews.

In the past two days, the entry "Shuangjie", which was born out of the ancient puppet show "Menghua Lu", has been frequently searched.

The "double purity" here refers to the male and female protagonists confessing to each other that they have no sexual experience and are innocent after initially establishing a relationship. However, most netizens believe that this is the screenwriter and director of "Menghualu" deliberately whitewashing the identity of the heroine Zhao Paner.

Because in the original work of "Menghua Lu", "Zhao Pan'er Feng Yue Saves Feng Chen", it is clearly pointed out that Zhao Pan'er and Song Yinzhang were born in Feng Yue and their social status was not high.

In order to satisfy the audience, the creators of "Meng Hua Lu" made fundamental changes to the original work, changing the two heroines Zhao Pan'er and Song Yinzhang into businesswomen who have left their nationality and become good people, and official entertainers who "perform their craft but not their body".

In the end, Zhao Paner asked Gu Qianfan, the "second generation official", to confirm his relationship with her and gain formal respect; while she would "never be a concubine" and insist on being self-reliant.

Put aside the plot and combine it with real history. Do women of low social status, such as Zhao Pan'er and Song Yinzhang, have the right to seek the status of a head wife from the suitors of the second generation of officials and the second generation of rich people?

The social status of women in ancient China showed a "high and low trend". In ancient times, women had unique reproductive abilities, and their labor efficiency in weaving and collecting fruits was higher than that of men. Therefore, women in various tribes often occupied a dominant position.

After entering the farming civilization, men had strong physical strength and were able to endure hardships and do heavy work, and their social status was significantly improved compared to ancient times. When differentiation intensified class antagonisms, the feudal system replaced the primitive tribal system, and the patriarchal society subverted maternal power.

After thousands of years of development, in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, a group of female figures appeared on the political stage. For example, Wu Zetian was the only orthodox female emperor in China's feudal society . She did her part to create a historical precedent. Following closely behind were Queen Wei, Princess Anle, Princess Taiping, and Empress Suzong of the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Liangdi, who were all important female representatives in the political arena at that time.

plus The social atmosphere in the Tang Dynasty was relatively open. Women could often hang out, socialize with the opposite sex, and also show up in public.

Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty Li Shimin even used edicts to encourage women to get married early, have children early, and widows to remarry, thus forming a social atmosphere in which women hold up half of the sky.

In 960 AD, Zhao Kuangyin established the Song Dynasty , and then "Cheng Zhu Neo-Confucianism " emerged. The Song Dynasty reduced many restrictions and restrictions on women in terms of marriage, education, and political participation.

In the work "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" by Zhang Zeduan, a painter of the Northern Song Dynasty, it can be clearly seen that women can travel in a sedan chair in a grand manner, be responsible for managing the family's fields and affairs, and participate in government and military affairs.

In addition, although the marriage system of the Song Dynasty still ran through "the orders of parents and the words of matchmakers," women enjoyed certain freedoms in marriage. During the Song and Song periods, freedom of remarriage appeared after "remarriage after husband's death" and "divorce".

After Tang Wan and her husband Lu You divorced, she quickly remarried someone else, which became the best example of the freedom of the marriage system in the Song Dynasty. Speaking of which, have netizens mistakenly blamed the screenwriter of "Meng Hua Lu"?

Because the marriage system of the Song Dynasty was so enlightened, Zhao Paner, as a "strong business woman", was indeed qualified to be on an equal footing with Gu Qianfan.

However, the truth may not be what everyone thinks. Since ancient times, marriage has been a major event in everyone's life. Modern people's views on marriage and love are many times more open than those in the feudal period.

Despite this, there is a naked "chain of contempt" among contemporary people when they are dating. Having a house and a car is a rigid criterion. On this basis, it is necessary to examine the other party's actual income and education level, including family background, and choose the best.

Even today, when society is so open, our views on marriage are so "snobbish", let alone the ancients who invented these dross.

Let’s take the Tang and Song dynasties, which are considered the most open societies in ancient times, as an example. Gao Shilian followed the edict of Emperor Taizong Li Shimin of the Tang Dynasty and concentrated on completing the " Clan Chronicles", which listed the Tang Dynasty royal family as the first-class nobility. The status of the aristocratic families such as Cui, Lu, Li, and Zheng were weakened. Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty directly issued an edict not to allow the Cui, Lu, Li, and Zheng families to marry each other.

The strange thing is that the emperor's decree does not allow intermarriage, but it looks more noble. Zheng Qin, the prime minister of Tang Wenzong, had a granddaughter who was twenty-eight years old and as beautiful as a flower. She is still unmarried. The dignitaries at that time came to propose marriage for their children and grandchildren, but they were all rejected.

In the end, Zheng Tan made many choices and married his precious granddaughter to Cui Gao, the ninth-rank sesame official Cui Gao. Tang Wenzong was very surprised, why did Lao Zheng let so many quick son-in-laws choose, but wanted to marry his granddaughter to Cui Gao?

The emperor and his ministers murmured privately, and only then did Tang Wenzong understand the truth of the matter. It turns out that although Cui Gao has a low official position, he has a high family status and belongs to a "marriage-forbidden family". Zheng Tan believes that only when the two families are well-matched, the couple will live a happy life after marriage.

As the ninth emperor, Tang Wenzong sneered at Prime Minister Zheng Tan's views on mate selection, but reality gave Tang Wenzong a resounding slap in the face.

Within two years, Tang Wenzong had a daughter who reached the marriageable age. He wanted to marry his baby daughter to those wealthy families, but was rejected by the other party.

Tang Wenzong lamented: " Folks practice marriage, regardless of official status, and go to the imperial court for approval. I have been the emperor for two hundred years, but I am not as good as Cui and Lu Ye?"

This sentence represents Tang Wenzong's helplessness. My old Li family is a royal family member chosen by God and has the broadest territory in the world. However, when I married my daughter, I was despised by those aristocratic families.

This kind of comparison of family origins seemed less important in the Song Dynasty, but more practical problems followed. In the middle and late Tang Dynasty , foreign relatives and eunuchs excessively interfered in politics and became the main culprit for the demise of the Tang Dynasty.

After the rise of a poor family after the fifth generation , Zhao Kuangyin was already guilty of the following. He knew that he must not repeat the mistakes of the previous dynasty and must firmly hold power in his own hands. As a result, the two Song dynasties implemented civil rule and paid attention to fairness and justice in imperial examinations.

Once the majority of children from poor families were admitted to the imperial examination, they would be able to bring glory to their ancestors, so that "everything is of inferior quality, only reading is good" became a common value among people at that time.

The old chain of contempt for marriage collapsed, and a new chain of contempt for marriage was established. Parents in the Song Dynasty wanted to find a talented young man for their daughter, and Jinshi or Number One Scholar became the first choice. This phenomenon is also known as "catching a son-in-law under the ranking".

In the eighth year of Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty (AD 1138), Chen Xiu, a native of Fuzhou, passed the Tanhua examination (third place in the imperial examination). This year, Chen Xiu was 73 years old and had not yet married a wife.

Song Gaozong learned about this and selected a 30-year-old maid from the palace to give it to him on the spot. Afterwards, someone made a joke about Chen Xiu and wrote two lines of limerick: "If a newlywed asks how old he is? Twenty-three fifty years ago."

Song Dynasty people's notes contain : "In recent years, wealthy businessmen are vulgar and wealthy. Marrying a daughter is also about catching a son-in-law under the official list, grabbing a lot of money, and baiting the scholars to make them submissive. "

It can be seen that the families with the ability to participate in "catching a son-in-law under the official list" except those in the imperial court. The powerful were the wealthy businessmen of that time.

The great calligrapher of the Northern Song Dynasty Cai Xiang once said : "Looking at today's customs, marrying a wife regardless of her family background, only seeking wealth." In the Song Dynasty, wealthy people often married their daughters regardless of the man's family background, as long as the wife was motivated, If the woman is extremely knowledgeable, she will often be given a large sum of money in dowry.

Having said that, after the changes, does Zhao Paner have the right to pursue her so-called love and values? The answer is yes.

No matter when and where, everyone has different values ​​for the choice of love and marriage. But can this idea be put into practice? This is the most important thing.

Guan Hanqing, the original author of "Menghua Lu", did not deliberately point out the love story between Zhao Pan'er and Song Yinzhang, and it can even be said that this line was hidden. In the original work, Zhao Paner and Song Yinzhang are prostitutes of low origin. In the TV series, Gu Qianfan is extremely knowledgeable, well-groomed, and has a good background, so he meets all the conditions for "catching a son-in-law under the ranking".

Although Zhao Pan'er has achieved certain achievements in the business world, her background is not high after all. As for beauty, people have different opinions. If there really was a person like Gu Qianfan in the Northern Song Dynasty, he would have had better choices when choosing his future wife. This is an undoubted fact.

Let me ask you, if we have similar conditions to Gu Qianfan, and are favored by a charming and beautiful daughter of a rich family. Will he abandon the near for the distant and insist on marrying Zhao Paner, who is in public all day long, regardless of his family's objections?

Fans of "Menghualu" should not take the emotional entanglement between Li Shishi and Song Huizong as an issue. The screenwriter and director of "Menghualu" placed the framework of modern society into the Northern Song Dynasty thousands of years ago. He also deliberately set up obstacles for Zhao Paner and Song Yinzhang.

It is indeed a pleasure for the audience to see these heroines solve all kinds of troubles, finally reach the full level, and win the male protagonist back. It is true that the prerequisite for an excellent costume drama is that history cannot be maliciously tampered with, and the male and female protagonists must have independent thoughts and be in line with the characters' values.

From these points, "Menghualu" meets the public's appetite and is basically authentic. It can be regarded as one of the better ancient puppet dramas in recent years. The biggest controversy among people nowadays about "Meng Hua Lu" is that the main creator deliberately whitewashed Zhao Pan'er's identity. Is it consistent with real history?

Every era has its own marriage concepts that belong to that era. Some flaunt family status, some flaunt knowledge, and some flaunt family background.

A certain modern sociologist said: Marriage has three major motivations: economy, children, and love.

Everyone yearns for beautiful love, but if it really comes to the last step, can we put aside all prejudices and stay together with the one we love?

In the same way, after the creator of "Menghualu" established a spiritual core that clearly conforms to modern values, there is nothing wrong with changing some details of the original characters. After all, the

TV series is an adaptation after film and television. It is impossible to completely restore history, and the creators and directors are allowed to make reasonable changes.