Do you know how the marriage certificate of the Song Dynasty people was written?
Wu Gou
When the Song Dynasty's new bride was engaged, the two families had to exchange wedding posts, and this wedding post was like today's marriage certificate.
The marriage letters of the Song Dynasty who hired a relative were very elegant and beautiful. A Song Dynasty marriage letter included in the "Collection of Hanmo" in Yuan Dynasty "The Complete Book of Hanmo" are written as follows: "I promised to ask someone in the family to discuss marriage with a man. I would like to ask the recommendation of the beans and beans to cultivate the strictness of the ancestral affairs, and to rely on the old style of the simple wind. Since I have made the turtle and the leaves auspicious, I will lay the geese to tell my piety. I respectfully sincerely, and I hope to hear the good deeds of good deeds. . I am very proud of Taici, and I am very proud of the examination."
The girl's family's bookmark reply: "When a person in the family, he should ask Huang to marry a daughter, and he said that he had the ice sign, and it was suitable for the phoenix to be divined; before planting jade, he should first pay attention to the favor of the fish paper. Although it is too simple, he will not replace his original intention. If you feel ashamed of your family's poverty, don't set up a tent; if you dare to pray for the end, you will add less money to the basket. I am very proud of Taici, and I am very proud of the examination." Both parties with a marriage are humble and elegant.
Yuan Dynasty people's wedding letters began to abandon literary rhetoric. " Yuan Dianzhang " requires that "every marriage letter cannot be written in Yi language, but the gift of hiring is required to clearly write. The marriage letter of the matchmaker and the matchmaker each draws each other, and the marriage letter of the marriage letter is also written in the number of hirings, and the marriage letter of the matchmaker also draws the characters. The two big letters on the back of the wedding letter are still divided into the words of the contract on each company. If there are blurred words, there are no other words of each person drawing or contract, and if the dispute comes to the official, it will be fake." Perhaps the Yuan people believe that the marriage letter does not require false words. The key is to state the number of hirings, and the two parties, the bride, and the matchmaker sign separately to avoid disputes about regret and property division in the future.
When we look at the Yuan people’s wedding book, it is indeed written very realistically. Let’s look at the Yuan Dynasty appointment letter included in "New Articles and Literatures": "A certain prefecture, a county, a surname is a certain person, a certain person is now a matchmaker, a certain person is a sure man, a certain elder man is named a certain elder, a certain age, a certain person is a love, a certain sister, a certain age, a certain age, a certain marriage gift is a certain age, a certain age, a certain age, a certain marriage gift is ready. After the appointment is made, a date is chosen, and the couple is willing to grow old together, and the zither and zither are harmonious, and now a marriage letter is established as the user."
The woman’s reply letter letter is a letter of return. It is: "Ju Township's surname is a man. Now he relies on someone as a matchmaker and someone protects his bride. He uses a woman as a sister. He meets a man as a man, and he meets a man as a man, and gets married. After being hired, he chooses a day to get married. He wants the couple to be conservative. Now he establishes a marriage letter as a user."
From a certain perspective, the marriage letter of the Yuan people is more "modern", reflecting the tendency to regard the marriage letter as a civil contract. However, from another perspective, this is not a manifestation of vulgarity.
By the way, when the Tang and Song dynasties got married, the new man was kneeling and bowing, while the bride only bowed but not kneeled. It is said that this custom was formed in the Wu Zetian era. "In ancient times, both men and women knelt, men knelt and held their left hand, and women knelt and held their right hand. Take this as an example. Since the reverence of women from the Emperor Wu of Tang Dynasty, they have been worshipping but not bend their knees." Dunhuang murals have more than 40 "Marriage Pictures", one of which is a "Wedding Pictures" describing the ceremony of a newlywed man and a woman. From it, we can see the scene of the Tang Dynasty bride not kneeling down.
(Dunhuang mural "Wedding Picture")
(According to the line drawing outlined in the Dunhuang mural "Wedding Picture". Picture from the Internet)
During the Song Dynasty, society still retained the habit of women "worshiping but not bowing their knees". The records in "History of the Song Dynasty: Yisun Biography" can prove that: "Taizu once asked Zhao Pu , why did a man kneel while a woman kneel when a woman? Pu asked the ritual officials. It is not right." It can be seen that the etiquette habit in the early Song Dynasty was that women did not kneel, and people were commonplace, and they even did not know the origin of this etiquette. Women in the Southern Song Dynasty still did not kneel down and only needed to "hold their hands together and bow down."
The Song people believed that women "worship without bowing their knees" was a manifestation of "the empress of Tang Wu respecting women", but they also accepted the etiquette habit of not kneeling, and did not feel inappropriate. Can this indicate that the status of women was still respected during the Tang and Song dynasties?
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