Second, the ancients advocated early marriage, on the one hand, to promote population growth, on the other hand, to obtain more labor and taxes;
The ancients advocated early marriage so much, which was not only related to people's ideas at that time, but also had objective reasons. The medical level in ancient times was not as good as that in modern times, and the average life expectancy of the ancients was very low: the average life expectancy of the ancients remained at 30 to 40 years old for a long time, and even the average life expectancy of the emperor was only in his forties, which was far lower than the average life expectancy of our present people of 77.93 years.
Based on reality, emperors of past dynasties encouraged early marriage and childbearing, and had more children.
Because, in an agricultural society, population is the primary productive force.
In the past, when Gou Jian tried to eat his bread and drink his bile, in order to increase the population of Yue, he ordered:
1, young people can't marry old women, and old people can't marry young girls;
2. If a woman 17 is not married, her parents will feel guilty, and the same is true for a man who is not married at the age of 20;
3. If someone is pregnant, the official doctor delivers the baby, and rewards two pots of wine, a dog and a woman, and two pots of wine and a pig. If they are twins, they will be raised by the government and have triplets. The government will also provide a wet nurse
It can be seen from these policies that the rulers at that time had realized the importance of population. They think:
Man is not only the creator of social culture and wealth, but also the source of soldiers and labor.
Marriage seems to be a matter for two people, but in fact it is of great significance to the family and the country.
For both men and women, marriage is an important way to enrich life experience, continue family blood and inherit family culture. For a country, marriage is the basis for promoting population growth and ensuring national stability and prosperity.
When Qin Shihuang unified the world, the total population at that time was about 20 million. However, after the war in the late Qin Dynasty and the hegemony between Chu and Han, the population that could be counted when the Han Dynasty was established was only about 6 million, which forced the rulers in the early Han Dynasty to implement the policy of doing nothing.
Among them, the most important one related to marriage is: "If a woman is over 15 to 30 years old and does not marry, five counts."
The general idea of this policy is that1unmarried women aged 5 to 30 will be taxed five times more. For couples who are willing to get married and separate, the government will reward 100 mu of land and houses.
On the one hand, it is the distribution of benefits, on the other hand, it is the doubling of taxes. As can be seen from the policies of the Han Dynasty, the motivation of encouraging early marriage and early childbearing in all previous dynasties was to increase the labor force and tax revenue, but the methods adopted in all previous dynasties were different.
For example, in order to promote population growth, Sima Yan, Emperor Wu of Jin Dynasty, once ordered that if a woman 17 years old is not married, the state will arrange her husband.
Zhou Lang of Liu Song also came up with a more careless way: "If the woman 15 years old is not married, all her parents will be sentenced according to law!"
After the Northern Qi Dynasty, Gao Wei was the most ruthless. He clearly stipulated: "Miscellaneous women, unmarried people under the age of 20 and over the age of 14, notify the province that their parents will be put to death."
In the Han dynasty, urging marriage was just asking for money. Arriving at the Cushman & Wakefield property is directly fatal. At this point, it is no wonder that he was named the king of national subjugation at the age of 22.
In contrast, the way of urging marriage in the Tang and Song Dynasties was much more civilized.
In the early years of Zhenguan, according to the New Tang Book, the registered population in China was 2 million, less than 3 million. Although some people did not count this, it also reflected that the population was quite scarce at that time because of the war.
In order to promote population growth, Emperor Taizong resumed the policy of marrying women at the age of fifteen in the Han Dynasty. However, compared with simply punishing marriage, Emperor Taizong introduced an encouragement package for the first time: "Men are twenty, women are homeless at the age of fifteen, and they are married in counties and counties."
This way of promoting marriage by rewarding is obviously much more civilized, and in order to stimulate the enthusiasm of local governments to promote marriage, Emperor Taizong also ordered that local officials who have shown outstanding performance in dealing with the problem of "older men and women who are unwilling to get married" should be rewarded and "admitted".
It is precisely because of this policy that the population of Datang has increased several times after more than one hundred years. By 754, "the registered population reached 9.06 million and the population reached 52.8 million", and the effect was just right.
In fact, urging marriage is not only a unique phenomenon in ancient China, but also a prominent problem in ancient western countries.
Third, early marriage in ancient times is not a unique phenomenon in China, and there are many similar examples in world history;
Before the Renaissance, there was a phenomenon of "early marriage" in Europe. Some children are betrothed to others at the age of 3, and don't get married until 12.
According to the concept of Europeans in the15th century, it is a shame for a girl not to get married at the age of15th.
If a man can't find a wife, he will be considered incompetent. Luca 1454 also issued an order that unmarried men between the ages of 20 and 50 should not hold civil service positions.
This phenomenon has lasted for hundreds of years in Europe. It was not until after the industrial revolution that the status of women continued to improve, and the phenomenon of early marriage and early childbearing gradually faded out of people's field of vision.
Throughout the history of eastern and western civilizations, the popularity of the policy of early marriage and early childbearing cannot be separated from three major reasons: population, land and taxation. In the expansion stage of civilization, population growth can indeed promote social prosperity, but when social resources are saturated and social productivity has not progressed across the times, the disadvantages of blindly pursuing population growth without quality will appear.
As early as the Han Dynasty, a man named Wang Ji discovered this problem:
"Husband and wife, ethics, meng's early death. Secular marriage is too early to know how to be a parent and have a son. It is because the education is unclear that people are worried. If you hire a wife to send your daughter to die, poverty is not as expensive as it is, so you don't adopt children. "