"Master's son, the increase of one point is too long, the decrease of one point is too short, the powder is too white, and Shi Zhu is too red. Eyebrows are like green feathers, muscles are like snow, waist is like a bundle of elements, and teeth are like woven shells. A captivating smile charmed Cai. However, this woman has been on the wall for three years and has not agreed. As we all know, man was once only one of many creatures on the earth. However, after a long development, human beings have learned how to use tools, thus having the ability to compete with nature. Human society has gradually developed thinking and education, and the wisdom passed down from generation to generation has been preserved. In the end, man became the dominant creature and another master on the earth. However, as a kind of mammal, there must be gender division in human population, which is also the basic composition of human society. In modern life and work, men and women pay the same and get the same.
In the process of competing with each other, human beings also support each other, which finally created this complex and diverse human society. Since entering the modern society, all kinds of arguments about gender have gradually disappeared. No one will mention the question of equality between men and women. There is only one answer to this question, that is, men and women are equal in rights and obligations. No one will be directly divided into high and low because of their gender. Everyone's happy life depends on their diligence and wisdom, not their natural gender. Maybe people have to live a completely different life because of sex, but as long as they are members of this society, they have the obligation and responsibility to defend this justice and fairness.
But we also know that in ancient times, especially in the era of feudal rule, the difference between men and women was everyone's default. The appearance of maids and maids is a concentrated expression. Women in ancient society were basically inferior to men in status and personal power, and the emergence of these phenomena was closely related to the current social situation at that time. Both education and the ruling class have repeatedly told people that men are more valuable than women, so there are so many deformed and distorted ethics and concepts in ancient society.
Ancient women, girls from wealthy families, were very nice. They could enjoy gold and jade and learn to play chess, calligraphy and painting. If they can marry into a rich family as adults, their rich life will continue, and their status will only be lower than that of their elders and men, and they will still have some influence. But for girls from poor families, the fate will be much more tragic. However, the theme of this paper will focus on a slave group composed of women-a maid. Untie the injustice and suffering in their lives.
In ancient times, women were required to be conservative, to "keep the woman's morality" and to know how to teach their children. All these are like chains one after another, leaving ancient women with no chance to turn over. Countless women have grown up in this environment, and women in their descendants will also be instilled with this idea. Just like a wheel, it repeats one event after another, one tragedy after another. From the perspective of modern people, these things are unreasonable, but in the eyes of ancient people, especially women, these things seem to be taken for granted. It is conceivable how miserable and depressing their lives are.
In ancient society, the phenomenon of buying and selling people seems to be the acquiescence of the court. Not only ordinary people and rich people are keen on this kind of behavior, but also nobles and officials are scrambling to join in. It is common for poor families to choose to sell their children because of economic problems. Maybe modern people can't understand these things, but in the eyes of ancient people, these methods are their helplessness after they have no choice. My son was sold to a rich family as a servant, and my daughter became a maid. Ancient society belonged to a society whose main income was farming, so in that underdeveloped society, labor was more precious, so families and society had different views on women and men.
Girls from poor families will be "sent away" at will by their parents or elders. Those in good condition will marry families with the same living standard, while those in poor condition will become servants of wealthy families. Being a servant girl means that they will lose the last chip in their lives, that is freedom. We may see these so-called servant girls in many TV dramas. In film and television dramas, the life of maids seems to be relatively calm and comfortable, but this is not the case in real life. Not only in daily life, they need to completely obey the arrangement of their masters, they have no right to resist, and they are often sold to each other.
We often say that life is priceless, but for ancient people, the lives of maids and their servants are precious, and the price varies from person to person. So how much is a servant girl worth? During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, people's lives were relatively standardized. If they hadn't suffered from war and famine, people would have been self-sufficient. As an ordinary family, their living expenses are about one or two taels a year. Because these expenses only tend to the necessities of life, they are still of great reference value. In a novel in the Ming Dynasty, it was described how much money a daughter could get for selling it. According to legend, there was a tailor who made clothes for a large family. Because of his own mistakes, his clothes were damaged. The price of clothes was very expensive, about 12 taels of silver, which he could not afford.
if you don't pay in the end, you may go to jail. So the tailor made a living by selling his daughter. Fortunately, a lady took a fancy to her little daughter and wanted to buy it as a maid. She initially offered 42 pounds, and after some bargaining, she finally got 52 pounds. For most people, the price of a servant girl is about 42 to 52 silver. Let's imagine that a person's freedom can be sold at such a price, so how fragile and manipulated their own destiny is for those children from poor families at that time.
after becoming a servant girl, the girls' first task is to help their master's family to do things and find a way out. Some younger girls will stay in their host's house for a long time and start with some simple things. Most adult maids are also sold to each other at the discretion of their owners, just like commodity trading. However, some lovely girls may be lucky. If you meet the right person, you may become a concubine of the man. In that era when men were superior to women, it seemed that their fate was so manipulated by men. For most people, no matter what is in life, they have to get married, but they will be different because of different conditions. Good-looking people, if attracted by them, may become concubines of the rich. Of course, the possibility of being a wife is very small. But if you can't give your host family a daughter and a half after marriage, your fate will continue to be miserable.
Conclusion
When an ordinary servant girl is old, she can marry a footman with the same status with the permission of her master's family, but the fate of her family is still in her master's hands, and her descendants will remain. Unless they have enough money to save themselves and their families, they will do so for generations to come. Ancient people paid attention to the difference between superiority and inferiority, but in some cases, this difference will affect people's life. Boys who become maids or servants, as long as they are at the bottom, are the targets of exploitation. Although those years have gone away for a long time, people still can't forget how many tragedies this class, respect and humble social view has caused. Modern women are confident enough to become the backbone of society, but they all experienced the same oppression for a long time hundreds of years ago.