Although "Zhou Li" clearly stipulates:' All men who get married and have children are only allowed to have no more than fifty taels of pure silk.' This means that men and women in marriage should not give dowry or dowry worth more than five pieces of black silk. However, in the long history, the social wealth and etiquette of each era are different, and the family conditions and status of married women are also different, so the dowry amount of women does not fully meet the requirements of Zhou Li.
Since ancient times, marriage has been a lifelong event for young men and women. Must be legal and polite. What etiquette? Six kinds of weddings. This kind of wedding was formulated and implemented from the Zhou Dynasty. Later, in the Song Dynasty, it was simplified, and only three items were retained, namely, receiving gifts, accepting gifts and welcoming relatives.
Since the wedding ceremony was simplified from the Song Dynasty, let's take the Song Dynasty as an example to see how many dowry women got married in the Song Dynasty.
Song Dynasty is a special dynasty. First of all, the government legislates on dowry, and uses legal weapons to limit and stipulate the amount of dowry. Secondly, dowry is actually taxed, which is usually associated with women's property rights, inheritance rights and other rights.
First of all, let's take a look at the provisions on dowry in the criminal code of the Song Dynasty. In the future, if there are no married women in the family, in addition to the funeral home, there will be one-third of the wealth, shelter and search. If a woman is not married, the married sister-in-law and nephew will be given one point. If the deceased is in Japan, his relatives live and do business with her husband, honest man and the man accompanying his mother, and the deceased has been on the ship for three years, the residence, property and farmland of the second branch will be given priority. If there are no married aunts, sisters and nephews, they all live together.
Women in Song Dynasty were divided into married women, married women and married women, and dowry was the biggest property they could take away from their parents. In the Song Dynasty, there was a popular trend of coarse marriage. Ordinary families will try their best to buy their daughters a dowry. Song people generally have a mentality: "adopted daughters should save clothes, quilts and dowry earlier and get married without much effort." If you don't ask, but when it comes to temporary, what will you do? But a moment of heartless shame. "
The commodity economy in Song Dynasty was developed and people were very mature. Men in society like to marry rich people in their parents' homes. This is a social atmosphere. The more the daughters of the Gaomen family get married, the longer they spend with them. In Song Dynasty, a princess usually needs tens of thousands of silver to get married, while a rich man usually needs hundreds or even more to get married with a woman. Therefore, in many places, giving birth to a man will bring happiness, giving birth to a woman will bring sadness, and there are even many cases of baby girls drowning.
There are also some women who, because of their poor families, still have no man to propose to them at marriageable age, and even lose their lives, which has become a social problem. In some places where high dowry is required, the local government will even intervene and manage through administrative orders, and formulate dowry standards suitable for the local economy. If this standard is exceeded, the government will punish it with economic leverage.
In the Song Dynasty, the amount and items of a woman's dowry were written in the marriage book. When men and women talk about marriage, the man must clearly write his family and his own situation on the invitation letter. Women must also write down their age and accompanying property. In addition to cash, jewelry and daily necessities, these listed dowries should also include land and real estate.
There is also a special social atmosphere in the Song Dynasty, that is, all rich people have daughters, and they especially like to marry their daughters to celebrities. Of course, this famous scholar did not specifically mention Jinshi. After all, Jinshi is a rarity. Even scholars are very popular masters in the marriage market. On the release date after the exam, many parents with daughters will come early and drag some young unmarried new Jinshi home. This was a well-known "flattering" trend at that time.
In a word, the dowry of women in Song Dynasty was the heaviest in all previous dynasties. Not only clothes, jewelry, household necessities, but also large items such as land, real estate or real estate. As for the quantity, it also varies from place to place and from person to person. However, the whole social atmosphere is biased towards thick marriage.
Where do ordinary families get so many dowries? Actually, there are articles in it. After the men and women exchange some stickers, the man will send the bride price to the woman's house. Dowry basically conforms to the status and identity of both men and women's families. These betrothal gifts are usually given by the woman's family. As a dowry, she takes her daughter back to the man's family. Of course, women should add some property to men's dowry.
In the Song Dynasty, living women also had their own property. This property that can be married to in-laws is called "coffin property". This is the property that the woman gets from her family in the name of dowry and can be brought into her husband's family with her marriage. It also stipulates that a woman's coffin is not owned by her husband's family, but is the property of husband and wife. If the husband and wife divorce in the future, the woman can sign a certificate and take all the coffins away.
Another situation is that the woman's family is not very good, her parents are not rich, the man who wants to marry is not very good, and the dowry is not too much. It will be ugly to get married with too little dowry. In this case, according to the Song law, if a woman has an adult brother, this brother is also obliged to raise dowry for their sisters. This is a special rule of the Song Dynasty. In other dynasties, when a woman got married, if her parents were alive, the dowry was set by her parents, and her brother didn't have to pay the dowry. This was completely in line with the prevailing marriage customs at that time, and it was also to reduce the burden of multi-female families.
If a woman has no father or brother and is an "orphan", the government will bear part of the dowry. This is the unique "dowry system" in Song Dynasty, also known as "marriage assistance system". The amount of dowry paid by the government is "married women will have 30 ounces of money, and remarried women will have 20 ounces of money." To marry a woman, you can't afford twenty taels of silver. This humanized regulation has undoubtedly solved the dowry burden of many daughters in single-parent families and is a kind of humanistic care for the people.
In some places, if possible, women can use their labor income as their future dowry. This behavior of keeping dowry for oneself is called "self-employed wedding dress", which is quite popular in some areas in the south. Of course, due to the early marriage of ancient people, the time for women to earn money at their parents' home is very short, and the way for women to earn money is very narrow, so this dowry is limited.
A woman's dowry in Song Dynasty decided her position in her husband's family. Legally speaking, dowry is a woman's inheritance of family property. The dowry belongs to the woman herself. Only she has the right to control and own the dowry, which does not belong to the man's property. Of course, if the woman is willing to be included in the joint property of husband and wife, the government will not interfere.
A woman's dowry is independent because she has nothing to do with other family members. In the Song Dynasty, the two brothers divorced, and the dowry brought by the wife from her family could not be shared. Even if the dowry is a large piece of fertile land, it can only be the woman's own, or hers and her husband's. Husband's brother can't touch it.
If the husband and wife have difficulties in life, if the husband wants to sell his wife's dowry, he must get her consent. Of course, it's easier said than done, and it's hard to count how many of these regulations have really been implemented. Proof of the wife's disagreement. A husband has no right to dispose of his wife's private property, which is a very rare specific provision on women's property rights in history. From the legal point of view, this provision is also the embodiment of women's status in the Song Dynasty.
If the husband dies and the wife does not remarry, she will naturally inherit all her property with her husband. This is beyond dispute. If a wife wants to remarry, she has the right to bring her dowry to a new family, and her ex-husband's family must not stop her.
There were very detailed regulations on women's marriage in Song Dynasty. Even the law has made specific provisions on the amount, financing and ownership of dowry. This is the right brought to women by the development of commodity economy and the change of family and marriage concept. This is also a kind of freedom for women. Because of this right and freedom, women in Song Dynasty had more property rights than other dynasties. Protecting women's right to marry also plays a role in stabilizing the family and society.