A review of ancient close relatives' marriages

Today, we all know that inbreeding can bring unpredictable harm to offspring. But in ancient times, people advocated marriage among close relatives, believing that this would "strengthen the kinship and continue the relationship." When I first read history books and famous works, I could not avoid the plot of incestuous marriage among the ancients. Wedding Speech

In ancient China, people liked to marry close relatives, but it was usually between cousins, and it rarely happened between cousins. Why is this? The ancients believed that the blood flowing in children's bodies belonged to their father and was passed down from generation to generation. People with the same surname were considered to be from the same family and the blood flowing in their bodies was the same, so marriage was prohibited. One of the main purposes of consanguineous marriage is for aristocratic families to expand their power. Cousins ​​usually belong to two different large families, and they can marry each other. Thereby strengthening the strength of both families. Wedding Speech

There are many examples of close-kin marriage in history, let’s just talk about Wang Xianzhi’s family.

Wang Xianzhi was the youngest son of the calligrapher Wang Xizhi. His wife Xi Daomao was the daughter of his uncle, and they were standard cousins. Back then, the two families were close friends. Wang Xizhi liked his eldest brother-in-law's daughter very much because she was pretty and talented, so they arranged marriage for her when she was very young. After Wang Xianzhi and Xi Daomao got married, they should have been an enviable couple. However, the princess became jealous of him, and later Wang Xianzhi and his wife were forced to separate, and he married Princess Xin'an. After marriage, they gave birth to a daughter named Wang Shen'ai, who had the talent of Wang Xianzhi, the beauty of a princess, and was smart and intelligent, which was highly appreciated by the emperor. So the emperor appointed his niece as the Crown Princess, and the Crown Prince was later the idiot emperor Sima Dezong. Undoubtedly, apart from the grand royal majesty, there was nothing between them that could satisfy the talented woman of that generation.

The most extreme case of incestuous marriage in history should be that of Empress Lü. In order to consolidate her son's throne and maintain the authority of the Lü family, she actually let her granddaughter Zhang Yan marry her son. Zhang Yan was the daughter of her daughter Princess Lu Yuan. It is said that Zhang Yan remained a virgin until her death. No matter what, Emperor Hui of Han, Liu Ying, would not take action against his niece Zhang Yan. Only the vicious Empress Lu could come up with such an idea.

Lu You, a great poet of his generation, was also married to a close relative. Lu You and his wife Tang Wan were childhood sweethearts and cousins. Later, Tang Wan did not have a close relationship with her mother-in-law, Lu You's mother, who was also her aunt. The cruel mother looked at the bullied young wife with a bad face all day long, and later the tragedy of Lu You and Tang Wan's breakup occurred. Because of an unexpected encounter, there came into being the tear-jerking story of Chenyuan and the eternal poem "The Golden Hairpin".

The famous novel "Dream of Red Mansions" also has such a plot. Look at Lin Daiyu, the woman that Jia Baoyu loved all his life, who was actually the daughter of his aunt. But the girl Bao, whom he finally married, was actually his aunt's daughter.

The reason why close relatives married each other in ancient times is very simple. In order to preserve the unbreakable relationship of the older generation, they sacrificed the bright future of their children. Of course, the most important thing was the girl’s lifelong happiness, and even her fragile life. So after writing "The Golden Hairpin", Lu You continued to travel far and wide, calling for resistance against the Jin army and saving the nation, but Tang Wan soon died.

Nowadays, it is clearly stipulated that marriage between close relatives is prohibited. As society opens up, people become more free about marriage. And for many women, the chances of happiness are greatly increased.