PDLP Chapter 222 The Righteous Way (11)
Chapter 222 The Righteous Way (11)
Lu Changqing wrote down all the immoral things done by the Bai family in a small notebook. Just when she was waiting for the news of Bai Mingzhou's impotence to explode, relatives from her hometown came to visit her.
It turned out that a cousin in the clan had married the wrong man, and her husband was abusive. The cousin wanted to divorce him, but she kept delaying it because of the reputation of her sisters in the clan. Now the relationship had developed to the point where the man favored his concubine and neglected his wife, so she asked the man for a divorce.
The man was jealous of his cousin's dowry, so naturally he was unwilling to divorce. He said that he could leave home, but he could only divorce his wife and leave all the dowry behind.
Faced with such an unreasonable request, my cousin and her family panicked and had no idea what to do, so they came to Tokyo to seek help from the Bai family.
They actually didn't take the Bai family, which had some influence in Yangzhou, seriously. Most people would think that my cousin's in-laws' family might have more prestige in the local area. But the fact was that the Sun family was impoverished, and the man was just a scholar.
However, this impoverished man actually got half of the dowry from his cousin in the end, and this half of the dowry was presented to him by Bai Xingke and his cousin.
There is no need to tell you about the hot news that women in the Song Dynasty could take away all their dowries when they divorced, so here we will tell you that even if a woman was divorced by her husband's family, she could still take away all her dowry in most cases.
Let’s take an example of a real divorce case from the Song Dynasty. In today’s world, the woman would be thrown into a pig cage.
It is said that a woman was found cheating on her husband after marriage. The husband was furious and wanted to divorce her on the grounds of adultery, one of the seven grounds for divorce. The man wanted to withhold the woman's dowry, so he added another clause: not serving her in-laws and aunts-in-law. He said that the woman did not treat his mother well and often quarreled with her.
The official in charge of the case verified the facts and allowed the man to divorce his wife. However, when the man proposed to withhold the woman's dowry, the official cited the legal provisions and rejected his request.
Then the man slapped his head and falsely accused the woman of stealing property from the house. If the woman had really done so, the man could indeed withhold her dowry, but the government verified that this was a false accusation.
The final result of this case was that the man successfully divorced his wife, and the woman returned to her parents' home with her dowry.
Since there are no laws in this world, we will not analyze it from a legal perspective. Just from a logical point of view, the victim was beaten and bullied, but still had to give money to the perpetrator, and the victim's background is obviously superior to the perpetrator. Logically, would this situation occur in a lawless totalitarian (patriarchal) society?
You can tell it’s impossible just by thinking with your butt!
But the creators self-righteously created a possible situation.
For the reputation of the sisters in the clan.
Yes, yes, in ancient times, only women needed reputation, but not men, so the old male protagonist, whose reputation stinks worse than shit, was able to inherit the title and become an official in the end. (rolling eyes
"My daughter Awan is afraid that her bad reputation due to the divorce will affect her sisters in the clan, so she has been enduring it. But that Mr. Sun is such a bad person. Now he even asks Awan to serve that bitch he brought home. This is simply too much!" The aunt sitting in the hall wiped her tears and cursed Mr. Sun loudly.
My cousin Bai Wan also cried quietly along with her mother.
The more Lu Changqing thought about it, the more he felt that the logic of this matter was strange. According to the creator's hatred of favoring concubines and killing wives, this Mr. Sun was definitely guilty of a "capital crime". Since he had committed such a serious crime, why should he be allowed to get the benefits?
Bai Xingke asked, "So Auntie Tang wants Sister Wan to divorce Mr. Sun?"
The aunt nodded and said, "We must divorce. We can't let Awan stay in the hell of the Sun family anymore."
"Sister Wan, what do you think?"
Bai Wan wiped the tears from her face with a handkerchief and said, "I also want to divorce, but Sun Yong said he can only divorce me and want me to keep all my dowry. This is too much, so I naturally don't want to."
Bai Xingke thought for a moment and said, "But a divorce must be agreed upon by both parties. If Sun Yong still disagrees, then Sister Wan will have no choice but to stay in the Sun family."
Bai Wan burst into tears again when she heard this.
Bai Xingke analyzed, "Sun Yong is only doing this for money, so let's compromise and give him half of the dowry. If he still doesn't know what's good for him and continues to make trouble, then we are not afraid of him. If this matter gets out of hand, it will not be good for him either. He also wants to take the imperial examination, and I don't believe he doesn't care about his reputation."
Lu Changqing: ???
No way, you can think of it and use your reputation to threaten Sun Yong, so why do you still want to give money to him? If it's not yours, don't you feel bad?
Seeing that his aunt's eyes lit up, Lu Changqing quickly said, "Third sister, this is indeed a good idea, but since we have already threatened Sun Yong, why should we give him money?"
Bai Xingke said: "Of course, it's to prevent him from making a big deal out of this."
"Why can't this matter be made bigger? It was obviously Sun Yong who made the mistake first. If this matter becomes a big deal, won't he be the one who will be embarrassed?" Lu Changqing asked back.
"Sister, do you really not know? Sister Wan was afraid of damaging our reputation so she couldn't even bring up the idea of divorce. Now that Sun's incident is known to everyone in the city, won't our Bai family become a laughing stock in Beijing?"
"What a joke?" Lu Changqing sneered, "If you ask me, the joke is that you gave money to Sun Yong and begged him to give you money for a divorce."
Du Hezhi, who was sitting at the top, slammed the table and said unhappily, "That's your third sister. How can you, as her younger sister, talk like that?"
Lu Changqing ignored Du Hezhi, stood up from his chair and looked at Bai Xingke and said, "If the Sun family is an honest and simple family, then there is nothing to say, but this poor family is obviously a family of black-hearted people. How can we talk about morality when dealing with such people?"
"Our Bai family is a well-known family in Yangzhou, but I didn't expect that we could be controlled by such a greedy and deceitful villain. We knew that the other party was shameless and asked for a lot, but we still smiled and gave him money. If our family had more money, we could hand it over to the national treasury to let our father save face in front of the government."
Bai Xingke sneered, "Then according to what Fourth Sister said, what should we do?"
"Didn't you tell me the method just now? Threaten with his reputation. Why should a poor scholar be afraid of him? In Yangzhou, can he compare with our Bai family? Let's spread his bad reputation of having a prostitute and beating his wife, and favoring concubines and destroying his wife. Do you think he will be afraid?"
"What if he just refuses to agree to divorce?"
Lu Changqing was puzzled. In the plot, the protagonists relied on their noble status as Celestial Dragons to bully the female supporting characters. Why did they start to be cautious now that the male scum had taken over?
"Third sister, don't you know the phrase 'to use one's power to suppress others'? Our father is a Beijing official after all, and he once served in Yangzhou. Doesn't he have any prestige at all?"
Lu Changqing's words were very direct, and Du Hezhi frowned and rebuked, "Be careful with your words!"
Lu Changqing looked at Bai Wan and said, "This is my opinion. As for your previous worry that the divorce will affect the reputation of the sisters in the clan, I think it is completely groundless.
Everyone in the world knows about Empress Zhangxian. Did the late emperor ever dislike her because of her status? And Empress Cao in the palace is also a second marriage. Did the emperor ever blame her for this reason? Even the royal family does not pay attention to women's reputation, so how could these dignitaries in the capital care about it?"
As Lu Changqing spoke, he looked at Bai Xingke and said, "Third sister is a smart person. Think about it carefully. When the dignitaries of the past dynasties chose their daughters-in-law or wives, did they really value the woman as a person?"
Bai Xingke didn't understand what Lu Changqing meant, so he asked, "What do you mean?"
Lu Changqing explained: "We are like a painting. Our value does not depend on us, but on the fame of the painter. Do you understand now?"