第四章｜E54 蟾宫折桂上青云，乘龙快婿榜下捉

第四章｜E54 蟾宫折桂上青云，乘龙快婿榜下捉

课程导读

上节课我们讲到，苏东坡与自己的堂妹属“同姓”，联姻无望；后来听闻伊人已逝，苏东坡拖着病体前去吊唁，悲痛欲绝。今天这节课，我们将进入第四章，从苏家兄弟的婚姻安排与求学之路，了解古代士子“成家立业”的文化。那么，中国传统婚姻制度有何特点？嫁娶之事与科举功名之间，又有什么样的关联？

英文原文

Chapter Four

THE EXAMINATIONS

When Su Tungpo and his brother were adolescents and almost ready to take their examinations, inevitably the marriage question came up.

If they went up to the capital unmarried and if they passed the examinations, they would be spoken for by families having grown-up daughters anyway.

At this time there was the custom of chuo-bun ("catch marriage"): rich merchants at the capital with unmarried daughters were on the lookout for the announcement of the results of the examinations, and were ready to negotiate financial settlements on successful bachelor candidates.

The time of the civil service examinations was also the busy season of the matrimonial market.

It was far preferable, from the parents' point of view, to have their sons married to girls of their own town, born of families they knew.

As was the general custom, it was all properly arranged by the parents.

Tungpo was going on his eighteenth year when he married Miss Wang Fu, aged fifteen, of a family living at Chingshen, some fifteen miles to the south, on the river.

His younger brother was married the following year at the age of sixteen to a girl two years younger.

These were early marriages, though not uniquely so.

In principle, early marriages, though not quite as early as those of the Su brothers, tend to save the young people a great waste of time and energy and emotional confusion in trying to select and attract a desirable match.

It was most desirable for the young people to have their love and romance settled and out of the way.

In China, the system of parents' support of daughters-in-law made it unnecessary for young people to postpone marriage, and it was perhaps just as well for a girl to love a man who was already her husband as to love one who was not yet married to her, though to an incurably romantic society, the latter seems more exciting.