Chapter 594 Raising the marriage age, prohibiting consanguineous marriage, and promoting eugenics!
To gain the approval and support of people of different genders and to genuinely implement your measures, you must consider the issues from their perspective and connect them with their interests. Only then can you possibly win their vote.
Sometimes, even people of the same sex can be more demanding than people of different sexes if you only look at their stance.
For example, one of the problems in feudal society for more than two thousand years was the preference for sons over daughters.
If you look into it, you'll find that in a family, it's not just the paternal line, such as the father or grandfather, who are sexist and believe that you must have a son, and that having a daughter is a financial loss.
Then there's the mother in this family. As a woman, she often favors sons more than the father because of her own interests.
A father may not hate his daughter, but he may be indifferent to her. However, the mother, the weaker party in this patriarchal family, obeys the rules of this patriarchal system. In order to protect or maintain her own interests, she may be even worse than the father in treating her daughter, and may verbally or physically abuse her daughter, even to the point of wanting to kill her.
This is a matter of interests.
Li San Niang's proposal to raise the marriage age of the young woman, that is, to delay the age of her first childbirth, is actually an infringement on the interests of a family.
Raising a daughter for two more years means the family will have to provide for an extra portion of food, making it impossible to extract the daughter's sexual and reproductive value in advance to exchange for money, so as to help the family's son get married and continue the family line.
This is a very serious problem.
It will be very difficult to get this done.
Li San Niang understood that even if she obtained the signatures of all her fellow time travelers and found the Imperial Medical Bureau, and submitted this report to Emperor Wu both openly and secretly, she might still not achieve her goal: to raise the marriage age of her daughters.
However, Li San Niang was a pessimistic optimist with a touch of idealism.
As she put it, "In this world, there are some things that always need to be done by certain people."
Since it's something that has to be done eventually, why can't I do it?
Therefore, we should raise this issue first, then observe the interplay between the various parties, and finally see what the outcome will be.
If you're not satisfied with the result, then try again.
In this world, how can you become successful overnight?
Li San Niang, standing at the head of the table, spoke until her throat was dry. Naturally, she also saw the disapproval of the people at the round table. Not to mention the men like Xing Yu, even Jiang Yiyun, after his initial excitement, realized that it would be difficult to gain approval and implement Li San Niang's measures.
After Li San Niang picked up the teacup on the table and drank a large cup in one gulp, she looked at everyone's expressions and slowly smiled.
"I know what you are thinking, and I also understand that what I am saying cannot be achieved overnight."
I am not one of those lucky ones who can make everything I think or desire come true.
But some things just have to be done, right?
Furthermore, more than half of the people involved in consanguineous marriages are from the upper-middle class. I think that if they see the consequences of consanguineous marriage, they would be able to agree to prohibit it for the sake of having offspring.
In this way, a considerable number of people can be saved, which can be considered part of my goal.
Chang Siyuan nodded. He had just realized that Li Sanniang was not the kind of person who had such wild ideas.
It's important to understand that even in modern society, my country has one of the highest legal marriage ages in Asia.
(Men must be at least 22 years old and women must be at least 20 years old.)
It can be said that China has the highest legal marriage age in the world, while in most other countries the legal marriage age for women is 16.
If Li San Niang thought she could influence the upper echelons and achieve the goal of raising the marriage age with just a few signatures, that was simply wishful thinking.
"Beyond this, if people can realize that raising the age of first childbirth is beneficial for saving children and reducing the risks of childbirth for mothers, thus preserving more mothers and thus increasing the population, I would be very satisfied."
In this regard, it would be even better if we could actively create job opportunities for women so that they could earn money, support themselves, and even contribute more to their families.
Let's start with conscious awareness. With increased productivity and life expectancy, I believe we will eventually reach that point someday.
Ding Mingxuan and Ding Anbo didn't really care about what Li Sanniang said, since it had no real connection to their own interests. Moreover, on the surface, what Li Sanniang mentioned was indeed beneficial to the future of the Tang Dynasty.
Ding Mingxuan discerned Li San Niang's "ambition" from this report—yes, ambition.
"Don't be fooled by her claim that she knows things can't succeed. Look at her meticulously prepared report, and listen to her eloquent explanation. Every point she makes reveals her ambitions."
She's trying to accelerate the historical process, to become a progressive figure whose name will be recorded in history books.
She couldn't possibly know how Ding Mingxuan viewed her; after all, she couldn't very well turn into a worm and crawl into Ding Mingxuan's brain.
Next, Li San Niang talked about the concept of eugenics and good parenting. Finally, she concluded: "Many things cannot be accomplished at this time, but they must be brought up first so that people can have this awareness, so that they can be gradually realized in the future development."
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a blessing of this era that we are able to travel through time.
The knowledge in our minds can help this era move towards the best development path faster and better, allowing people to have a better life.
Since we can do it, why don't we give it a try?
If you agree with me, please sign your name here so we can progress together.
After bowing to everyone, Li San Niang handed the booklet that was to be handed up to Bi Qionglan, who was closest to her.
Without hesitation, Bi Qionglan picked up her pen and wrote her name in the signature area on the last page, followed by Jiang Yiyun, and then Shi Le'an beside her.
After signing his name, Shi Le'an handed the notebook to Chang Siyuan, who was standing next to him. Chang Siyuan first flipped through the first few pages of the notebook to get a general idea of what was written. Seeing that it was roughly the same as the booklet that had been given to them, except that some parts had been changed to the common format at the time, he then signed his name on the last page.
Xing Yu took the notebook, signed her name neatly and efficiently, and then passed it to Ding Anbo and Ding Mingxuan sitting opposite her.
Ding Mingxuan had a lot on his mind. He examined the book more carefully than Chang Siyuan, making sure that Li Sanniang was genuine and hadn't forged anything. Only after confirming that what she had written was almost identical to what they had seen did he sign it.
Ding Anbo followed closely behind Ding Mingxuan and also signed his name.
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