In the Ming Dynasty, there was a woman in Jiading County who got married when she was 16 years old.

After marriage, she and her husband fell in love and gave birth to a pair of children within a few years. Unexpectedly, God was not kind to her, and within a few years of this good life of loving husband and wife, with children around their knees, the woman fell ill.

Seeing that seeking medical advice had no effect, the woman also knew that her life would not be long.

But when I think about it, after my death, my husband will definitely marry a new wife in his prime. As the old saying goes, "Where there is a stepmother, there is a stepfather." By then, I don't know how my little children will be abused by their stepmother!

As a result, the woman couldn't help but feel heartbroken. On her deathbed, she wrote this poem:

At that time, I arrived at Jun's house on February 8th.

The ruler was not successful. Ashamed.

I have no other words for you today.

Don’t teach your children how to dress like reeds.

It is said that after the husband saw this poem, he never married again.

Quiet (xǐ) Ma, the male plant of a herbaceous plant, only flowers but does not bear fruit.

In this poem, it is actually the woman who compares gouda to her husband. One is to express that the two of them were married, but she left halfway, leaving a pair of young children for her husband to raise, and she felt guilty; the other was that she hoped that after she left, her husband could be like Qin Ma, It doesn’t matter if it blooms or flowers fall, as long as it doesn’t bear fruit.

The implication is that I hope my husband will not marry another wife.

But hope is just hope after all, can it be realized? After all, he is no longer alive, so how can he control it!

So, she began to worry about her pair of young children.

Especially the last sentence, "Don't teach your children to dress like reed flowers", expresses the infatuation and helplessness of a dying mother towards her children.

"Clothed reed flowers" is an allusion.

It is about a man named Min Ziqian during the Spring and Autumn Period. His mother died when he was still a teenager. Soon, my father married another woman and returned home, and gave birth to two sons.

There is a saying that goes, "The stepmother beats her children secretly and hard." Min Ziqian's stepmother was such a woman.

One winter, the stepmother made cotton coats for her three children.

The cotton-padded clothes she made for her two biological sons were filled with cotton. But the cotton-padded clothes made for Min Ziqian were made of reed catkins. On the surface, it seems to be thicker than those of his two biological sons, but in fact it doesn't protect against the cold at all.

Once, his father took his three children out and asked Min Ziqian to drive.

But because it was too cold, Min Ziqian was shivering from the cold and drove the carriage into the ditch.

My father became angry as soon as he saw it. He picked up the whip and started beating him. While beating him, he scolded:

"Your two brothers don't wear thick clothes like you, and they don't look like you either." It's frozen like this, you spineless thing.

After a few whips, the cotton clothes were torn and the reeds were exposed.

My father understood immediately when he saw it. When he got home, he was about to divorce his stepmother.

Unexpectedly, Min Ziqian knelt down to plead with his stepmother. He said something that not only moved his stepmother to death on the spot, but also made us present. , all feel sad.

He said: "When a mother is born, her son is cold, and when her mother is gone, her three sons are alone. ”

Why is it said that after having a stepmother, one’s biological father will also become a stepmother?

There are three reasons:

First, because of the past” In the family division of labor of "men take charge of the outside and women take charge of the house", taking care of the children left by the ex-wife naturally falls on the stepmother;

Secondly, in the eyes of the father, regardless of whether they were born by the ex-wife , the children born by the stepmother are all their own children, but for the stepmother, it is not like this.

This last reason is actually the most important reason, because whether it is widowed or divorced, it is generally not the case. When a man remarries, the new wife will be younger. She is a new wife, and she is still a young wife. In this case, even if the stepmother is not good to her children, the man's bones will be broken. I will also turn a blind eye and don’t care if I can get over it.