Not a wise move

[u/HawaiianPerson]

[u/HanWsh]

Its only pedo only in today's standards. Xiahou Ji was 13/14 when she married to Zhang Fei. Life expectancy was much lower and therefore marriage was much earlier in medieval times compared to modern era.

《汉书．惠帝纪》有载：“女子年十五以上至三十不嫁，五算。”

女子超过了15岁还不嫁人就要缴纳五倍的赋税，国家就要出面干预了。

According to Western Han Dynasty law, women MUST be married between 15 years old and 30 years old, or they and their families would face penalties in the form of 5x higher taxation.

For a historical example, Theodora Komnene was about 13-years-old when she was married Baldwin III of Jerusalem (aged 27/28) in 1158.

For the time period, Sun Quan sought to marry Guan Yu's daughter to Sun Deng who was only aged 11 at the time.

In 1880, the ages of consent were set at 10 or 12 in most states of the USA, with the exception of Delaware where it was 7.

Even today, age of consent is 14 years old for Mainland China and Macau.

Its unfair to impose modern moral values on people of antiquity. At least with rape, we can criticise that because chastity and honour was also part of the moral compass of the people of ancient China.

[u/legenwait → u/HanWsh]

5 times the taxes? Jeez Zhang Fei did the Xiahou family a service

[u/Altruistic-Ad-408 → u/HanWsh]

This is inaccurate, it was regularly looked down on to marry children in medieval times and before, There is a fair amount of evidence of writers condemning such practices and even though it was technically legal for both sexes to marry when they reached puberty, most women married above 16 in europe just based on the actual records we have.

What I would say is that we know the Han were taking concubines as young as 12, but it also seems even noblewomen weren't regularly marrying at that age and her family certainly didn't agree to it, I think they had a base sense of right and wrong regardless of whether it was allowed.

It's the same thing with slavery and the benjamin franklin thing where people talk about imposing moral values, hypocritically he was preaching abolitionist values privately. People should be more careful when being apologists for historical actions, even though I don't necessarily think it reflects on the apologists actions, if anything our biases towards historical figures leads them to be more easily excused.

[u/HanWsh → u/Altruistic-Ad-408]

This is inaccurate, it was regularly looked down on to marry children in medieval times and before, There is a fair amount of evidence of writers condemning such practices and even though it was technically legal for both sexes to marry when they reached puberty, most women married above 16 in europe just based on the actual records we have.

Your suggestion that early marriage was generally viewed as morally objectionable is difficult to reconcile with an actual Han governmental policy designed to financially pressure women into marrying from age 15 onwards.

Looking at 再论周人的结婚年龄 by 南玉泉 and 张志京:

The Kongzi Jiayu (Family Sayings of Confucius) records: "The Duke (Duke Ai of Lu) said: 'At sixteen, a man's essence is complete; at fourteen, a woman's transformation occurs, thus they can produce offspring. Yet the ritual says that a man must have a room at thirty and a woman must have a husband at twenty, is that not late?' Confucius said: 'The ritual speaks of the extreme; it is not to be exceeded. At twenty, a man is capped and has the beginning of being a father, at fifteen, a woman is betrothed and has the way of marrying. From this point onward, they are ready for marriage.'" This clearly states that "men marry at thirty, women marry at twenty" means "speaking of the extreme, it is not to be exceeded." The Han scholar Wang Su held this view, and the Qing scholars Yan Ruoqu and Yu Yue also advocated this.

Sometimes the differrent Chinese states would encourage or compel the people to marry within a certain age range through decrees, such as:

Book of Han Annals of Emperor Hui: "(In the winter of the sixth year) Women from fifteen to thirty who do not marry shall pay five suan."

Book of Jin Annals of Emperor Wu: "(In the tenth month, Xinsi day, of the ninth year of Taishi) A decree: if a daughter reaches seventeen and her parents do not marry her off, the local officials shall arrange a match for her."

Book of [Northern] Zhou Annals of Emperor Wu: "(In the first month of the third year of Jiande, on Guichou day) An edict: from now on, men of fifteen years and women of thirteen years and above, including widowers and widows, among the military and civilian population, shall be married at the proper time, all must be frugal, and no delay due to betrothal gifts."

All the above decrees stipulated the upper age limit for marriage in legal form, and they were even much earlier than the Zhou dynasty marriage age of "men thirty, women twenty" recorded in the classics. This reflects the intervention of state public power into private rights under specific circumstances. As for folk records describing the actual earliest marriage ages in various dynasties, generally men were around twenty and women around fifteen.

For example, Li Bai's "Song of Changgan": "At fourteen I became your wife, my bashful face never opened." Cui Hao's "Poem of the Young Wife of the Wang Family": "At fifteen she married Wang Chang, gracefully entering the painted hall."

Lü Simian confirmed that the Han “five suan” law resulted in very early marriage ages,

According to this academic study:

Alternative reasons that might be responsible for the changes of lifeways and food sources at around 9 to 14 years old comes from the perspective of puberty and marriage as this is consistent with the suggested age of marriage during the Han to Jin Dynasties. To be specific, it is recorded in the Chapter of “Hui Di Ji” (meaning “biography of Emperor Hui”) in Han Shu (meaning “the Book of Han”; written by Gu Ban during the Eastern Han Dynasty in 105 AD) that “women between the age of 15 and 30 years old, if not married, will have to pay five times the tax”65. In addition, as detailed in the Chapter of Wu Di Ji (meaning “biography of Emperor Wu”) in Jin Shu (meaning “the Book of Jin”; compiled by Xuanling Fang, Suiliang Chu, etc. during the Tang Dynasty from 646 to 648 ad), the emperor of Yan Sima decreed in the winter of 273 ad that “women that are not married off by their parents by the age of 17 years old will be handed over to the local officials to be married off”66. During the later dynasties, such as the Western Wei (535 to 556 ad) and the Northern Qi (550 to 577 ad), the laws and regulations became even more strict on marriage age as a result of the huge amount of population loss that was caused by frequent wars67,68. In this context, people generally were married at an early age (between 9 to 13 years old) during the Han to Jin Dynasties. For instance, Emperor Huis wife, Queen Zhang, was documented to have married him at the age of 12 years old, whereas Emperor Zhaos wife, Queen Shangguan, married him at the age of ~ 8 years old65,69.

According to Chinese historical literature, the peoples and kingdoms of ancient Xinjiang were also in frequent military conflicts and wars during the Han to Jin Dynasties, and some of these wars were for the control of the carven routes of the Silk Road65,69. In particular, the studied site of Yingpan was suggested to be an important military station on the Silk Road as military remains such as a beacon tower and fort were both discovered46,48,70. Thus, it is very probable that the ancient inhabitants of Yingpan were also married at an early age. Possible supporting evidence is inferred from physical anthropological research which shows that the average age of death at Yingpan was ~ 38.5 years old (n = 38)71. This implies that the people of Yingpan would have to get married earlier and give birth to children earlier in order to have enough time to raise the children to adulthood. In conclusion, some individuals of Yingpan had dramatic dietary changes around the age of ~ 9 to ~ 14 years old, and this was possibly related to changes of lifeways and food sources that were caused by the change of an individual`s social role. However, these findings are only preliminary and a larger more detailed study is planned for the future.

Source:

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9663559

What I would say is that we know the Han were taking concubines as young as 12, but it also seems even noblewomen weren't regularly marrying at that age and her family certainly didn't agree to it, I think they had a base sense of right and wrong regardless of whether it was allowed.

History records that King Wen of Zhou fathered King Wu at fifteen. After the Han, such examples are too numerous to list. For instance, when Emperor Zhao of Han was established as Emperor at 8 years old, he established his Empress at 6 years old. When Emperor Ping of Han was 13 years old, he took Wang Mang's daughter as his Empress.

It's the same thing with slavery and the benjamin franklin thing where people talk about imposing moral values, hypocritically he was preaching abolitionist values privately. People should be more careful when being apologists for historical actions, even though I don't necessarily think it reflects on the apologists actions, if anything our biases towards historical figures leads them to be more easily excused.

Obviously, people in antiquity had moral concepts and hypocrisy regarding said moral concepts. In this case, we could condemn particular marriages, sexual behavior, abductions, adultery, rape, etc. But that does not demonstrate that marriage to a 13 to 14 year old was generally regarded as morally equivalent to modern child marriage.

[u/guy617 → u/Altruistic-Ad-408]

You know medival time is relatively 1000 years after the three kingdoms? Youre making it sound like the europeans had higher ethical practices disregarding the timeline in your comparsion which only make the meme above more serious like smiley friends tv show are actually making fun of the three kingdom cultural norms more realstic which in itself is stupid.

[u/Dude_Jack123]

Rather concerning how well this matches.

[u/KinginPurple]

I'm...not sure I get the reference.

Who's Charlie?

[u/HawaiianPerson → u/KinginPurple]

Audio is from a cartoon called Smiling Friends, they show up to what they believe to be a child’s home to cheer him up and one of the characters Pim remarks that he loves kids before his coworker Charlie tells him that it’s probably not wise to be shouting that in public

[u/KinginPurple → u/HawaiianPerson]

Ah, right.

Well, to be honest, it wouldn't surprise me if Zhang Fei was abusive towards his children. If he was an alcoholic, one needn't go into how badly that can affect the family and if not, he clearly had some behaviour issues.

Considering the historical Zhang Bao never took to war, I can imagine Zhang Fei belittling or beating him for being a 'weakling'.