Widowers, Widows, Orphans, and Childless Old People Are Called Sagung [Four Kinds of Poor People]. Because They Are Helpless, These People Cannot Survive without Support from Others. To Survive Originally Means “Rise.”
King Wen in administering benevolence always gave priority to saving the four kinds of poor people [sagung], and the six benevolent rules [baoxi liuzheng] of the grand minister of education also make saving the poor the third of the rules. However, Classic of Poetry sings, “The festivity of the month will be well for the rich, but certainly not so for the old and lonely.” Those who are poor and have no one to depend on are called sagung [Ch. siqiong]. Those who do not have six closest relatives [liuqin]23 but possess property of their own cannot be regarded as belonging to the sagung, the four types of the poor.
Zhu Xi said, “Those who are old and sick and disabled, as well as widowers and widows who are withered and socially isolated, are the people who have no one to depend on, but they should be regarded as the brothers and sisters of the magistrate himself. The administration of the superior man should concentrate on helping the people like them (Reflections on Things at Hand).”
Kong Huan24 of the Liang dynasty was a man of integrity. When he became prefect of Jinling, he helped orphans and widows from his stipend, and people called him “Divine Prince” [Shenjun].
When Cheng Baizi became magistrate of Jincheng, he made relatives and neighbors of all the helpless people who were lonely and sick take care of them so that they might not lose their livelihood, and if travelers happened to fall sick while passing through his district, he treated them to save their lives.
If There Are Those Who Are Unable to Find a Spouse Because They Have Passed Marriageable Age, the Government Should Help Them.
King Goujian of the Yue kingdom stated in his decree: “If a woman aged seventeen years and a man aged twenty still remain unmarried, the responsibility [for finding a spouse] lies with their parents.”
When Ren Yan became prefect of Jiuzhen, the people of that region had no custom of marriage. Because women had no spouses of their own, they could not tell the name of their children [i.e., did not know who the father was] even if they had children. Ren Yan arranged marriages between the males who were aged fifteen to fifty years and the females aged fifteen to forty years according to their age. As for those who were too poor to marry, he ordered the district magistrates [in his domain] to help them with their own salary and find them spouses. As a result, the number of households that found spouses exceeded two thousand. That year the wind and rain were mild, and they had a good harvest (Book of the Later Han).
When Yong Tai25 of Xianning was salt-control censor [xunyan yushi] in the Lianghuai region, there were nearly two thousand men working in the salt field. Living alone, they were poor and without spouses. The inspector found spouses for most of them within two years of his stay.
After Yong Tai left their district, the people of Lianghuai sang a song like this:
Although in the bag of the censor there is no ink slab,
In the houses of the people in the sea village there are wives and children.
They continued to sing:
Fulfilling the wishes of four thousand men and women,
Honorable censor returned to the court on a boat with a sail lifted by the spring breeze.
When Yang Jizong was in charge of Xiuzhou, a man of property came to see him. This man told him that he would cancel the marriage of his daughter because he was worried that his son-in-law was too poor. Yang reproached the man and allowed him to choose another son-in-law on condition that he pay 2,000 taels of gold for his change of mind. He met the man after some time passed and said, “I gave the money to your [original] son-in-law so that he could have a family, and now you have acquired an outstanding husband for your daughter.” That day he ordered the marriage to take place.
When Li Kun [pen name Donggang]26 inspected the Gansu region to pacify the people, the custom of the region was so barbarous that men without property were unable to marry. He found that there were over a thousand soldiers in the army who were too poor to marry, so he provided them with silver and cloth to find them spouses. Later, when he departed from the place, people came out and saw him off with tears, and they were mostly those whom he had helped find spouses years earlier.
Since Encouraging Marriage Is a Legacy of Kings throughout History, the Magistrate Should Try to Preserve the Legacy with a Sincere Heart.
The National Code stipulated: “In all cases where a girl from a literati family is too poor to marry despite being almost thirty years old, the Board of Rites shall report the case to the king and provide the necessities for her marriage, and the head of her family shall be punished.”27
In the second lunar month of Sinhae year [1791], the fifteenth year of his reign, King Chŏngjo took pity on the people among the scholars and commoners who had passed their marriageable age and issued a royal decree to the five departments [pu] of Seoul. In his decree the king ordered officials to encourage marriage of the unmarried or expedite the marriage of a couple who had already been engaged if their marriage was delayed, providing them with 5 taels and two bolts of fabric, and he had them report to him every month. At that time the daughter of Sin Tŏkbin, who lived in the western part of Seoul, was twenty-one, and Kim Hijip was twenty-eight years old, and both of them were passing the suitable age for marriage. On the second day of the sixth lunar month the king said, “I arranged marriages for several hundred unmarried people living in the five departments of the capital, including widowers and old maids, after encouraging them to marry. However, since there are only two people in the western section of Seoul who still remain unmarried, how can I lead the harmony of Heaven and Earth and let the people submit to the original nature of all creatures? It is important to have a good start along with careful preparation in order to accomplish an objective, and the finish is equally crucial, especially in carrying out state affairs. So let Tŏkbin’s daughter and Hijip be persuaded to expedite their marriage and accomplish the good work.” When their marriage was decided, the king was pleased and said, “A man and a woman finally found their place. Kim and Sin, the new couple, accidentally met to become a husband and wife. Nothing will be more delightful and mysterious than this.” (See Collected Works of Ajŏng by Yi Tŏngmu.)28
Every Year in January the Magistrate Should Check the Unmarried People Who Have Passed Marriageable Age and Make Them Get Married in the Following Month.
The magistrate should check males aged over twenty-five and females over twenty who are unmarried so that they may hurry to get married. People who have parents and relatives, as well as property, should especially be made to expedite their marriage, and if they show negligence in this matter, they deserve to be punished. As for those who have neither relatives nor property, the magistrate should select a respectable person in the village who can serve as a matchmaker. The magistrate should ask him to find a marriage partner, while he provides the married couple with some money or linen and cotton, as well as lending a marriage costume, including a coat, a belt, shoes, a silk-covered lantern, and a bridal wedding gown. If the marriage takes place between rich and poor families, or between two poor families, the encouragement of the magistrate will weigh much more than that of ordinary people. How, then, can he not do a charitable work by sparing a word?
The State Affair of Tying Lonely People Together Is Worth Trying.
Tying lonely people together [hapdok] is also part of benevolent administration. I have observed that a widow of a rural village who is not humble in her social status hesitates to remarry because she feels ashamed and fearful. Discovering her vulnerability, an old and sly peddler devises a secret plot to abduct her during the night, gathering the rascals of the village, which causes conflicts and fights among the villagers and undermines the custom of their society. Or it happens that the widow pretends that she was forced to lose her chastity, being acquainted with a stranger without the permission of her parents, which prevents her from having a better future. This is vastly different from the way in which the magistrate persuades her and her potential spouse with propriety, leading them to their union.