Author | Nanfengchuang Reporter Xu Xiaohong, a well-known middle-aged scholar in Yongzhou, passed away due to illness. A eulogy written by his wife Chen Lang unexpectedly triggered a wide range of emotional resonance. This article subverts the impression of most Chinese eulogies.

Author | Nanfengchuang Reporter Yongzhou

The well-known middle-aged scholar Xu Xiaohong passed away due to illness. A eulogy written by his wife Chen Lang unexpectedly triggered a wide range of emotional resonance.

This article subverts the impression of most Chinese eulogies. It does not have the sad emotion of "the deceased is the most important". Instead, the whole article is calm and slow, and at the same time flows with the memory of the deceased, a touch of sadness and unwillingness. Chen Lang said that after getting married, she was "exhausted" for her family and children. She also felt jealous and lost when she saw her husband "scorning Fang Qiu" online. She even said frankly, "The more successful he is, the more painful it will be for you."

Chen Lang herself is also an outstanding scholar. She holds a PhD from the Department of Religious Studies at Yale University and a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. She is a woman who has had the same academic achievements and academic ideals as her husband. After marriage, Chen Lang voluntarily gave up her teaching position in Hong Kong and followed her husband to a foreign country. Later, her husband fell ill, and she concentrated on taking care of the family.

"I used to love philosophy and theory so much. If we didn't get married, would I be able to better appreciate his thoughts and actions?... I once told my psychiatrist that it was impossible to be happy when married to someone who was in love with me. You want the same thing, but someone has to take care of the children, file taxes, manage finances, and cook, so it becomes a zero-sum game."

We have every reason to believe that the author Chen Lang was writing this article When writing the article, there was absolutely no intention of complaining about marriage, husband and family. What she wrote was a eulogy, not an accusation. The true feelings revealed are mixed with love and hate, reason and tenderness at the same time, and they are all mixed in the extremely real and vivid memory and pain.

readers clearly feel the pain of a wife losing her loved one, and also feel the unwillingness and incomprehensible pain of having to give up her personal pursuits due to various external reasons as a wife and mother.

's sincere and vivid tweets and her to-the-point reasoning have been widely retweeted, and the long-tail effect is getting stronger. This can only show that she has touched people's hearts.

A woman's ambition and talent are gradually buried in marriage. Of course she does not regret or accuse her marriage, but her bravery and sincerity have touched most readers who can empathize with her.

Secondly, what she hopes to express is always "resentment towards the structure or system" rather than towards Xiaohong as her husband and father.

’s husband works at the University of Michigan in the United States. This kind of “structure and system” has its similarities in any society. From history to the present, women like Chen Lang are everywhere. They are in the kitchen, on the stove, in the mother and baby room, but not in laboratories and classrooms. This is some kind of internal division of labor that has been tacitly accepted for many years, for the sake of family stability and maximizing utilitarian benefits, but perhaps it is not for happiness and people themselves.

01

The Silence of Being Thanked

In the great stories praising mothers, in the inspiring speeches of celebrities standing in the light, we can find too many soft and strong women who are working silently behind the scenes.

After Lu Xun's death, Xu Guangping mentioned in his 1939 collection of essays that after the two got married, Lu Xun continued to write, while she was responsible for helping him proofread and copy, "saving his energy and time as much as possible in trivial matters." But over time, Xu Guangping found that he no longer had a legitimate career, so he proposed to work outside, but Lu Xun objected: "If you work outside, your lifestyle will be completely different, and it can't be like this."

So Xu Guangping was forced to stay. At home, "manage the kitchen and receive guests, as well as serve as his voluntary deputy."

Like Dr. Chen Lang, Xu Guangping’s emotions are also intertwined with love and resentment: “His work is great, but I am just a housewife. Sometimes I feel so sad because of this, and blame myself for not contributing to society after studying. Service. However, I can’t bear to leave my family, leave him, and go out to work alone. The above is my previous life. I’m afraid there must be many people like me.”

The original intention of these statements is also not there Complain and blame. Xu Guangping had already seen the real crux of the problem at that time: "I don't think the problem itself lies entirely with women and their husbands who love the family... This is a pathological phenomenon constituted by society."

In Lu Xun's articles, future generations will read the various appeals made by this top writer for civilization, equality between men and women, and for people's wisdom and social progress. It is not that he has not thought about the general structural division of labor issues. However, thinking about those grand narratives has exhausted his "legitimate energy", leaving him with too much extra time to devote to family trivia and the love between his children.

Lu Xun's value and status cannot be denied, of course. In the context of the family, a wife who is willing to dedicate and assist has also been friendly and included as part of the master's achievements.

Since ancient times, many celebrities and successful people will express their gratitude to their wives or parents behind them with tears in their eyes after achieving certain achievements. Their idea is very simple: I must have seniors who can help me in my career, and I also have support in my family life.

It’s just that women often do the trivial things like oil, salt, firewood and rice. Therefore, the object of gratitude is often the mother or wife, or even the daughter.

The division of labor within a marriage is often for the sake of the stability of the family structure. For a long time, and in most cases, there was nothing wrong with the traditional model of "men outside, women inside." However, in the context of modernity and the trend of individual independence, the wife may feel the lack of individual value, but the man as the husband may also feel overwhelmed by the secular requirements of society. This is two sides of the same coin.

But if both husband and wife have desires and ideals in the field of "outside the Lord", the situation will inevitably be different. At this time, for the so-called "family stability", the solution can often only be accomplished by one party denying his or her inner desires. Often, women are socially constructed to desire family stability rather than personal achievement.

"From now on, I must compete with him, check each other's elbows, and touch each other's pens. I will not be able to escape the hustle and bustle of his fame and get some peace. Even on the other side of the world, he will be the great Ennis Hemingway, of course. And I will be just his wife at first, and if I want to be myself, I will have to fight hard."

This passage comes from a novel featuring Hemingway's third wife, Martha Gellhorn. The biographical work "I Can't Just Look Up to You". Before marrying Hemingway, Martha was an excellent war correspondent. London's "Daily Telegraph" called her "the greatest war correspondent in the world." The press named the Gellhorn Journalism Award after her. His face has also appeared on U.S. postage stamps.

During the Spanish Civil War, 28-year-old Martha met Hemingway in the International Brigade. At that time, Hemingway once looked at Martha's figure deep into the battlefield and sighed: "This is the bravest woman I have ever seen."

However, after the two got married, Martha's name was gradually replaced by "Hemingway's new wife". Hemingway no longer expected his wife to continue writing and reporting, but wanted her to stay at home and take care of the housework so that he could concentrate on writing. In order to suppress his wife, Hemingway also offered to be the chief battlefield reporter for "Crier" weekly, taking away the opportunity that originally belonged to Martha.

Martha, who had a resolute personality, finally couldn't bear it anymore and left Hemingway. In this regard, Hemingway once wrote a poem to ridicule her: "There are thousands of maids named Martha in the world, and they are all so willing to obey orders. Gellhorn is very cute, but unfortunately she is too ambitious.""

This is an eternal issue: Whether it is based on family division of labor or gender temperament, can women's ambition, strength, and independence really only become a stumbling block in their pursuit of love?

When love makes you suffer, Ma Sha Wu said sadly: "How I wish I didn't love you. Love cannot solve or answer anything, nor is love a bright beacon to guide us. It can't do any of these. ”

02

Work and cooking skills are equally important to men

Nowadays, the family is actually no longer the smallest unit of society. Ideally, as long as a person has enough courage and financial strength, the individual is the smallest unit.

In this case, those Individuals who choose to enter marriage and family, especially women, will inevitably bear more burdens at the level of public opinion: If you have ideals and ambitions, why would you choose to enter marriage?

You can marry the person you love and start a family. Why? Do you have to give up your personal ideals and plans? And the one who gives up is usually a woman who has chosen the identity of "wife" and "mother".

For men, the three identities of husband, father and "successful person", They can go hand in hand and are not contradictory to each other. If he is a person who has the ability to bring enough wealth, resources and social status to the family, then he is also a good husband and father.

But for women, wives, The mother's responsibility and the simultaneous pursuit of career success are in conflict with each other. She cannot pursue her personal ideals and at the same time become a good mother and a good wife expected by society.

There are two objective and predictive aspects here. First, in a family structure where reproduction is the necessary purpose, women are naturally the ones who bear more time and energy costs in childbearing. Then, using the utilitarian theory of maximizing interests, at least in the case of wives, During the period of pregnancy and childbirth, the husband naturally assumes more social work and economic functions.

The second preset condition is that most women prefer to pursue the stability of a small family, rather than uncertain fields such as the workplace and academia. Riding the wind and waves.

This presupposition has a certain historical basis. Various civilized countries have experienced the era of polygamy and women relied on men to make a living. The traditional structure of "men are at home and women are at home" has naturally been continued.

to It is both easy and difficult to find celebrity examples where the gender division of labor is reversed. It is difficult because of scarcity, but also because of scarcity, the few representatives stand out and are extremely conspicuous.

For example, the famous female justice Ruth Bay De Ginsburg and her husband Martin Ginsburg. From love to marriage, Martin supported his wife’s pursuit of the law without complaint, even though it was an era when it was extremely difficult for women to enter the powerful class. The two often met After they got married, they studied Pepps and Dickens together and were admitted to Harvard Law School together, progressing at the same time.

Perhaps it was a coincidence that Martin was very interested in cooking. In an interview after his marriage, he said: "My wife can't Give me any cooking advice and I don't give her any legal advice, and it works for both of us. ”

This is to put “cooking” in the same respect as other matters. It does not regard cooking at home as the sacrifice and sacrifice of the weak, nor does it think that it has lost the so-called male dignity just because it stays in the kitchen.

In the 1950s, such a husband could be called "fashionable", possessing concepts and vision that transcended the times. As the historian Dick Hart, who wrote Ruth's biography, said, Martin was "ahead of the times."

But nearly a century later, a husband who is willing to support his wife's career wholeheartedly and does not mind that she cannot be a "good wife and mother" is actually a rare thing that is "ahead of the times".

Nowadays, in popular context, there is There is a word called "sapiosexuality", which refers to being infatuated with a person because of his outstanding mind. The subject described by this word is often a woman. It seems that only women fall in love with a man because of his mind, but few men fall in love with him. Fascinated by women because of their brains.If there is a marriage between two people, one person must have no ambitions for the outside world, and that person is usually the wife. The traditional sayings such as "a talented man and a beautiful woman" and "I am as responsible as a flower" are not true.

But in the long track of time, beauty is constantly depreciating. Only brains and wealth will increase in value, giving a person the hardness and thickness of life.

As a result, the traditional marriage model of "men outside and women inside" will one day be threatened and tested. The one who stays at home will feel that the individual is meaningless. This is not a modern problem, but a proposition that is not new.

But the crux is not the love itself, nor the specific husband or wife in the marriage. We first acknowledge love and the desire for family and intimacy, and then we can step out of our personal perspective and see the real cloud hanging over reality: labor within the family is glorified as "sacrifice," which is a problem in itself.

03

Seeing the Reality

Dr. Chen Lang said in her first eulogy that about a week after her husband passed away, she started running again. “While running, I suddenly thought that he would not be able to see me graduate. I have won a lot of this. A person who seems to have a high school diploma and little interest in the graduation ceremony actually burst into tears on the playground for such a nerdy reason."

Grief is not only due to the departure of a loved one, but also due to a sense of loss that cannot be traced. of grievance and disappointment. How much I long for the blessing and support of my beloved, but my short life and marriage deprive me of all the possibility of happiness.

Love occurs when both parties are in love with each other. Both parties are interested in the same aspect of the world and have goals and ideals that they can understand and sympathize with.

But when the relationship between the two is concluded by marriage, this soul resonance is gradually replaced by trivial matters, where will love go? There is regret on both sides for the lost husband and the weeping wife.

Love comes in many forms, and it is grand and even great because of its diversity. No one is perfect in an intimate relationship. Xu Xiaohong, who was mourned, was recognized by his wife as a "good father." The sorrow and blockage Chen Lang felt were not caused by her husband, the specific lover.

Chen Lang emphasized in her second statement that what she really wanted to express was the "resentment towards the structure or system" reflected behind this interrupted happiness. "Even for people like Xiaohong who pursue perfect personality, , all leaving so much pain and regret, what have all of us (including men) endured as victims of the patriarchal structure? Is our academic system inhumane? Is it alienation?"

won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics American economist Claudia Golding observed that in the past 20 years, the proportion of female PhDs in economics around her has reached 30%-35%, but among them, the proportion of tenured associate professors is 25%, and that of full professors Only 15%.

Most of these female scholars will leave the labor market due to childbirth. When they return to the market, due to obvious reasons such as taking care of children and families, their working hours will be reduced, and their labor results and personal development will inevitably be limited.

After being defeated, they either choose to leave the industry, or lose their "ambition" and "prefer" leisure and flexible jobs, becoming mothers who can go back to take care of their children at any time.

And Goldin's latest research suggests that the growth of remote and flexible working may be a hope for women's progress. Furthermore, this may also become a marriage, a hope for a more harmonious family.

In fact, each of us knows very well that even if there is a well-known female scholar today who speaks, publishes, and participates in public events, and behind her there is a husband who is willing to spend time around the kitchen and the baby, the public’s judgment of the couple will not Maybe not too positive.

Even if there is a husband like Martin Ginsberg who is sincerely proud of family affairs, happiness seems to be a problem due to the usually biased social evaluation, the emotional patterns and gender temperaments that individuals have been shaped since childhood.

Facts have proved that even in 2024, this internal contradiction is still deep-rooted.This is not a lack of personal reflection, but a lack of collective awareness.

Can the academic system and evaluation standards accommodate love? Can it accommodate a wife who also wants to be in the lab and classroom?

If we can only accept one kind of love and one kind of marriage, it means that we can only accept one kind of academic production, one kind of creativity and the future of young people.

The pictures in the text come from the Internet

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Editor | Wu Qing

Typesetting | Fengjian Che

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