Chapter 45 - 35: Family Interactions (Part 3)

Chapter 45: Chapter 35: Family Interactions (Part 3)

"No, back then even a blade of grass was precious, and you only got straw shoes in winter, and that was considered good. Many adults had never worn shoes, let alone children. Now, you see, there are still a few families in the village whose kids are barefoot. You haven’t wandered much around the village; you’ve only played with those from well-off families. If they’re from a poor family, they don’t have time to play around with you; they all have to work in the fields. In our village, several families share one cotton-padded jacket when they go out in winter. That little buddy of yours, Dogzi-next-door’s uncle’s eldest son, he’s already 25 years old, too poor to get married. He traded his 15-year-old sister in an arranged marriage to get a new wife. His little sister looks at most 12 and was exchanged with a 30-year-old widower. On their wedding day, they borrowed clothes from our house to wear.

Our village is considered better. In winter, why do you think no one is around? It’s because they have no clothes, cotton-padded jackets need cloth tickets and cotton tickets. Generally, daughters don’t have cotton-padded jackets, at best patched layers of clothing. Inside the layers of clothing, there’s some old cotton stuffed with straw bits. The worst off are villages like Xialin Village and Chen Family Village, who can’t even pay their taxes and are always in debt year after year. You tell me, where’s the money, where are the tickets? They can’t even fill their stomachs. There are so many bachelors in those two villages that they practically have to share a wife. Except now, in the new society, no one dares do this openly. No one dares to marry girls from those two villages, and girls don’t dare marry in there either. If they marry in, they’re too poor to support their own family; if they marry out, they don’t even know if it’s safe. What do they do? They resort to arranged marriages."

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