漢隋之間的「生子不舉」問題

Infanticide and Child Abandonment from Han to Sui

漢隋之間，民間生子不養，除因產育禁忌外，最主要是為了節制養育人口。產育忌諱包括分娩月日和新生兒的生理狀況等。棄養之法，漢魏時大多採丟置或活埋，至南北朝時，則或以改姓、出繼或寄養來解決「妨剋」的問題。因貧困無力養活過多兒女時，女嬰可能先遭棄養。而六朝政治分裂，各國邊地屯兵小民生活不易，兩國接壤之境生子不舉的情形特別嚴重。漢魏晉南北朝的地方官常以嚴法治殺子之罪，少數輔以私囊救助。中央政府方面，則只有南朝齊帝曾採寬政峻法並重，企圖解決生子不舉的問題。學者的譴責，在早期有針對「禁忌迷信」所做的「闢邪」言論，至佛道盛行後，則或置於戒律之中。傳統家庭雖重視子嗣，但在家庭結構、經濟力和倫理等因素的多重影響下，生子不舉的父母卻可能受到讚譽褒揚。江南大多仍為主幹家庭，宗族力量緩不濟急，倘若貧家力不兼舉，只有棄此保彼，以孝以義之名，埋己子而養他人。見棄之嬰，欲得生路，實賴鄰里仁愛之人與宗教機構之救濟。既有刑律懲處，復受宗教儆戒，漢隋之間人們仍不得不以生子不舉限制人口，實由於婦產科學的精準性和普遍性不足之故。在缺乏避孕知識、有效驗孕和安全人工流產的情況下，婦女一再懷孕、生育，然後再以棄養的方式節制家庭人口。此時，政治與社會力量若僅鼓勵早婚早育多產，而無救濟之寬政或輔助之機構，則勸阻棄養不易，嬰兒求生亦難，而婦女也在生育一事上，危機重重，辛苦萬分。

It is often assumed that offspring symbolizes, one's fortune in traditional Chinese society, and Chinese people consider heirless the most unfilial thing. However, due to various reasons, cases are found throughout Chinese history that new-borns were either abandoned or killed. Parents of the Six Dynasties period gave up their babies mostly because of childbirth taboos and economic desperation of the families. Infants that were born with unusual features or on the bad dates, the fifth of May as the worst, were perceived as harmful to their parents. As for desperate families, babies, especially female ones, were often given up to reduce financial burden of the families. During the political chaos in this period of disunion, peasants and their children living along the borders of different regimes were most often victimized by heavy taxation and fatal corvee labor. The government and the society both tried to solve this problem. Both the central court and the local officials either applied severe punishment or provided childbirth subsidies to curtail child abandonment and infanticide. Scholars condemned baby-killing caused by childbirth taboos. Religious texts warned parents of retribution, and religious institutions may have played an important role in taking care of the deserted. Curiously enough, relatives within the ta-kung mourning obligations, who were thought to bear the responsibility of support according to traditional Confucian ethics, were often not in the scene of help. On the one hand, since nuclear families and stem families were more prevalent than lineal families throughout Han times and the Six Dynasties, desperate families hardly received support from kinship members. On the other hand, when poor people had to give up their new-borns to support their own parents or nephews, they would be honored and sometimes awarded for their acts of filial piety and fraternal love. The fundamental reason for people to apply such severe means even under the pressure of legal and religious penalties was the lack of effective methods in contraception and abortion. Although contemporary doctors recommended late childbirth and rare pregnancy, and medical texts suggested the knowledge of induced abortion, the under-developed gynecological techniques were still unable to serve the need. Under such circumstances, desperate women were pregnant, giving birth and then forced to give up their babies over and over again.