Why is it called' mistress' for a man to remarry after his wife dies?

According to Zhai Hao's "Women's Popular Edition" in the Qing Dynasty, "There is a saying today that if you lose your wife, you will break one string and then marry a second string." In ancient times, harps were used to describe husband and wife, so the loss of a wife was called "broken string" and remarriage was called "continued string". The origin of this word has something to do with Yu Boya, a famous drummer in the Spring and Autumn Period (that is, the person who played "Running Water on High Mountains") and Liu Che, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty.

According to legend, Yu Boya was good at playing drums in the Spring and Autumn Period. His wife appreciates his piano skills very much and often asks Yu Boya to play the piano for her. Husband and wife are loving and affectionate. Hou Boya's wife is seriously ill and bedridden. Although Boya invited a famous doctor to take good care of him, his wife's illness has not improved.

Seeing his wife's illness getting worse day by day, Yu Boya was worried. Suddenly one day, my wife's spirit improved (actually, she came back to light) and said she wanted to listen to her husband's violin. Yu Boya is busy picking up the piano, tuning it and playing it tinklingly, so that his sick wife can get happiness and comfort from her wonderful piano sound. After listening to Yu Boya's piano performance, his wife was in high spirits.

In order to make his wife get better quickly, Yu Boya played one song after another and dared not stop; When he was playing with a strong sense of pleasure, he suddenly "collapsed" and the string broke in two. Just then, the wife stopped moaning. Yu Boya quickly put down the puller and ran to the bed. His wife is dead. Boya cried bitterly for a while, then called his family to take care of the funeral, and never played the piano again.

A year later, a friend of Yu Boya introduced him to a marriage. Because Yu Boya is still immersed in the pain of his dead wife and does not intend to remarry; But I can't stand everyone's persuasion, so I have to reluctantly agree to go to the woman's house before making a decision. I didn't expect it to matter at first glance. Yu Boya fell in love with that girl at first sight. And the other party also intends to marry Yu Boya because of his talent. But she made a condition that before she married him, she would listen to Yu Boya play a piano for herself.

Yu Boya went home to take the piano with a broken string, removed the broken string that had never been answered, replaced it with a new string and played it for the girl. The song is melodious, graceful and elegant, with mountains and rivers flowing for a while and blue sky and white clouds for a while, which is really superb and Yue Xian-style. Everyone listened like fools. The piano stopped for a long time before waking up, and then there was a burst of applause. Even a prude can't help slapping himself. I agree to this marriage now.

After the story spread, the people began to use "mistresses" to mean that they had lost their wives and remarried.

There is another saying: According to the legend of Hanwu, after the bowstring used by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was broken, it was renewed with glue, and the string later became extremely strong and never broke. Later, people called men's remarriage "second line", "second glue" or "second glue" Liu Jian's poem "Autumn Night Book is a Langzhong in Rongzhou" says: "It is hard to find love gum, which breaks the heart of acacia." "Luan Jiao" here means to continue to marry.