Cai Wenji: How well it was to live before! in the pre-industrial period. Their parents married whom they would have to - and for the rest of their lives. You cannot get divorced, you cannot escape, you cannot complain about beating anyone, and you can’t get enough time – because you have to smell in the field from morning to evening. I’ve lived to forty – well, life has gone well! Three out of ten children have survived reproductive age – success! There’s something to eat today, wow! And now all the suffering. There is no love, the love has cooled, the husband has gone, the wife has shattered, the child wants something and the sponges are rotting... The list of misfortunes is endless. No, it was better before.