ố Kinh: Bố is raw fabric; Kinh is thorny grass, from the phrase “Raw fabric trousers, thorny grass hairpin” (布荆钗 ̣(Wearing in raw fabric, fastening hair with thorn grass pin). The proverb is from the tale of Lương Hồng and his wife Mạnh Quang.
For thousands of years, Mạnh Quang has been considered the paragon of wifely virtue; a woman of plain appearance but with great moral integrity.
During the Later Han Dynasty (AD 947-950) there lived in Pingling County, a learned and capable scholar called Liang Hong (in Vietnamese, Lương Hồng), styled Boluan.
Lương Hồng was a man who embraced poverty and shunned official appointments, yet was greatly admired by all his neighbours. Local families regularly offered their daughters to him in marriage but he refused to consider their proposals.
It so happened that in the same district, lived a girl named Mạnh Quang, styled Đức Diệu (Deyao). The daughter of a country squire, Mạnh Quang was a homely girl. Nevertheless, she had strict ideas about what she wanted in a husband. Consequently, at the age of thirty, she remained unwed.One day her father, in exasperation, asked her who her ideal man would be. Her answer was simple: “I only want to marry a man like Lương Hồng.”
When news of this reached Lương Hồng, he replied: “Well, let her marry me!”
The time for the wedding arrived and Mạnh Quang travelled to his home in her finest clothes. For seven days and seven nights, he showed no interest in his new bride. No longer able to endure his indifference, Mạnh Quang knelt before him and asked: “I have heard that you were a person of great moral character who has taken a long time to marry. Well, so have I. Now that you here married me, please tell me what it is about me that offended you.”
Lương Hồng replied: “Your expensive clothes and heavy makeup disgust me! The only woman I would be willing to share my life with would be one who wears only a thorn hairpin and a plain cotton dress!”‘ It was by then that Mạnh Quang understood everything. She put on a coarse cotton dress, discarded her makeup, bound up her hair with a thorn grass hairpin and did all the menial and laborious tasks.
Only then was her husband satisfied. Some time later, the couple went to live in the mountains of Baling. They passed their days by growing crops, playing the qin music instrument, singing and studying. After this, they travelled all over the country, earning their livelihood wherever they went.
During this time, Lương Hồng worked as a thresher. Every evening, when he returned home, Mạnh Quang would place the food she had prepared on a tray. She would then offer this tray to him by raising it to the level of her eyebrows to symbolise her deep love and respect for her husband.
One day, the employing landlord of Liang Hong was so impressed when he came across such a scene as the wife of Liang Hong raising the tray of food at her eyebrows’ level offering food to her husband. He changed his attitude toward Liang Hong, thinking that he must hitherto have been an inopportune talented and capable person, and relieving him from toilsome menial works for administrative tasks. He let him concentrate on writing, thanks to which he has accomplished many invaluable literary works.
To this day, the phrase “holding the tray level with the eyebrows” is used to characterise married couples who treat each other with love and respect.
Nguyen Du’s Kieu has this verse: “Having been dubbed up to the level of Bo Kinh, the Way to Obey One’s Husband takes chastity for top virtue.” In this sense, betraying Bo Kinh means that, in the mutual treatment of husband and wife of today, few are able to keep such à faithfulness.
In another poem, Lord Master said:
“To practice is to keep conjugal fidelity,
The Bo Kinh marital relationship never fades.”
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