Empress Dou, wife of Tang Emperor Gaozu Li Yuan, was the daughter of Dou Yi, a Sui dynasty governor of Dingzhou. Because her mother was the elder sister of Northern Zhou Emperor Wu, she grew up in the imperial palace.
Dou Shi was clever and insightful, and Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou deeply cherished his niece.
During the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Emperor Wu had a consort from the Turkic nobility whom he treated coldly. His young niece, Lady Dou, noticing this, found a private moment to advise him: "Uncle, with unrest on all borders and the Turks' formidable power, please set aside personal feelings. Treat the Turkic consort well for the sake of the state. With Turkic support, we need not fear challenges from the south."
Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou was so impressed by her reasoning that he immediately adopted her advice and changed his attitude toward the Turkic consorts.
Years later, Dou grew into a woman of both beauty and talent. Determined to find her a husband of exceptional martial skill, Dou Yi and his wife devised a plan.
Dou Yì then ordered a screen painted with two beautiful peacocks and decreed that every suitor for his daughter's hand must stand a hundred paces away and shoot two arrows, each aimed at a peacock's eye. He declared, "Whoever hits both eyes shall marry my daughter."
At that time, many young men came to seek her hand, over a hundred in total, but none could shoot the peacock's eye, so no one was chosen.
Finally, the young, handsome, and highly skilled Li Yuan stepped forward. Confident, he drew his bow from a hundred paces away and fired two arrows in quick succession, each striking one of the peacock's eyes. The crowd erupted in cheers. Overjoyed, Dou Yi declared, "A worthy son-in-law!" and promptly married his daughter to Li Yuan.
Later, the idiom "Selected by the Sparrow Screen" came to describe choosing an ideal son-in-law.
Source: *New Book of Tang*, "Biography of Empress Dowager Daimu Dou"
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "雀屏中选" came to describe choosing an ideal son-in-law.