Original Text
An old gentleman from Linzi had a daughter who was the wife of Li, a student of the Imperial Academy. Before her marriage, a fortune-teller calculated her birth horoscope and declared that she was destined to suffer official punishment. The old man was angered at first, but then laughed and said, "How dare you spout such nonsense! Not only would a daughter from a respectable family never set foot in a courtroom, but can a mere scholar not protect his own wife?" After her marriage, the woman proved exceedingly shrewish, constantly berating and beating her husband. Li, unable to endure her abuse, filed a complaint with the magistrate in a fit of anger. Magistrate Shao approved the case, issued a warrant, and sent constables to arrest her at once. When the old man heard of this, he was greatly alarmed and led his family to the yamen, begging Magistrate Shao to withdraw the case. The magistrate refused. Li also regretted his action and petitioned for the case to be dropped. Magistrate Shao angrily declared, "Official matters cannot be initiated or withdrawn at your whim! She must be brought to trial!" When she was brought before the court, the magistrate questioned her briefly and then pronounced, "A veritable shrew!" He sentenced her to thirty strokes of the bamboo, and the flesh of her buttocks was beaten away.
The Chronicler of the Strange remarks: Was Lord Shao perhaps once wronged by a woman, that he should be so incensed? Yet when a county has a wise magistrate, the countryside will have no shrewish women. I record this incident to supplement the deficiencies in the biographies of virtuous officials in the historical records.
Commentary
"Could it be that you harbor grievances within the women's chambers, sir? Why such violent rage?" This is Pu Songling's commentary on the story's conclusion, a remark that strikes straight to the heart of the matter.
Although this tale is brief, it reflects an extraordinarily rich tapestry of social life. The old man from Linzi, who placed no faith in the fortune-teller's words, relied instead on his daughter's status as a daughter of a distinguished family and the wife of a scholar-official, believing she would be protected under ordinary circumstances. Yet he never anticipated that "calamity would arise within the household walls"—his daughter was brought before the magistrate by her own husband, who accused her of "habitually cursing and reviling her spouse," thus violating the ethical and familial laws. According to feudal legal codes, marital quarrels within the home, no matter how severe, were not to be prosecuted unless a formal complaint was lodged, and moreover, the husband had already requested to withdraw the suit. Unexpectedly, the county magistrate, perhaps nursing some personal grievance against the inner chambers, refused to relent and pressed the case to its conclusion. Thus, the daughter of the old man from Linzi was "given thirty strokes of the bamboo, the flesh of her buttocks completely stripped away," fulfilling the soothsayer's prophecy that she would "suffer official punishment."
The tale has a comedic nature, and Pu Songling's remark that "in the county there is a virtuous magistrate, and in the village no shrewish wife" is not entirely reliable, yet the commentary in the "Historian of the Strange" section—"Could it be that the gentleman harbored some grievance within the inner chambers? How fierce his anger was!"—is exceptionally insightful, carrying a flavor of psychological analysis of aberrations, reflecting Pu Songling's unique perspective as an educator.