Original Text
In Qingzhou there was a man over fifty years old who remarried a young wife. His two sons, fearing he would father another son, took advantage of his drunkenness to secretly cut off his testicles and then applied medicinal powder to the wound. When the father sobered up and discovered what had happened, he pretended to be ill and did not mention the matter. After a long time, the wound gradually healed. One day, when he slept with his wife, the wound split open, blood flowed without stopping, and soon he died. The wife, learning the reason, reported it to the authorities. The officials arrested the two sons, and under torture they indeed confessed. The magistrate exclaimed in astonishment, "Today I have become the 'Single Father Magistrate'!" Then he sentenced both sons to death.
In Zichuan County there was a scholar named Wang who divorced his wife just over a month after marrying her. The wife's father brought a complaint to the magistrate. At that time the magistrate was Lord Xin, who interrogated Wang as to why he had divorced his wife. Wang replied, "The reason is not easy to speak of." Lord Xin pressed him repeatedly, and Wang answered, "Because she cannot bear children." Lord Xin said, "How absurd! A new bride who has been in the household barely a month, how can you know she cannot bear children?" Wang hesitated for a long time, then told Lord Xin, "Her private parts are positioned very oddly." Lord Xin laughed and said, "This is indeed the harm of being askew, and the reason why a household cannot be orderly." This story can be passed down alongside that of the magistrate of Shanfu, and is good for a laugh.
Commentary
This chapter consists of two bawdy jokes concerning the genitalia. The latter reflects the tragedy brought about by the lack of premarital medical examinations in olden times, while the former tells of two sons from a previous marriage who, fearing their father might take a stepmother and sire more children, went so far as to castrate him. Why were they so worried about their father "procreating again"? Was it fear of losing their father's affection? Or dread of mistreatment by a stepmother? No. For it is evident that both sons had already grown to adulthood. So what exactly were they afraid of? There is only one explanation: they feared that if their father fathered more children, it would diminish their own share of the family inheritance. Though presented as jokes, both stories reveal the heavy, somber side of human life.