Having a wife was nothing more than reaching the age of marriage. It would require saving hundreds of catties of grain, a hook of cloth, a few household items, a piece of meat and making a living without much changes to the man’s original lifestyle. Anyway, as long as the man was not bad and had the strength, no matter how poor he was, he would always be able to find a wife. Once the pair became husband and wife, there was no need to worry about children since it was almost guaranteed.
But building a house was a different matter.
Building a house required wood, straw, mudbrick, stone, straw, grain, manpower and whatnot.
Even if one only needed to pay for two large groups of masons and carpenters, coupled with the fact that the junior workers would be led by the team leader to help, the materials were actually prepared by oneself.
Building a house required a ton of wood, which was used for beams, purlins, etc. Trees weren’t items that could grow instantly, so ordinary members wouldn’t have the resources nor the land to buy them. Basically, villagers would store the wood that they have and it would be considered good to have an accumulated sum of wood after a decade.
In addition, even if the rafter was not made of wood and was replaced with a cheap material such as straw, they have to use their work points to replace it through the Production Team.
The work points were used to exchange food, but there was already a shortage of food that would usually be placed on the table. How could it be possible to exchange that many materials with work points, then?
Although some workers could help do some small work in the village and did not require much to eat, the heavy workers and the strong labourers who built the walls and beams have to make sure that they have food on the table.
If they couldn’t get enough grain to fill their own stomachs, where could there be enough grain to fill others’?
Either way, it was more than enough to become a worrisome trait for the members of the village.
If three rooms could be built, that would truly be amazing. The house would be passed down from the ancestors and each generation would make sure to repair the house. When life was going well, they would add another room and a half to make sure that their son would be able to live with his wife and family.
Building a new house would take about 100 Yuan as the deposit, and if the house was to be made out of bricks, it would naturally be more expensive.
100 Yuan— how long would a typical countryside worker need to save to be able to obtain that amount of money?
Besides, who was guaranteed to not get sick? Marriage, childbirth, funerals, and other miscellaneous or personal expenses cost money.
After getting married, more than a decade of the family’s savings would be emptied. If there was a funeral, another ten years worth of the family’s savings would be taken up as well. Should another situation arise, the family wouldn’t be able to save anything.
Even a Secretary Head who had been bearing that position for more than 20 years could not easily say that he wanted to build a new house. With his position and wage, he still needed to make the suitable preparations for a couple of years.
Han Qingyun’s eldest brother and the second brother have not separated their families either. In fact, he was also still living in the same house with his parents, and there was the discussion of marriage coming up for him as well.
Those who were applying for homesteads in the village have been saving up their materials and resources for more than ten or twenty years. It was only done if the entire family could not handle living together any longer or if there simply wasn’t enough space for that many people to live in.