{"id":4903,"date":"2026-10-03T12:09:48","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T04:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/?p=4903"},"modified":"2026-10-03T14:14:34","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T06:14:34","slug":"lannee-de-la-chevre-une-annee-malchanceuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/year-of-the-goat-unlucky\/","title":{"rendered":"Pourquoi l'ann\u00e9e de la Ch\u00e8vre est-elle consid\u00e9r\u00e9e comme malchanceuse ?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"tzl-page\">\n  <style>\n.tzl-page{\n  --bg:#fff;--ink:#0a0a0a;--soft:#3a3a3a;--grey:#5c5c5c;--muted:#9a9a9a;--line:#e6e6e6;\n  --accent:#e1391b;--accent-dark:#b02a12;\n  --sans:\"Archivo\",Arial,sans-serif;--mono:\"Spline Sans Mono\",ui-monospace,monospace;\n  --zh:\"Noto Sans SC\",\"PingFang SC\",\"Microsoft YaHei\",sans-serif;\n  max-width:1040px;margin:0 auto;color:var(--ink);background:var(--bg);\n  font-family:var(--sans);font-size:17px;line-height:1.7;\n}\n.tzl-page 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(\u9a6c\u4f2f\u5eb8,\u300a\u5c5e\u7f8a\u7684\u4eba\u547d\u4e0d\u597d?\u51ed\u4ec0\u4e48\u300b) and folklore scholar Liu Ruiming (\u5218\u745e\u660e,\u300a\u5c5e\u7f8a\u7684\u4eba\u4e3a\u4ec0\u4e48\u547d\u82e6\u300b); the belief's continued life (online dating filters, comment-thread pushback from Goat-born users) read from Zhihu threads; source card drafts\/goat-year-stigma-article-research-20261003.md. Primary attributions are given to the named researchers, not asserted as independently collated classical finds]; 4b=[SERP: worldcrunch, Wikipedia Goat(zodiac), ltl-school, yourtango, buddhastoneshop \u2014 English coverage repeats the \"Empress Dowager Cixi started it\" origin and goat-personality traits; NONE trace the Ming-era paper trail, the physiognomy root (\u76ee\u6709\u56db\u767d), the Lu Xun marriage case, or the spread to Japan \u2014 that gap is this article's info-gain] -->\n  <!-- SEO-CHECK: intent=[searcher asks \"is the year of the goat unlucky \/ why\" \u2014 hero answers in the first two sentences: yes a real superstition exists (esp. about women and marriage), but it is folk belief, not fact, and its real history is older and stranger than the usual \"Cixi started it\" story]; longtail=[H2s use real phrasings: what the superstition claims, the origin story you'll usually hear, where it really came from, don't-marry-a-goat, is it true; FAQ \"\u95ee\u9898+\u4e00\u53e5\u76f4\u7b54\" for snippet]; pillar=[spoke\u2192pillar: links \/year-of-the-goat\/ animal pillar; hands the data question to \/rarest-chinese-zodiac-sign\/ and \/chinese-zodiac-unlucky-signs\/ to keep one-topic-one-page]; core kw \"year of the goat unlucky\" overlaps rarest page only at the adjective level \u2014 rarest owns the rarity\/birth-data question, this article owns the belief's HISTORY (distinct angle, AckSlugs=rarest-chinese-zodiac-sign) -->\n  <!-- DISTILL-CHECK: keywords=[\u5341\u7f8a\u4e5d\u4e0d\u5168, \u5c5e\u7f8a \u514b\u592b, goat unlucky, \u76ee\u6709\u56db\u767d, \u7f8e \u7f8a\u5927, \u7f8a \u7965, \u4e09\u9633\u5f00\u6cf0, \u8033\u76ee\u65e5\u4e66, \u955c\u82b1\u7f18, \u7533\u62a5 \u6eba\u5973, \u9c81\u8fc5 \u9000\u5a5a, \u7ec6\u96ea]; hits=partial \u2014 the \u7f8e=\"\u7f8a\u5927\"\/\u7f8a=\"\u7965\" etymology and the \u4e09\u9633\u5f00\u6cf0 auspicious framing were used before on the 1895 Goat-year page (references\/zodiac-year-data.md) and are verified against \u8bf4\u6587\u89e3\u5b57; the stigma's genealogy and the physiognomy root are attributed to Ma Boyong and Liu Ruiming's published research, with the Lu Xun marriage case independently corroborated by English reporting (worldcrunch\/ThingsAsian). Zhu An's exact birth-year\/zodiac is left out because sources disagree (Ma Boyong's essay says Tiger\/1878; standard biographies say Rabbit\/1879). -->\n  <div class=\"tzl-wrap\">\n    <section class=\"tzl-hero\">\n      <div class=\"tzl-kicker\">Folklore \u00b7 Zodiac history<\/div>\n      <h2>Why Is the Year of the Goat <em>Called Unlucky?<\/em><\/h2>\n      <p>Yes \u2014 there is a real and stubborn Chinese superstition that people born in a Goat year, and women above all, are destined for a hard life and a bad marriage. A much-quoted saying, <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u5341\u7f8a\u4e5d\u4e0d\u5168<\/span> (literally, &#8220;of ten Goats, nine are incomplete&#8221;), expresses the folk idea that Goat-year lives are somehow lacking or difficult. It is a proverb, not a statistical claim, and this page did not find a classical Four Pillars rule that makes Goat-year births inherently unlucky.<\/p>\n      <p>What is genuinely interesting is where the belief came from. The story commonly told in English \u2014 that it was invented in the late Qing to smear the Goat-born Empress Dowager Cixi \u2014 is almost certainly wrong. Chinese researchers who have followed the paper trail find the prejudice is older than Cixi; one folklore study even argues it did not begin as a zodiac idea at all, but as a misread facial omen. For a symbol as auspicious as the goat, that reading would make the prejudice a long accident of misinterpretation. This article follows that trail.<\/p>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card\" id=\"what-it-claims\">\n      <h2>What the superstition actually claims<\/h2>\n      <p>The belief is carried largely in folk sayings, and they single out women. Alongside <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u5341\u7f8a\u4e5d\u4e0d\u5168<\/span> you will also hear <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u5973\u5b50\u5c5e\u7f8a\u5b88\u7a7a\u623f<\/span> (&#8220;a Goat-year woman keeps an empty room,&#8221; i.e. is widowed or left alone) and blunter rhymes claiming a Goat-year wife will <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u514b\u592b<\/span> \u2014 bring ruin to her husband. A common modern shorthand is simply: do not let your son marry a woman born in a Goat year.<\/p>\n      <p>Read as folklore, these are sayings people repeat. Read as a claim about reality, they fall apart immediately: people born in the same Goat year plainly do not share one life outcome. They are presented here as a tradition that is still circulated and still disputed \u2014 not as guidance, and certainly not as a judgement about any real person.<\/p>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card\" id=\"origin-you-hear\">\n      <h2>The origin story you will usually hear \u2014 and why it is probably wrong<\/h2>\n      <p>Two political origin stories circulate widely. One says the &#8220;Goat year is unlucky&#8221; idea was spread by revolutionaries in the late Qing to undermine the dynasty, because the Empress Dowager Cixi (born 1835, a Goat) and several powerful officials around her were also Goats. The other pins it on Yuan Shikai, the Goat-born general who declared himself emperor and was widely hated.<\/p>\n      <p>Both are tidy, and both are hard to sustain, because the prejudice is documented well before either figure mattered. In his widely-read essay on the subject, the writer Ma Boyong (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u9a6c\u4f2f\u5eb8<\/span>) assembled the earlier references; the folklore scholar Liu Ruiming (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u5218\u745e\u660e<\/span>) traced the deeper root. Their work points the same way: the Cixi and Yuan Shikai stories are later rationalisations attached to a belief that was already old.<\/p>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card\" id=\"real-trail\">\n      <h2>How far the documented trail currently reaches: back to the Ming<\/h2>\n      <p>Following the citations Ma Boyong collected, the prejudice can be tracked backwards step by step, and it keeps going past the Qing into the Ming dynasty:<\/p>\n      <ul>\n        <li><strong>Republican era.<\/strong> In 1920, Lu Xun&#8217;s younger brother Zhou Jianren wrote in <em>New Youth<\/em> (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u65b0\u9752\u5e74<\/span>) that in Shaoxing a Goat-year woman was thought to be born a widow. He mentioned it because the family had lived it: when Lu Xun was a teenager, his mother called off a prospective match on learning the girl was born in a Goat year. English reporting on the superstition tells the same story.<\/li>\n        <li><strong>Qing dynasty.<\/strong> The early-19th-century novel <em>Flowers in the Mirror<\/em> (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u955c\u82b1\u7f18<\/span>) records the saying that &#8220;in the north a Goat-year woman is thought poor, in the south a Tiger-year woman is thought fierce.&#8221; A Suzhou official&#8217;s notebook from the same period reports that local Goat-year women <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u634f\u6539\u5e74\u5c81<\/span> \u2014 falsified their ages \u2014 just to be able to marry. In 1883, a Goat year, the Shanghai newspaper <em>Shen Bao<\/em> (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u7533\u62a5<\/span>) warned that the drowning of baby girls would worsen that year because families did not want a Goat-year daughter.<\/li>\n        <li><strong>Ming dynasty.<\/strong> The trail does not stop in the Qing. A Ming-era almanac, the <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u8033\u76ee\u65e5\u4e66<\/span>, already carried &#8220;a Goat-year woman keeps an empty room,&#8221; and the Ming-life novel <em>Jin Ping Mei<\/em> (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u91d1\u74f6\u6885<\/span>) treats being &#8220;made to be born a Goat&#8221; as a punishment. Earlier than the Ming, surviving evidence for it is much harder to find.<\/li>\n      <\/ul>\n      <p>In Ma Boyong&#8217;s reconstruction, the surviving references he assembled can be followed back at least to Ming-period material. That establishes the prejudice predates the late-Qing Cixi and Yuan Shikai stories; it does not by itself prove the belief first originated in the Ming. What is clear is that it hardens through the Qing and was still steering real marriages a century ago.<\/p>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card\" id=\"deeper-root\">\n      <h2>One proposed deeper origin: Liu Ruiming&#8217;s physiognomy theory<\/h2>\n      <p>Folklore scholar Liu Ruiming proposes that the Goat-year prejudice grew through a series of reinterpretations of older physiognomic language, rather than out of astrology. In the Han-dynasty <em>Qianfu Lun<\/em> (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u6f5c\u592b\u8bba<\/span>) the phrase <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u56db\u767d<\/span> \u2014 &#8220;four whites,&#8221; an eye with a small iris ringed by white above, below, and on both sides \u2014 already marks an ominous face, but it is not about women or the Goat zodiac.<\/p>\n      <p>By the Tang, the collection <em>Chaoye Qianzai<\/em> (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u671d\u91ce\u4f65\u8f7d<\/span>) records <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u5987\u4eba\u76ee\u6709\u56db\u767d\uff0c\u4e94\u592b\u5b88\u5b85<\/span> \u2014 &#8220;a woman whose eyes show four whites, five husbands guard the house&#8221; \u2014 moving the phrase into a reading of women and marriage. Liu argues that later wordplay and reinterpretation helped transfer this facial omen onto goat symbolism and eventually onto Goat-year women. This is a scholar&#8217;s reconstruction of the genealogy, not a continuously documented chain that shows exactly when each step happened.<\/p>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card\" id=\"japan\">\n      <h2>A similar taboo also appears in Japan<\/h2>\n      <p>Tanizaki Junichiro&#8217;s 1940s novel <em>The Makioka Sisters<\/em> (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u7ec6\u96ea<\/span>) records a similar prejudice around Osaka, especially among merchant families, against marrying a woman born in a Goat (Ram) year. This shows the taboo was not confined to China. The novel itself does not establish when, how, or in which direction the belief was transmitted \u2014 only that a close parallel existed in Japan too.<\/p>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card\" id=\"irony\">\n      <h2>The irony: the goat also carries strong auspicious symbolism<\/h2>\n      <p>What makes the stigma strange is that, outside this one superstition, the goat or sheep carries strong auspicious associations. The <em>Shuowen Jiezi<\/em> glosses <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u7f8a<\/span> itself as <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u7965<\/span> (&#8220;auspicious&#8221;), analyses <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u7f8e<\/span> (&#8220;beautiful&#8221;) as <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u4ece\u7f8a\u4ece\u5927<\/span> (&#8220;from sheep, from big&#8221;), and treats <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u7f8a<\/span> as the phonetic element in <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u7965<\/span>; the New-Year blessing <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u4e09\u9633\u5f00\u6cf0<\/span> puns on <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u7f8a<\/span>, which sounds the same as <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u9633<\/span>. The Han philosopher Dong Zhongshu, in the <em>Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals<\/em> (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u6625\u79cb\u7e41\u9732<\/span>), even read the lamb as a model of benevolence, righteousness, and propriety because it kneels to nurse.<\/p>\n      <p>This page did not identify a classical Four Pillars rule that treats Goat-year births as inherently unlucky. In the Four Pillars system a person is read from eight characters \u2014 a heavenly stem and an earthly branch for each of the year, month, day, and hour \u2014 and a zodiac animal is only the earthly branch of the year pillar, one of those eight characters considered together. Judging a whole life from that single character is not scepticism&#8217;s complaint; it is a complaint the tradition&#8217;s own logic makes.<\/p>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card\" id=\"real-cost\">\n      <h2>The real cost of a &#8220;harmless&#8221; superstition<\/h2>\n      <p>It is tempting to file this under quaint custom, but the record shows documented social consequences, even if the evidence differs in strength. An 1883 <em>Shen Bao<\/em> notice, as quoted in later research, warned that Goat-year prejudice could worsen the drowning of baby girls \u2014 evidence of contemporary concern, not a measured count of Goat-related infanticide. Other sources describe Goat-year women falsifying their ages to improve their marriage chances, and the Lu Xun family story records an intended match rejected over the woman&#8217;s Goat year. Treating the &#8220;Goat-year bride is bad luck&#8221; line as colourful folklore skips over the fact that, for generations, it was a reason real families gave for real decisions about real girls.<\/p>\n      <p>That is the honest reason to pull the belief apart rather than repeat it: not to score a point against old China, but because the people it still touches are alive now.<\/p>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card\" id=\"today\">\n      <h2>What about today \u2014 and is any of it true?<\/h2>\n      <p>The belief has not fully gone. In the run-up to recent Goat years, Chinese reporting described couples timing births to avoid a Goat-year child. Contemporary Chinese posts, dating discussions, and videos still contain examples of people screening out Goat-year partners or debating the old prejudice. That shows the belief survives online; these examples do not establish how common it is today, or where it is most prevalent. Where people push back, it is often with the reminder that the goat is, by its own etymology, a lucky animal.<\/p>\n      <p>Is there anything to it? The population-level question \u2014 whether families really do avoid Goat-year births, and whether it shows up in the data \u2014 is examined on this site&#8217;s <a href=\"\/rarest-chinese-zodiac-sign\/\">rarest-sign page<\/a>, where the evidence turns out to be mixed and much weaker than the saying assumes. For the sign&#8217;s own traits and years, see <a href=\"\/year-of-the-goat\/\">Year of the Goat<\/a>; for how the &#8220;unlucky sign&#8221; question plays out across the whole zodiac, see <a href=\"\/chinese-zodiac-unlucky-signs\/\">unlucky zodiac signs<\/a>. They present a birth year as folklore, not a verdict on a life.<\/p>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card tzl-faq\" id=\"faq\">\n      <h2>Year of the Goat and bad luck: FAQ<\/h2>\n      <details><summary>Is the Year of the Goat really unlucky?<\/summary><p>No. There is a real and long-standing folk superstition \u2014 centred on women and marriage \u2014 that Goat-year people are unlucky, captured in sayings like \u5341\u7f8a\u4e5d\u4e0d\u5168 (&#8220;ten Goats, nine incomplete&#8221;). But it is a folk belief, not a fact, and this page did not find a classical Four Pillars rule that makes Goat-year births inherently unlucky \u2014 in BaZi, the zodiac animal is only the earthly branch of the year pillar, one of eight characters considered together. The goat also has longstanding auspicious associations in Chinese texts and wordplay.<\/p><\/details>\n      <details><summary>Why do some people say not to marry a woman born in a Goat year?<\/summary><p>It comes from an old prejudice that a Goat-year woman is fated to be widowed or to harm her husband (\u514b\u592b). One published folklore study, by Liu Ruiming, proposes a physiognomic origin. The Han-era Qianfu Lun treats &#8220;four whites&#8221; as an ominous eye feature; by the Tang, Chaoye Qianzai associates the same phrase with a woman&#8217;s sexual and marital fate. Liu argues that later wordplay and reinterpretation eventually transferred the omen onto Goat-year women. This is a scholar&#8217;s reconstruction, not a continuously documented chain.<\/p><\/details>\n      <details><summary>Did the superstition start with Empress Dowager Cixi?<\/summary><p>Probably not. The popular story that it was invented in the late Qing to smear the Goat-born Cixi (or, in another version, Yuan Shikai) does not fit the record: the prejudice is documented in Qing novels and notebooks before Cixi held power, and in Ming-dynasty texts before that. Writer Ma Boyong and folklore scholar Liu Ruiming both place its roots well before the late Qing.<\/p><\/details>\n      <details><summary>How old is the belief?<\/summary><p>The documentary trail used on this page reaches Ming-period sources \u2014 a Ming almanac, the \u8033\u76ee\u65e5\u4e66, and the Ming-life novel Jin Ping Mei \u2014 and hardens through the Qing (the \u955c\u82b1\u7f18 novel; an 1883 Shen Bao notice). Earlier evidence for the Goat-year marriage prejudice is much harder to establish, which is a limit of the evidence, not proof that the belief began in the Ming.<\/p><\/details>\n      <details><summary>Did this superstition reach other countries?<\/summary><p>A close parallel existed there. Tanizaki Junichiro&#8217;s 1940s novel The Makioka Sisters records a similar taboo around Osaka against marrying a Goat-year woman. The novel shows the prejudice was not confined to China, but it does not establish the direction, route, or timing of any transmission between the two.<\/p><\/details>\n      <details><summary>Is it true that families avoid having Goat-year babies?<\/summary><p>Some do, and reporting around recent Goat years described couples timing births to avoid one. Whether it shows up clearly in national birth data is disputed \u2014 the evidence is mixed and far weaker than the saying implies. That demographic question is examined separately on this site&#8217;s rarest-sign page.<\/p><\/details>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card\" id=\"next-steps\">\n      <h2>Keep reading<\/h2>\n      <div class=\"tzl-links\">\n        <a href=\"\/year-of-the-goat\/\"><strong>Year of the Goat<\/strong>The sign&#8217;s traits, years, and meaning.<span>Read the sign &rarr;<\/span><\/a>\n        <a href=\"\/rarest-chinese-zodiac-sign\/\"><strong>Rarest Sign<\/strong>Do families really avoid Goat-year births? What the data shows.<span>See the evidence &rarr;<\/span><\/a>\n        <a href=\"\/chinese-zodiac-unlucky-signs\/\"><strong>Unlucky Signs<\/strong>How the &#8220;unlucky sign&#8221; question plays out across all 12.<span>Read more &rarr;<\/span><\/a>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card\" id=\"editorial-note\">\n      <h2>Editorial note<\/h2>\n      <p class=\"tzl-source-note\"><strong>Sources and stance.<\/strong> The genealogy of the superstition here follows two pieces of published Chinese research: the essay <em>&#8220;The Goat is unlucky? On what grounds&#8221;<\/em> (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u5c5e\u7f8a\u7684\u4eba\u547d\u4e0d\u597d?\u51ed\u4ec0\u4e48<\/span>) by the writer Ma Boyong, which assembles the Ming-and-Qing citations (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u8033\u76ee\u65e5\u4e66<\/span>, <em>Jin Ping Mei<\/em>, <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u955c\u82b1\u7f18<\/span>, the 1883 <em>Shen Bao<\/em> notice, and Zhou Jianren&#8217;s 1920 <em>New Youth<\/em> account of the Lu Xun family), and folklore scholar Liu Ruiming&#8217;s study, which proposes a genealogy from the Han-era <em>Qianfu Lun<\/em> <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u56db\u767d<\/span> (&#8220;four whites&#8221;) omen to later female physiognomic readings such as the Tang <em>Chaoye Qianzai<\/em> phrase <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u5987\u4eba\u76ee\u6709\u56db\u767d\uff0c\u4e94\u592b\u5b88\u5b85<\/span>, and then to later Goat-related reinterpretation, presented here as Liu&#8217;s reconstruction rather than a continuous proven chain. The classical citations are reported as those researchers present them, not as independently collated finds. The Lu Xun engagement case is also reported in English coverage of the superstition. The auspicious word-history (the <em>Shuowen<\/em> statements <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u7f8a\uff0c\u7965\u4e5f<\/span> and <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u7f8e\uff0c\u4ece\u7f8a\u4ece\u5927<\/span> \u2014 for <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u7965<\/span>, the <em>Shuowen<\/em> analyses <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u7f8a<\/span> as the phonetic element, <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u4ece\u793a\uff0c\u7f8a\u58f0<\/span> \u2014 together with the <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u4e09\u9633\u5f00\u6cf0<\/span> pun and Dong Zhongshu&#8217;s <em>Chunqiu Fanlu<\/em>) is verified against <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u8bf4\u6587\u89e3\u5b57<\/span> and standard references. One detail is deliberately left out: sources disagree on the exact birth year and sign of Zhu An, the bride Lu Xun did marry, so this article states just the verified core \u2014 that his mother rejected an earlier match for being Goat-born. This page explains a cultural and historical belief for education and interest. It is folklore, not fact, and not medical, financial, or relationship advice; a birth year does not determine anyone&#8217;s character or destiny.<\/p>\n    <\/section>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <script type=\"application\/ld+json\">\n  {\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Is the Year of the Goat really unlucky?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"No. There is a real and long-standing folk superstition \u2014 centred on women and marriage \u2014 that Goat-year people are unlucky, captured in sayings like \u5341\u7f8a\u4e5d\u4e0d\u5168 (\\\"ten Goats, nine incomplete\\\"). But it is a folk belief, not a fact, and this page did not find a classical Four Pillars rule that makes Goat-year births inherently unlucky \u2014 in BaZi, the zodiac animal is only the earthly branch of the year pillar, one of eight characters considered together. The goat also has longstanding auspicious associations in Chinese texts and wordplay.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why do some people say not to marry a woman born in a Goat year?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"It comes from an old prejudice that a Goat-year woman is fated to be widowed or to harm her husband (\u514b\u592b). One published folklore study, by Liu Ruiming, proposes a physiognomic origin. The Han-era Qianfu Lun treats \\\"four whites\\\" as an ominous eye feature; by the Tang, Chaoye Qianzai associates the same phrase with a woman's sexual and marital fate. Liu argues that later wordplay and reinterpretation eventually transferred the omen onto Goat-year women. This is a scholar's reconstruction, not a continuously documented chain.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Did the superstition start with Empress Dowager Cixi?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Probably not. The popular story that it was invented in the late Qing to smear the Goat-born Cixi (or, in another version, Yuan Shikai) does not fit the record: the prejudice is documented in Qing novels and notebooks before Cixi held power, and in Ming-dynasty texts before that. Writer Ma Boyong and folklore scholar Liu Ruiming both place its roots well before the late Qing.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How old is the belief?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The documentary trail used on this page reaches Ming-period sources \u2014 a Ming almanac, the \u8033\u76ee\u65e5\u4e66, and the Ming-life novel Jin Ping Mei \u2014 and hardens through the Qing (the \u955c\u82b1\u7f18 novel; an 1883 Shen Bao notice). Earlier evidence for the Goat-year marriage prejudice is much harder to establish, which is a limit of the evidence, not proof that the belief began in the Ming.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Did this superstition reach other countries?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"A close parallel existed there. Tanizaki Junichiro's 1940s novel The Makioka Sisters records a similar taboo around Osaka against marrying a Goat-year woman. The novel shows the prejudice was not confined to China, but it does not establish the direction, route, or timing of any transmission between the two.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Is it true that families avoid having Goat-year babies?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Some do, and reporting around recent Goat years described couples timing births to avoid one. Whether it shows up clearly in national birth data is disputed \u2014 the evidence is mixed and far weaker than the saying implies. That demographic question is examined separately on this site's rarest-sign page.\"}}]}\n  <\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>La croyance selon laquelle \u2018 l'ann\u00e9e de la ch\u00e8vre porte malheur \u2019 est bien r\u00e9elle, mais n'est pas fond\u00e9e sur des faits. D'o\u00f9 vient-elle r\u00e9ellement \u2013 des textes de la dynastie Ming, d'une interpr\u00e9tation erron\u00e9e de la physionomie, de la famille de Lu Xun, voire du Japon ? \u2013 et pourquoi la ch\u00e8vre est-elle en r\u00e9alit\u00e9 un symbole de chance ?.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_title":"Why Is the Year of the Goat Called Unlucky?","rank_math_description":"A Chinese superstition says Goat-year people, especially women, are unlucky in marriage. Where the belief came from, and why it is folklore, not fact.","rank_math_focus_keyword":"goat zodiac superstition, year of the goat unlucky, goat unlucky superstition","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories-source-notes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4903"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4907,"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903\/revisions\/4907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}