{"id":4946,"date":"2026-10-08T12:28:58","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T04:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/?p=4946"},"modified":"2026-10-08T14:12:34","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T06:12:34","slug":"lannee-de-la-veuve-chinoise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/chinese-widow-year\/","title":{"rendered":"L'\u00ab ann\u00e9e de la veuve \u00bb chinoise : l'absence de printemps n'est pas un pr\u00e9sage"},"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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Folk belief says you should not marry in one. But the &ldquo;no spring&rdquo; part is a plain side-effect of how the Chinese lunisolar calendar keeps the moon and the sun in step, and it has nothing to do with marriage. Calendar and folklore experts have said so plainly, and in 2024 the question even reached China&rsquo;s Ministry of Civil Affairs. This article explains what a widow year really is, where the ominous name came from, and the one fact that quietly dismantles the superstition.<\/p>\n      <p>The short version: it is common &mdash; it lands roughly every two to three years (2019, 2021 and 2024 were widow years; the next is 2027). It is measured by counting how many <em>L\u00ecch\u016bn<\/em> fall between one Lunar New Year and the next &mdash; a year with none is a widow year. (This site uses the Lunar New Year itself to set your zodiac animal; <em>L\u00ecch\u016bn<\/em> is a separate boundary some BaZi traditions use, and the two are easy to confuse.) And the exact same calendar mechanism that produces a &ldquo;no-spring&rdquo; year also produces a &ldquo;double-spring&rdquo; year &mdash; which folk belief can&rsquo;t decide is lucky or cursed either. That contradiction is the tell.<\/p>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card\" id=\"what-a-widow-year-is\">\n      <h2>What a &ldquo;widow year&rdquo; actually is<\/h2>\n      <p>Start with the calendar, not the fortune. The Chinese agricultural calendar is <em>lunisolar<\/em>: its months follow the moon, but it is kept aligned with the sun &mdash; and with the seasons &mdash; by inserting leap months according to astronomical rules (the dates of new moons and solar terms). Over the long run that averages roughly seven leap months every nineteen years, though it is not a fixed cycle in the modern calendar. A plain twelve-month lunar year runs about 354 days. A leap year with a thirteenth month runs about 384 days. The solar marker <em>L\u00ecch\u016bn<\/em> (Start of Spring), by contrast, falls on nearly the same date every year, around February 3&ndash;5, and two consecutive <em>L\u00ecch\u016bn<\/em> are about 365 days apart.<\/p>\n      <p>Put those two facts together and the whole mystery evaporates. A short, 354-day lunar year can fall entirely <em>inside<\/em> the roughly 365-day gap between two <em>L\u00ecch\u016bn<\/em> &mdash; so that year contains no Start of Spring at all. That is a &ldquo;no-spring year&rdquo; (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u65e0\u6625\u5e74<\/span> <em>w\u00fach\u016bn ni\u00e1n<\/em>), also called <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u5be1\u5e74<\/span> (&ldquo;spare year&rdquo;) or <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u54d1\u5e74<\/span> (&ldquo;mute year&rdquo;). A long, 384-day leap year does the opposite: it is long enough to catch a <em>L\u00ecch\u016bn<\/em> near its start <em>and<\/em> another near its end &mdash; two Starts of Spring in one lunar year, a &ldquo;double-spring year&rdquo; (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u53cc\u6625\u5e74<\/span>, or <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u4e24\u5934\u6625<\/span>, &ldquo;spring at both ends&rdquo;). It is the leap-month machinery, nothing else.<\/p>\n      <div class=\"tzl-note\"><span class=\"mark\"><i class=\"ph ph-warning-circle\"><\/i><\/span> Keep two boundaries apart. Your Chinese zodiac animal is set by the <strong>Lunar New Year<\/strong> &mdash; the boundary this site uses throughout. <em>L\u00ecch\u016bn<\/em> is a separate solar line that some BaZi (year-pillar) traditions use instead, and it is the <em>L\u00ecch\u016bn<\/em>, counted between two Lunar New Years, that a widow year has none of. Either way, if you were born in January or early February, your sign may not match your birth year. See the <a href=\"\/january-february-zodiac\/\">January&ndash;February boundary<\/a> page to check your own date.<\/div>\n      <p>Recent examples, which you can line up against any almanac: 2019 (Pig), 2021 (Ox) and 2024 (Dragon) were no-spring years; 2023 (Rabbit) was a double-spring year; and the next no-spring year is 2027 (Goat). None of this is rare or sinister &mdash; it is the ordinary rhythm of a calendar doing arithmetic.<\/p>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card\" id=\"why-widow\">\n      <h2>Why &ldquo;widow&rdquo;? A pun, not a prophecy<\/h2>\n      <p>Here is the part the almanacs skip: nothing about a missing solar term inherently says anything about marriage. The &ldquo;widow&rdquo; label comes from folk explanation, not from the calendar &mdash; and folk sources give several overlapping accounts of it, none of which is a documented single origin.<\/p>\n      <p>The most repeated chain is purely verbal. The plain name is <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u5be1\u5e74<\/span> <em>gu\u01ceni\u00e1n<\/em> &mdash; a &ldquo;spare&rdquo; or &ldquo;lacking&rdquo; year, meaning lacking spring. The character <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u5be1<\/span> <em>gu\u01ce<\/em> also sits inside <span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u5be1\u5987<\/span> <em>gu\u01cef\u00f9<\/em>, &ldquo;widow&rdquo; &mdash; so &ldquo;the year that lacks&rdquo; slid, by association, into &ldquo;the widow&rsquo;s year.&rdquo; A second explanation leans on symbolism: in the old reckoning, <em>L\u00ecch\u016bn<\/em> is the chief of the twenty-four solar terms, the one that opens the year; a household, by the same traditional logic, had the husband as its head. A year with no &ldquo;chief&rdquo; term was read, by analogy, as a household with no head &mdash; a widow. A third version maps spring onto <em>y\u00e1ng<\/em> (the sun, masculine energy), so a year lacking spring was read as lacking the masculine &mdash; again, &ldquo;widow.&rdquo; Another reading links spring with fertility: spring is when things are born, so a year with no spring was symbolically tied to a lack of children or heirs &mdash; the classic dread attached to a marriage. None of these is a documented first origin; they are parallel folk explanations.<\/p>\n      <p>Whichever story you take, the move is the same one behind many Chinese calendar taboos: a sound or a symbol gets read as fate. A widow year is that kind of wordplay and symbolism wearing a calendar&rsquo;s clothes &mdash; not a force that acts on anyone.<\/p>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card\" id=\"double-spring-contradiction\">\n      <h2>The double-spring year nobody can agree on<\/h2>\n      <p>If a year with no spring were truly unlucky for weddings, you would expect the opposite &mdash; a year with <em>two<\/em> springs &mdash; to be the good one. And some say exactly that: a double-spring year (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u53cc\u6625\u5e74<\/span>) is read as &ldquo;good things in pairs,&rdquo; a fine time to marry, with new life doubling up. But the very same two springs are read by other people as a bad sign: two springs means a &ldquo;second spring,&rdquo; a second blossoming &mdash; i.e. a second marriage &mdash; so a double-spring year gets called a <em>peach-blossom year<\/em> (<span class=\"tzl-cn\">\u6843\u82b1\u5e74<\/span>) and, on that reading, is <em>also<\/em> a year to avoid weddings.<\/p>\n      <p>So the identical calendar event is simultaneously a reason to marry and a reason not to. That is the tell that none of it is tracking anything real &mdash; the interpretation is doing all the work, and it points both ways at once. The spread makes the absurdity concrete: across the twenty-first century (2001&ndash;2100) there are 37 double-spring years, 37 no-spring years, and only 26 single-spring years &mdash; a tally Chinese almanac and news sources report. If a couple followed both superstitions &mdash; avoid the no-spring years <em>and<\/em> avoid the double-spring years &mdash; only 26 of those 100 lunar years would be left to marry in.<\/p>\n      <div class=\"tzl-table-wrap\">\n        <table class=\"tzl-table\">\n          <thead><tr><th>Lunar year type<\/th><th>What the calendar is doing<\/th><th>21st century (2001&ndash;2100)<\/th><th>Folk verdict<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>\n          <tbody>\n            <tr><td>No spring (widow \/ blind year)<\/td><td>~354-day year falls between two L\u00ecch\u016bn<\/td><td>37<\/td><td>&ldquo;Avoid marriage&rdquo;<\/td><\/tr>\n            <tr><td>Double spring (\u4e24\u5934\u6625)<\/td><td>~384-day leap year catches two L\u00ecch\u016bn<\/td><td>37<\/td><td>Split: &ldquo;good in pairs&rdquo; <em>or<\/em> &ldquo;second marriage&rdquo;<\/td><\/tr>\n            <tr><td>Single spring<\/td><td>one L\u00ecch\u016bn lands inside the year<\/td><td>26<\/td><td>&ldquo;Normal&rdquo;<\/td><\/tr>\n          <\/tbody>\n        <\/table>\n      <\/div>\n      <p>Follow both rules and only 26 of the century&rsquo;s 100 years stay open. Read as heritage, the two beliefs are a neat window into how folk reasoning fills a vacuum; read as planning advice, they cancel each other out.<\/p>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card\" id=\"does-it-hold-up\">\n      <h2>Does it hold up?<\/h2>\n      <p>As a cultural artifact, the widow year is real and old, and the lunisolar mechanism behind it is exact and worth knowing. As a prediction about a marriage, it carries no more weight than any other symbolic tradition on this site &mdash; a missing solar term describes the calendar, not two people. That is not just this site&rsquo;s read. When the 2024 Dragon year was labelled a widow year online, a member of the public petitioned China&rsquo;s Ministry of Civil Affairs, arguing the saying &ldquo;seriously departs from common sense and scientific knowledge&rdquo;; on January 22, 2024 the ministry&rsquo;s social-affairs department <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bjd.com.cn\/2024\/01\/25\/10685849.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">replied that it would look into the concern<\/a>. Chinese demographers and almanac scholars have made the same point for years: a no-spring year is a coincidence of two calendars, not a force acting on anyone&rsquo;s life.<\/p>\n      <p>The record agrees. 2013 was itself a widow year &mdash; and it was close to the highest marriage-registration total China had seen in two decades. Plenty of people married, as they do every year. The honest summary is the one the Ministry&rsquo;s petitioner reached: there is no unlucky year to marry, only the readiness of two people and a steady foundation between them.<\/p>\n      <div class=\"tzl-note\"><span class=\"mark\"><i class=\"ph ph-info\"><\/i><\/span> This page explains a cultural tradition for interest and education. It is not a prediction, and not medical, financial, or relationship advice.<\/div>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card tzl-faq\" id=\"faq\">\n      <h2>Widow year: FAQ<\/h2>\n      <details><summary>What is a &ldquo;widow year&rdquo; in the Chinese calendar?<\/summary><p>It is a lunar year that happens to contain no L\u00ecch\u016bn (Start of Spring, around February 3 to 5). Because the lunisolar calendar adds leap months by astronomical rule, averaging about seven every nineteen years, a plain 354-day lunar year can fall entirely inside the roughly 365-day gap between two L\u00ecch\u016bn, leaving the year with no Start of Spring. It is called a no-spring year (\u65e0\u6625\u5e74), a widow year (\u5be1\u5987\u5e74) in the north, or a blind year (\u76f2\u5e74) in the south. It is a calendar artifact, not an omen.<\/p><\/details>\n      <details><summary>Is it really bad luck to marry in a widow year?<\/summary><p>No. The belief has no basis beyond wordplay and symbolism &mdash; calendar and folklore experts have said so plainly, and in 2024 the issue even reached China&rsquo;s Ministry of Civil Affairs, which acknowledged a public request to address it. A missing solar term describes the calendar, not a couple. 2013 was a widow year and saw close to the highest marriage total in two decades. The animal relationships this site tracks are tradition, not predictions, and a widow year is no different.<\/p><\/details>\n      <details><summary>Where does the &ldquo;widow&rdquo; name come from?<\/summary><p>From language and symbolism, not from any documented origin. The plain name is \u5be1\u5e74 (gu\u01ceni\u00e1n), a year that lacks spring; the character \u5be1 also sits inside \u5be1\u5987 (widow), so the name drifted by association. Other folk explanations treat L\u00ecch\u016bn as the year&rsquo;s &ldquo;chief&rdquo; term, or as yang\/masculine energy, so a year lacking it was read as a household lacking a husband. These are parallel folk explanations, not a single proven origin.<\/p><\/details>\n      <details><summary>What is a double-spring year, and is it lucky?<\/summary><p>A double-spring year (\u53cc\u6625\u5e74 or \u4e24\u5934\u6625) is a leap-month lunar year long enough to contain two L\u00ecch\u016bn. Folk belief cannot agree on it: some read two springs as &ldquo;good things in pairs&rdquo; and ideal for a wedding, while others read it as a &ldquo;second spring&rdquo; hinting at a second marriage and therefore a year to avoid. The same event pointing both ways is a sign the interpretation, not the calendar, is doing the work.<\/p><\/details>\n      <details><summary>Which recent years are widow years?<\/summary><p>2019 (Pig), 2021 (Ox) and 2024 (Dragon) were no-spring widow years, and 2027 (Goat) is the next one. 2023 (Rabbit) was a double-spring year. No-spring years recur roughly every two to three years because leap years arrive on about a seven-in-nineteen-years rhythm, so they are common rather than rare.<\/p><\/details>\n    <\/section>\n\n    <section class=\"tzl-card\" id=\"keep-reading\">\n      <h2>Keep reading<\/h2>\n      <div class=\"tzl-links\">\n        <a href=\"\/january-february-zodiac\/\"><strong>The January&ndash;February Boundary<\/strong>Why a winter birthday can land you in the previous zodiac year &mdash; the Lunar New Year line, and where L\u00ecch\u016bn fits in.<span>Check your date &rarr;<\/span><\/a>\n        <a href=\"\/2024-chinese-zodiac\/\"><strong>2024: Year of the Dragon<\/strong>The most-discussed recent widow year &mdash; its exact lunar dates and boundary.<span>See 2024 &rarr;<\/span><\/a>\n        <a href=\"\/zodiac-years-chart\/\"><strong>Zodiac Years Chart<\/strong>Every year, animal and element, with the lunar-year dates behind them.<span>Open the chart &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 are separated by claim.<\/strong> <strong>The lunisolar mechanism<\/strong> (leap months set by astronomical rule, averaging about seven in nineteen years but not on a fixed cycle; a 354-day year falling between two L\u00ecch\u016bn; a 384-day leap year catching two) follows the standard definition of the Chinese agricultural calendar. This site uses the Lunar New Year as the zodiac-year boundary; L\u00ecch\u016bn is a separate line used by some BaZi traditions, and a widow year is defined by how many L\u00ecch\u016bn fall between two Lunar New Years. <strong>The widow-year and double-spring years<\/strong> (2019, 2021, 2024, 2027 no-spring; 2023 double-spring) were cross-checked across multiple Chinese almanac and news sources. <strong>The etymologies<\/strong> (\u5be1\u5e74 &rarr; \u5be1\u5987\u5e74; the &ldquo;chief term \/ head of household&rdquo; reading; the spring-as-yang reading; the no-spring-as-no-heir reading) are recorded in Chinese folk-custom writing and are presented here as folk explanations, not a single proven origin. <strong>The 37 \/ 37 \/ 26 spread<\/strong> is the count of double-spring, no-spring and single-spring years across the twenty-first century (2001&ndash;2100), as reported by Chinese almanac and news sources; it reflects how leap years fall in this specific hundred-year window, not a fixed law derivable for every century. <strong>The Ministry of Civil Affairs<\/strong> did not itself declare the superstition baseless: on January 22, 2024 its social-affairs department <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bjd.com.cn\/2024\/01\/25\/10685849.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">acknowledged a public request<\/a> to address it; the debunking is attributed in the coverage to calendar and folklore experts. <strong>The 2013 marriage figure<\/strong> (about 13.47 million registrations, near a two-decade high) is from China&rsquo;s civil-affairs registration statistics as reported in that coverage, and shows only that many couples married in a widow year, not anything about outcomes. This article explains a folk tradition for interest and education; it is not a prediction, and not medical, financial, or relationship advice.<\/p>\n    <\/section>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <script type=\"application\/ld+json\">\n  {\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What is a \u201cwidow year\u201d in the Chinese calendar?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"It is a lunar year that happens to contain no L\u00ecch\u016bn (Start of Spring, around February 3 to 5). Because the lunisolar calendar adds leap months by astronomical rule, averaging about seven every nineteen years, a plain 354-day lunar year can fall entirely inside the roughly 365-day gap between two L\u00ecch\u016bn, leaving the year with no Start of Spring. It is called a no-spring year (\u65e0\u6625\u5e74), a widow year (\u5be1\u5987\u5e74) in the north, or a blind year (\u76f2\u5e74) in the south. It is a calendar artifact, not an omen.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Is it really bad luck to marry in a widow year?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"No. The belief has no basis beyond wordplay and symbolism \u2014 calendar and folklore experts have said so plainly, and in 2024 the issue even reached China\u2019s Ministry of Civil Affairs, which acknowledged a public request to address it. A missing solar term describes the calendar, not a couple. 2013 was a widow year and saw close to the highest marriage total in two decades. The animal relationships this site tracks are tradition, not predictions, and a widow year is no different.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Where does the \u201cwidow\u201d name come from?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"From language and symbolism, not from any documented origin. The plain name is \u5be1\u5e74 (gu\u01ceni\u00e1n), a year that lacks spring; the character \u5be1 also sits inside \u5be1\u5987 (widow), so the name drifted by association. Other folk explanations treat L\u00ecch\u016bn as the year\u2019s \u201cchief\u201d term, or as yang\/masculine energy, so a year lacking it was read as a household lacking a husband. These are parallel folk explanations, not a single proven origin.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What is a double-spring year, and is it lucky?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"A double-spring year (\u53cc\u6625\u5e74 or \u4e24\u5934\u6625) is a leap-month lunar year long enough to contain two L\u00ecch\u016bn. Folk belief cannot agree on it: some read two springs as \u201cgood things in pairs\u201d and ideal for a wedding, while others read it as a \u201csecond spring\u201d hinting at a second marriage and therefore a year to avoid. The same event pointing both ways is a sign the interpretation, not the calendar, is doing the work.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Which recent years are widow years?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"2019 (Pig), 2021 (Ox) and 2024 (Dragon) were no-spring widow years, and 2027 (Goat) is the next one. 2023 (Rabbit) was a double-spring year. No-spring years recur roughly every two to three years because leap years arrive on about a seven-in-nineteen-years rhythm, so they are common rather than rare.\"}}]}\n  <\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Une \u00ab ann\u00e9e de veuve \u00bb n\u2019est rien d\u2019autre qu\u2019une ann\u00e9e lunaire sans \u00ab d\u00e9but du printemps \u00bb : le calendrier qui la sous-tend, l\u2019origine de ce nom de mauvais augure, et pourquoi elle n\u2019est pas de mauvais augure pour le mariage.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_title":"The Chinese Widow Year: No Spring Is Not an Omen","rank_math_description":"A Chinese widow year is a lunar year with no Start of Spring \u2014 a calendar quirk, not a marriage omen. What it means, why the name, and what debunks it.","rank_math_focus_keyword":"widow year, year without spring, blind year, double spring year, no spring year","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories-source-notes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4946","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=4946"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4949,"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4946\/revisions\/4949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thezodiaclore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}