Women Shall Not Rule: Imperial Wives and Concubines in China from Han to Liao
310
Women Shall Not Rule: Imperial Wives and Concubines in China from Han to Liao
310eBook
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Overview
Keith McMahon, a leading expert on the history of gender in China, draws upon decades of research to describe the values and ideals of imperial polygamy and the ways in which it worked and did not work in real life. His rich sources are both historical and fictional, including poetic accounts and sensational stories told in pornographic detail. Displaying rare historical breadth, his lively and fascinating study will be invaluable as a comprehensive and authoritative resource for all readers interested in the domestic life of royal palaces across the world.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781442222908 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 06/06/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 310 |
| Sales rank: | 876,312 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
WOMEN SHALL NOT RULE
Imperial Wives and Concubines in China from Han to Liao
By Keith McMahon
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Copyright © 2013 Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4422-2289-2
CHAPTER 1
THE INSTITUTION AND VALUES OF ROYAL POLYGAMY
ONLY MEN SHOULD RULE AND ONLY MEN SHOULD BE POLYGAMISTS
Two closely related norms in Chinese history were that only men should rule and only men should be polygamists. These were the norms of the institution of imperial rulership, which included the institution of polygamous marriage. The institution and values of royal polygamy were established in ancient times, beginning with foundational principles in three key areas: love and favoritism, women and state politics, and the strict division between main wife and concubines. These emerged in mythical models of early polygamy and the first historical records of its rules and practices. The early records include definitions of queenly virtue; principles of sexual order, ritual, and protocol; and an ancient art of sex. This series of foundational principles and fundamental features, which are the subject of this chapter, emerges from the earliest archaeological and written sources, including the main Confucian canons that influenced all later history. The final topic of this chapter will be eunuchs, the castrated men who acted as personal servants of the royal family. Their existence was integral to the institution of royal polygamy, ending at the same time imperial rulership ended, in the early twentieth century.
Institutions involve rules, ideals, and expectations. They describe social and customary practices that people follow and believe in, they have laws and prescriptions, and they bestow status and privilege. They governed life in the imperial palace until the very last breath of dynastic history in the early twentieth century. However, institutions only partly predict the reality of actual practice and behavior, the ways people carry out rules and expectations. The next chapter will begin the history of the actual behavior of rulers and their wives and concubines as told in ancient documents from the Han dynasty forward. Actual behavior has to do with how people conducted themselves, whether or not they followed institutional prescriptions. For example, the main institutional justification for polygamy was to ensure male offspring, who were essential for passing on the throne. But Chinese rulers also took concubines regardless of the need for sons and favored concubines more than their empresses. Actual behavior produced fascinating stories and character types, such as the wanton woman, the jealous empress, and the profligate emperor. Empress Wu was the most powerful woman in Chinese history and was at times "wanton" and "jealous," but she also ruled effectively and responsibly for several decades. Some profligate emperors led a life of polygamous mayhem, like Emperor Hailing (1122–1161) of the Jin dynasty, who liked to steal other men's wives and used to have sex to music while others watched. Other rulers became fixed on a single woman and generated love stories that became famous for centuries, such as Tang-dynasty emperor Xuanzong (685–762) and his consort Yang Guifei (719–756), whose affair was disrupted by a coup that nearly destroyed the dynasty. Many emperors, on the other hand, took dozens of consorts and had dozens of children but never ruined themselves or the empire. In whatever situation, in spite of the norm that only men should rule and only men should be polygamous, women nevertheless exerted influence, occasionally challenged the norms, and in a few cases changed them. Even if men violated the rules, they were still subject to constraints and could only go so far. Profligate rulers might be deposed or assassinated. Others found themselves constrained by their grandmothers, mothers, wives, and officials. Witness the famous statement by the sixth-century Sui emperor who impregnated one of his concubines. He and his empress had once sworn to have children by no other woman but the empress. When the empress had the pregnant consort killed, the emperor fled the palace in rage and, when reached by his pursuing attendants, heaved a deep sigh and said, "Here I am an emperor, yet I cannot do as I please."
Polygamy and Female Rulers in China and Other Cultures
Before proceeding, let us look at Chinese imperial marriage in a worldwide context. To begin with, some form of polygamy was the rule rather than the exception in royal courts throughout the world, including China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Siam, Laos, Java, Arabia, Persia, Mongol Central Asia, Mughal India, Ottoman Turkey, Nigeria, the Mayan and Aztec regimes, ancient Ireland and Iceland, and ancient biblical kingdoms, among others. In general polygamy was institutionally regulated; the profligate ruler who staged orgies in his harem was relatively rare, although widely known about. Where there was Christianity, there was monogamy, thus Europe and Byzantium. But even in the Christian realms, male rulers had mistresses, what could be called polygamous mating. Louis XIV (reigned 1643–1715) was open about his main mistress Madame de Montespan (1641–1707), but secretive about others. Russia's Ivan IV (reigned 1533–1584) was like England's Henry VIII (reigned 1509–1547) in that when he tired of one woman, he did away with her and married the next. Ivan forced unwanted wives to become nuns (who continued nevertheless to maintain ties with the court), while Henry annulled his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, had Anne Boleyn beheaded, annulled his marriage with Anne of Cleves, and had Catherine Howard beheaded. The French kings were Catholic and could not divorce their queens, but the women of their courts nevertheless coveted the position of king's mistress, which bestowed privilege and wealth. The bastard children were raised in secrecy. Bastard sons were sometimes given important positions.
Polygamy was an affirmation of male potency. The presence of many women connoted fruitfulness and fertility. Many polygamous societies had the custom of segregating the ruler's women in special quarters, thus the Arabic loan word harem, often used in modern times to refer to the women's quarters of polygamous rulers all over the world. Harem comes from an Arabic root referring to the forbidden, the sacred, the taboo, and the inviolable (in actual practice, harem referred not just to the women's forbidden quarters but to any sanctuary or sacred place that was forbidden to common outsiders). Not all courts, including the Mayan and Aztec regimes and European courts, practiced such strict segregation. Even within Islamic culture, Muslim women in Mughal India were more prominent in politics, diplomacy, trade, and other activities than their counterparts in the Persian, Arabic, and the Ottoman-Turkish worlds. So were the wives of Mongol and other Inner Asian peoples, from whom the Mughals were descended.
As for female monarchs, they were relatively rare in world history, so the rule in China against female rulers was not unusual. No matter which culture or known historical period, the usual assumption was that women and political power were not a good mix. The female rulers we generally know about were exceptional, such as Cleopatra in Egypt (69–30 BCE), Queen Seondeok of Korea (606–647), Empress Wu in China, Empress Irene in Byzantium (ca. 752–803), Razia al-Din (1205–1240, also known as Raziyya Sultan) in India, Queen Margaret of Norway (1363–1414), Queen Elizabeth in England (1533–1603), Catherine the Great in Russia (1729–1796), or Empress Dowager Cixi in China (1835–1908), to name a few. Except for Margaret and Cixi, these women ruled in their own right as supreme monarchs. Otherwise women ruled in the more commonly seen capacity of regents, as with Margaret and Cixi, who were temporarily in charge of governments when their husband-rulers were indisposed or died and their sons were too young to rule. There were many such women in China. In France and other European realms, the Salic law of the fourteenth century prohibited women from succeeding to the throne. Britain did not follow that rule, however, and allowed queens regnant. The Ottoman Empire permitted female regents and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had several in a row, all appearing after the reign of one of their greatest rulers, Suleyman the Magnificent (1494–1566). But whether or not they served as regents, imperial women participated in government in many courts throughout the world, whether they took authority or were delegated it. In 1513, Henry VIII went on a military campaign in France and left Catherine of Aragon as queen governor of England. In the Mughal Empire of India, Akbar the Great (reigned 1556–1605) left his mother in charge of Delhi while he went on a military campaign; his half sister governed Kabul Province. The next ruler, Jahangir (reigned 1605–1627), granted exceptional power to his wife, Nur Jahan (1577–1645). Under the Mughals and other Turko-Mongolian regimes of Central Asia, including the Khitan Liao of China, women regularly participated in political decision making and could lead armies in battle. The Mongol queen Manduhai (also called Mandukhai, born 1448) ruled on behalf of her much younger husband and Great Khan, Batmunkh; led troops in battle, once even while pregnant; and united the Mongols during the late 1400s.
One thing was common among female rulers: the tendency of others to slander them, especially by accusing them of sexual crimes. People accused Empress Wu of sexual affairs with younger men whom she brought into her court and lavishly and openly favored. In France, Eleanor of Aquitaine (1124–1204) was said to have had an affair with an uncle while accompanying her husband on the Second Crusade. Later writers accused her of an affair with a Muslim prince. In the Delhi Sultanate, Razia al-Din fell after being accused of having a love affair with a slave. In Russia, Catherine the Great was said to have liked sex with horses and to have died when one fell on her while being lowered to her in a hoist. Marie Antoinette (1755–1793) was accused of molesting her eight-year-old son. Scandal literature had it that Empress Dowager Cixi ordered young men brought to her for sex, then had them murdered.
Some of the accusations had basis. Empress Wu appears to have had affairs with a monk and a physician and had a coterie of handsome young men in her old age. Catherine the Great had affairs with numerous men and had children by several of them, but the story about sex with horses was pure exaggeration. The stories about Eleanor of Aquitaine, Razia al-Din, Marie Antoinette, and Empress Dowager Cixi are probably all false. Scandalmongers also accused men of sexual crimes but, because of the bias against female rulers, let their imaginations run particularly wild with women. Female rulers were considered unnatural, they were wicked and incorrigible, and they represented an eclipse of male power. Although women ruled often and effectively, in general they were not given the chance to establish precedents for female rulership that continued beyond their reigns.
Another great variable across the world had to do with the presence of eunuchs, which I will address separately below. Eunuchs were castrated men who were present in all the royal courts mentioned above except Japan, Siam, the Mayan and Aztec Empires, and Europe. They lived mainly in polygamous regimes but also in the monogamous courts of Byzantium. Like palace women, their roles were both symbolic and real. The presence of eunuchs signified importance and grandeur; a person was privileged to have them. They also played vital roles as servants and intermediaries who could cross the boundaries between royal and common, sacred and mundane, and sequestered inside and public outside. They loyally served their masters and mistresses, who controlled their destiny but whom they could influence because of their special proximity. Sometimes they held high positions and exerted tremendous power, even to the extent of selecting imperial successors. Monarchy is extinct in China today, as are eunuchs. Polygamy is outlawed, though newer forms of it have appeared in China in recent years, especially among wealthy men. Women in high positions in government are still rare, although less so in the Republic of China in Taiwan.
The Emperor Should Not Fall in Love
Where did love fit into the scene of imperial polygamy, if it fit at all? What happened if a ruler became infatuated with a woman or engrossed in sex with his harem? Stories from earliest recorded history tell of such rulers, such as Jie [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], the last ruler of the Xia [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] dynasty (seventeenth century BCE), who "doted" on a pair of sisters called the Two Jades. His obsession with them and other acts of misrule led to his downfall and replacement by the Shang dynasty. In general, although the ruler had multiple wives, his family and advisors hoped that he respected them all, especially his main wife, but that he did not fall in love with a particular one of them. Love and infatuation blinded the ruler, led him to make unwise decisions, and intensified the already existing rivalry between women. Likewise, his family and advisors did not want him to have sex with anyone he pleased. They warned him by citing stories like the one about Jie. Sexual excess was a sign of one of the worst types of behavior a ruler could engage in.
A small piece of the story of every Chinese ruler told about his marital and family life, focusing on the lives of his wives and concubines, called empresses (hou [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) and consorts (fei [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). All of these women lived in a special part of the palace, referred to by names such as the rear palace (hougong [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), the six palaces (liugong [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), and the lateral courts (yeting [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). These buildings held the greatest concentration of educated women in all of China. Well-educated women, it was thought, led to the good training of imperial offspring and would help guard against sexual and other types of excess in the palace. A standard biography for an empress or consort told of her family origin, her date of entry into the palace, her character, her deeds, and the number of her children, if she had any, finishing with her date of death and the posthumous honors that she received. If there were love stories and sexual affairs between the woman and the emperor (or others), the official histories would include them mainly to warn about the dangers of such behavior. Some of the more spectacular love stories of the palace fascinated people for centuries and have inspired poetry, plays, novels, and movies. The same went for stories of sexual profligacy, which inspired pornographic literature that began to appear as early as the Song (960–1279) and was especially prominent in the Ming (1368–1644).
Let us make a giant leap to contemporary America. When Bill Clinton had his affair with Monica Lewinsky, he was doing something he could not resist. He was nevertheless foolish to think the affair could be kept secret. Lewinsky could not resist telling someone else. The resulting scandal lasted for months as the public and members of Congress carried out a thorough and embarrassing investigation. In ancient China, Lewinsky would have been a palace woman, maybe a consort-concubine or a maid, and Clinton could have even had a baby by her. Scandal and disaster would have occurred if, for example, his main wife, the empress, decided to murder the woman and the baby, or if the woman managed to gain such favor with the emperor that she destroyed the main wife. But the outcome could also be positive. The baby boy born of the palace woman could become the next emperor, as happened with the fifteenth-century Ming ruler (the Chenghua [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] emperor) whose successor was born of his chance encounter with a female scribe working for the palace. She was never designated a consort, but the emperor secretly had sex with her; and the son she had eventually became emperor. By that time, it is true, she had long since been murdered by the father's childhood nursemaid and former lover. In general, it was dangerous to be the emperor's secret partner or her male offspring, but in this case the son's existence was kept secret until it was too late for anyone to destroy him.
"Hens Should Not Announce the Dawn"
How was the wariness about women rulers expressed? An ancient dictum that stood for centuries as a warning against women holding political power was "Hens should not announce the dawn" (pin ji wu chen [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], from a document that appeared sometime between the sixth and third centuries BCE). If women ruled, they were considered meddlers in politics. They were a sign of male weakness and decline. Heaven abhorred them because rule by women was unnatural. The woman's duty was to never concern herself with anything but the domestic matters of the imperial family. The preference was for quiet and supportive women, especially empresses, who maintained harmony among palace women and helped guard against jealousy.
In spite of these views, the rule against female leadership was not thorough, and women were far from speechless and powerless. Their simple presence in the palace and the fact of their giving birth to children made their involvement in political decisions inevitable, especially regarding the selection of an heir apparent. Some women tried to stay out of politics even when they were given the opportunity to participate. Others asserted themselves anyway, whether to manipulate the relationships between the ruler, his wives, and his sons or to enter the politics of the man's world. Women became powerful mainly when men were unqualified to rule, for example, because they were too young, or were ill and incapacitated, or because a male ruler so loved and feared a wife or concubine that he allowed her and her family to influence politics. It also happened that a wife was simply more competent than her husband. Some of the competent women were respected. Some were condemned, even though they succeeded in exercising power strongly and effectively.
(Continues...)
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Table of Contents
Prologue: Sexual Politics and State PoliticsPart I: Early China, 1250 BCE–317 CE
Chapter 1: The Institution and Values of Royal Polygamy
Chapter 2: Empresses and Consorts of the Former Han, 206 BCE–25 CE
Chapter 3: The Later Han to the End of the Western Jin, 25–317
Part II: The Eastern Jin to the Reign of Wu Zetian, 317–712
Chapter 4: The Period of Disunity, 317–589
Chapter 5: The Sui and Early Tang Dynasties to Empress Wu, 581–705
Part III: The High Tang to the Liao, 712–1125
Chapter 6: The Tang from Xuanzong to Its Fall, 712–907
Chapter 7: The Five Dynasties, Ten Kingdoms, and the Liao, 907–1125
Selected Bibliography