Celestial Women: Imperial Wives and Concubines in China from Song to Qing

by Keith McMahon

Overview

This volume completes Keith McMahon’s acclaimed history of imperial wives and royal polygamy in China. Avoiding the stereotype of the emperor’s plural wives as mere victims or playthings, the book considers empresses and concubines as full-fledged participants in palace life, whether as mothers, wives, or go-betweens in the emperor’s relations with others in the palace. Although restrictions on women’s participation in politics increased dramatically after Empress Wu in the Tang, the author follows the strong and active women, of both high and low rank, who continued to appear. They counseled emperors, ghostwrote for them, oversaw succession when they died, and dominated them when they were weak. They influenced the emperor’s relationships with other women and enhanced their aura and that of the royal house with their acts of artistic and religious patronage. Dynastic history ended in China when the prohibition that women should not rule was defied for the final time by Dowager Cixi, the last great monarch before China’s transformation into a republic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538141434
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	01/27/2020
Pages:	312
Sales rank:	341,920
Product dimensions:	6.09(w) x 8.75(h) x 0.78(d)

About the Author

Keith McMahon is professor of East Asian languages and cultures at the University of Kansas. His books include Women Shall Not Rule: Imperial Wives and Concubines in China from Han to Liao and The Fall of the God of Money: Opium Smoking in Nineteenth-Century China.

Table of Contents

Preface
List of Illustrations

Prologue: After Wu Zetian
Royal Courts, Polygamy, and the Women’s Quarters
The Polyandrous Empress
From the Song to the Qing, the Last One Thousand Years
Women Rulers in Other Parts of Eurasia, Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries

Part 1: The Song, Jin, and Yuan Dynasties, 960–1368
Chapter 1: The Song Dynasty
No Calamitous Women
Trends in Masculinity and Femininity in the Song
The Six Bureaus of the Women’s Service Organization and the Titles of Consorts
The Northern Song, 960–1127
The Legend of Lady Huarui, Who Tried to Poison Taizu
A Different Way of Recording Wives
The Rise of Empress Dowager Liu, Former Entertainer
The Curtained Divide
A Hidden Mother
An Empress Deposed for Fighting with a Consort
An Heir Apparent Who Tried to Run Away and an Empress-regent Who Refused to Step Down
Great Empress Dowager Gao, “a Yao and Shun among Women”
In Twenty Years of Marriage, the Emperor and Empress Never Had a Fight
A Deposed Empress Becomes a Heroine during the Fall of the Northern Song
Emperor Huizong, Prolific Polygamist and Patron of the Arts
Empress Zheng Accompanies the Emperor into Captivity, Gaozong’s Mother Returns
A Celestial Consort and a Courtesan Lover
The Southern Song, 1127–1279
Connoisseurs and Collectors of Art, Empress Wu and Honored Consort Liu
Wearing Clothing for Years at a Time
The Atrocities of Empress Li
An Actress Becomes Empress
Empress Xie Dissuades the Emperor from Moving the Capital
Thirty Women in One Night
Conclusion: The Role of the Empress in the Song
Chapter 2: The Jin and Yuan Dynasties, 1115–1368
The Jin Dynasty, 1115–1234
Hailing, Stealer of Wives
His Stepmother Criticizes His Plan to Conquer the Song
“He Became Poisoned with Lust and Infatuation”
Asking a Woman to Kill Her Husband
How Could Anyone Give Greater Pleasure?
Having Sex to Music
His Male Favorites, a Eunuch and a Storyteller
A Ming Dynasty Story about Hailing and his Wanton Women
She Killed Herself Rather Than Submit
The Heir Apparent Marries a Smart Female Student
An Heir Apparent Whipped by His Mother
A Homily on Womanly Virtue
The Yuan Dynasty, 1271–1368
The Exaltation of Widow Chastity
Female Self-sacrifice
Mothers Promoting Their Sons
Sorghaghtani, Khubilai’s Mother
Chabi and the Wives of Khubilai Khan
Powerful Women in Later Reigns
The Korean Empress Promotes Her Son against His Father
The Yuan Transition

Part 2: The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644
Chapter 3: From Founder to 1505
No Woman Regents
Zhu Yuanzhang, from the Bottom of Society
Zhu’s Ancestral Injunctions
The Ranking and Organization of Ming Palace Women
Eunuchs in the Ming
Empress Ma, Who Wore Much Laundered Clothing
Modifying Ritual Tradition to Mourn a Favorite
Empress Xu’s Household Instructions and Executions in the Inner Palace
Empress Zhang, Unofficial Regent
Deposing His Sonless Empress
The Investiture of Empress Sun
A Makeshift Regency
An Empress Deposed and Re-enthroned
An Interim Empress
A Nursemaid Becomes a Favorite
Concubine Birth Mother versus Sonless Empress
Honored Consort Wan
A Chance Mother and a Secret Son
Discovering His Dead Father’s Sex Manual
Chapter 4: Three Intemperate Rulers, 1506–1572
An Emperor Who Liked to Roam
No More Keeping Track of Visitations
Men Who “Slept and Rose with the Emperor”
Stolen Women and Muslim Dancers
An Emperor Whose Palace Women Tried to Kill Him
The Emperor’s Mother Demands Respect
Deposed Empress Chen’s Jealousy and Miscarriage
The Emperor Reflects on His Libido
Strangled by His Consorts
Recruiting Virgins for Immortality
“Do Not Pursue Desires without End.”
The Debate about How to Mourn His Mother
The Empress Criticizes His Indulgence in Music and Women
Chapter 5: The Last Ming Emperors, 1573–1644
A Stern Mother and a Meddling Consort
“You Were Also Born of a Palace Maid!”
The Empress, the Favorite, and the Mother of the Heir Apparent
“Consort Zheng Takes Good Care of Me”
The Princess’s Husband Suffers a Beating
The Man with a Club
The Emperor and His Eunuchs
A Eunuch and a Wet Nurse
“The Calamity of Wu Zetian Is Again Before Us”
The Eunuch Dictator
Wet Nurse and Lifelong Companion
The Selection of Empress Zhang
Plotting against the Empress
Fictional Stories about Wei Zhongxian
Ordering His Empress to Commit Suicide
The Frugal Last Empress and a Consort Who Redesigned Palace Lamps
The Last Days of the Ming Palace
Conclusion: Giving Reign to Imperial Will

Part 3: The Qing Dynasty, 1644–1911
Chapter 6: The Founding of the Qing, 1636–1722
The Manchu Social System and the Imperial Family
The Banner System, Succession, and Marriage Practices
Ranking and Recruitment of Wives
Bondservants, the Imperial Household Department, and Eunuchs
Two grief-stricken emperors
Hong Taiji Marries the Wives of His Enemy
Bumbutai, Consort-mother and Dowager
The Emperor Grieves for a Consort
Fifty-four Wives, Fifty-six Children, and No Chaos in the Lateral Courts
Advice to His Sons: “Do Not Stand under a Tree When There is Lightening”
Overlapping Favorites and a Preference for Han Women
Giving the Ladies a Fright
Death and Burial
Chapter 7: From Yongzheng to Xianfeng (1722–1861)
Diligent Emperor or Evil Usurper
The Prince Drinks Deer Blood and Begets His Successor
Killed by a Swordswoman, or by “Cinnabar Drugs”
No Female Favorites, But a Male One
A Wife Who Made Him a Flint Pouch
The Empress Who Shaved Her Head
The Turkic Muslim Consort
His Male Favorite
The Last Emperors before the Dowager, 1796–1861
The Jiaqing Emperor’s Wives in Fiction and Television
The Daoguang Emperor Demotes His Consorts
The Husband of the Last Woman Ruler
Chapter 8: Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908)
China’s Last Woman Ruler
Writing about the Empress Dowager
The Dowager and Her Co-rulers
The Emperor’s Incognito Outings
The Death of Empress Jiashun
The Dowager and Her Eunuchs
The Guangxu Emperor, His Empress, and Favorite Concubine
The Mystery of the Pearl Concubine’s Death
Reminiscences of Those Who Served Her
No Shadows on Her Face: the Dowager in Paintings, Photos, and Biographies
The Dowager as Goddess
“The Very Embodiment of the Eternal Feminine”
“May Health Be with You, Imperial Father”
Fiction and Legends about Dowager Cixi
Delivered to the Emperor Naked
Her Intimacy with Eunuchs
Li Lianying, the “Arch Villain”
The Dowager in a 1916 Novel
Conclusion: The Lack of Good Sons
The Neutralization of the Position of Empress
The Lack of Good Sons
Chapter 9: Conclusion to Part 3
Defining the Woman Ruler
Bedding Arrangements for the Emperor
Pretending There Would Be No Woman Ruler

Appendix
Selected Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

McMahon’s work, intertextual in its reading and intertemporal in its scope, makes a significant contribution to the study of palace women’s lives and roles in imperial China.. .. [S]ince history is usually told from perspectives of emperors and their political, economic, and military deeds, it requires special lenses to interpret the accounts about them in order to better comprehend the roles and deeds of these women. McMahon acknowledges such difficulties with veracity, yet he succeeds in providing lively pictures of these women by filtering out reliable information from the sea of historical records, some of them utterly fictional and even scandalous. His felicitous, lucid translation of selected excerpts from biographical texts and literary records, frequently assembled from numerous, not always consistent, sources, provides a real flavour of the sources and a vivid instance of how they can and should be used.. .. Celestial Women is clearly written with an engaging narrative and interlocking arguments, making the reading of this book a real joy. The many issues discussed invite comparative studies on queenship and imperial marriages in other cultures and will definitely appeal to a broad readership.

Royal Studies Journal

Refreshing and intelligent.. .. Tracing the history of imperial women throughout Chinese history, including native Chinese dynasties and steppe conquest dynasties, McMahon is uniquely positioned to explain change and continuity.. .. The thoughtful balance created between marked change and overall structural characteristics of Chinese imperial women is one of the great strengths of this book. Finally, and most audaciously, Celestial Women is an essay in global comparative history. McMahon displays a wide knowledge of polygyny and dynastic women around the world, and shows a probing and open mind.. .. The insights generated through comparison are powerful and illuminating.. .. The comparative endeavor in the introduction and conclusion of Celestial Women substantially strengthens the detailed core sections. It allows the reader to move back and forth between a richly contextualized story about Chinese women and general issues relating to dynastic women across the globe.. .. The combination of this scholarly achievement with the intermediate sections outlining change in every dynasty, and the overall ambitious comparative framework, makes this an exceptional achievement. Celestial Women combines a sovereign grasp of Chinese dynastic history with a sharp eye for global diversity and structural patterns.

Women and Gender in China Nan Nü: Men

McMahon offers us once more a vivid, erudite, and comprehensive depiction of the Chinese sovereigns' seraglio. All the notable narratives and anecdotes from Song to Qing are recorded in this captivating volume.

Damien Chaussende

One of the world’s leading experts in Ming-Qing fiction and gender relations, Keith McMahon is ideally qualified to undertake the study of women in the emperor’s entourage over the two millennia of China’s imperial history.In this masterful two-volume survey, Women Shall Not Rule and Celestial Women, he draws on official histories for the basic facts of who, when, and where, and he also casts a wide net, exploiting informal histories, gossipy memoirs, and the countless fictional narratives that have always done more than official histories to shape public perceptions of women and gender relations in the emperors’ palaces.... McMahon has expertly crafted a narrative that is at once erudite, encyclopedic, and entertaining. He has set the standard for writing about the empresses and consorts of Chinese emperors and has drawn on countless examples in order to build insightful generalizations about patterns, changes, and continuities in gender relations at the top of the Chinese government over two millennia of imperial history. And he has done all this with careful attention to the ways Chinese examples compare with palace women in other cultures, times, and places. This is a most welcome and valuable addition to global scholarship on Chinese history, literature, politics, and gender studies.

China Review International

Celestial Women is the first in-depth study of the intimate lives of emperors, their consorts, and their lovers—both male and female. Based on his erudite command of several hundred primary and secondary sources, McMahon conveys both the details of imperial unions and the significance of these relations for understanding the longue durée of Chinese history. This book is of great interest to China scholars and students as well as global historians.

Harriet Zurndorfer

This is the second volume of McMahon’s meticulous work on the history of imperial wives and royal polygamy in China. (The first was Women Shall Not Rule, 2013). Avoiding the stereotype of imperial wives as victims in royal polygamy, the author focuses on these celestial women’s active participation in palace life after the dethronement of Empress Wu in the Tang dynasty. Although restrictions on women’s participation in politics became severe, McMahon argues that later dynasties still included strong, active women who counseled emperors, ghostwrote for them, and oversaw succession when they died. Dowager Empress Cixi, the last great monarch before Republican China, was an example. Following the dynastic chronology, the book offers detailed accounts from various sources, such as legend, anecdotes, official histories, and miscellanea. It also provides comparative perspectives from monogamous European kings and royal women in Byzantium, Mongol and Timurid Central Asia, and Mughal India.. . .Summing Up:Recommended. General collections; upper-division undergraduates and above.

Choice Reviews

This is the second volume of McMahon’s meticulous work on the history of imperial wives and royal polygamy in China. (The first was Women Shall Not Rule, 2013). Avoiding the stereotype of imperial wives as victims in royal polygamy, the author focuses on these celestial women’s active participation in palace life after the dethronement of Empress Wu in the Tang dynasty. Although restrictions on women’s participation in politics became severe, McMahon argues that later dynasties still included strong, active women who counseled emperors, ghostwrote for them, and oversaw succession when they died. Dowager Empress Cixi, the last great monarch before Republican China, was an example. Following the dynastic chronology, the book offers detailed accounts from various sources, such as legend, anecdotes, official histories, and miscellanea. It also provides comparative perspectives from monogamous European kings and royal women in Byzantium, Mongol and Timurid Central Asia, and Mughal India.. . .Summing Up: Recommended. General collections; upper-division undergraduates and above.

Choice

Refreshing and intelligent.. .. Tracing the history of imperial women throughout Chinese history, including native Chinese dynasties and steppe conquest dynasties, McMahon is uniquely positioned to explain change and continuity.. .. The thoughtful balance created between marked change and overall structural characteristics of Chinese imperial women is one of the great strengths of this book. Finally, and most audaciously, Celestial Women is an essay in global comparative history. McMahon displays a wide knowledge of polygyny and dynastic women around the world, and shows a probing and open mind.. .. The insights generated through comparison are powerful and illuminating.. .. The comparative endeavor in the introduction and conclusion of Celestial Women substantially strengthens the detailed core sections. It allows the reader to move back and forth between a richly contextualized story about Chinese women and general issues relating to dynastic women across the globe.. .. The combination of this scholarly achievement with the intermediate sections outlining change in every dynasty, and the overall ambitious comparative framework, makes this an exceptional achievement. Celestial Women combines a sovereign grasp of Chinese dynastic history with a sharp eye for global diversity and structural patterns.

Women and Gender in China Nan Nü: Men

This is the second volume of McMahon’s meticulous work on the history of imperial wives and royal polygamy in China. (The first was Women Shall Not Rule, 2013). Avoiding the stereotype of imperial wives as victims in royal polygamy, the author focuses on these celestial women’s active participation in palace life after the dethronement of Empress Wu in the Tang dynasty. Although restrictions on women’s participation in politics became severe, McMahon argues that later dynasties still included strong, active women who counseled emperors, ghostwrote for them, and oversaw succession when they died. Dowager Empress Cixi, the last great monarch before Republican China, was an example. Following the dynastic chronology, the book offers detailed accounts from various sources, such as legend, anecdotes, official histories, and miscellanea. It also provides comparative perspectives from monogamous European kings and royal women in Byzantium, Mongol and Timurid Central Asia, and Mughal India.. . .Summing Up: Recommended. General collections; upper-division undergraduates and above.

CHOICE