Women Shall Not Rule
Imperial Wives and Concubines in China from Han to Liao
By (author) Keith McMahon
Not available to order
Publication date:
06 June 2013Length of book:
310 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9781442222908
Chinese emperors guaranteed male successors by taking multiple wives, in some cases hundreds and even thousands. Women Shall Not Rule offers a fascinating history of imperial wives and concubines, especially in light of the greatest challenges to polygamous harmony—rivalry between women and their attempts to engage in politics. Besides ambitious empresses and concubines, these vivid stories of the imperial polygamous family are also populated with prolific emperors, wanton women, libertine men, cunning eunuchs, and bizarre cases of intrigue and scandal among rival wives.
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.
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.
The reader will find here a treasure house of ideology, history, and lore about China’s highest-placed and most visible women, the empresses and concubines of China’s rulers, starting from the earliest times of the civilization. Denied formal access to political power and at times indifferently educated, a few palace women managed, for better or worse, to exert great political force. Every famous empress and consort known to history appears here, along with many others whom the author has rescued from obscurity. The women appear mainly as intimate participants in the rulers’ private lives, but some made their way into the public sphere as well, influencing policy, and, in a few cases, commanding the realm. Useful comparisons are made to royal and imperial households in other cultures. McMahon, an experienced scholar of China’s traditional fiction and gender relations, is especially well qualified to take up this ambitious project, one the China field has long needed.