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The Institution of Polygamy in the Chinese Imperial Palace
McMahon, Keith
McMahon, Keith
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Abstract
This study examines Chinese imperial polygamy under two aspects, as institution and
actual practice. Institution refers to its existence as a set of rules and expectations, practice
to the actual ways in which imperial people carried out polygamy as recorded in both historical
and fictional sources. The key to the institutionalization of polygamy had to do
with the idea that a ruler did not engage in polygamy because he wanted to, but
because he had to in order to fulfill his role as Son of Heaven. He was obligated to
extend the patriline and was as if following a hallowed directive. Practice had to do
with what rules and expectations could not control or predict, including how a man justified
his role as polygamist, his polygamous transgressions, and how he dealt with the
main challenge to polygamous harmony, women’s jealousy and rivalry.
Description
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2013. This is the published version of the article, made available with the permission of the publisher. The original published version can be found at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021911813001137
Date
2013
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Cambridge University Press
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McMahon_polygamy.pdf
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Keith McMahon (2013). The Institution of Polygamy in the Chinese
Imperial Palace. The Journal of Asian Studies, 72, pp 917-936.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021911813001137