Hello My Concubine (So-Called Trends)

British newspaper The Independent reported last week that concubines are making a comecuback in China due to the return of capitalism. This is particularly fascinating to me because my great-great-grandmother was a concubine. She was the only "wife" of my great-great-grandfather able to give him a son--my maternal grandmother's father--which was considered the socially-acceptable reason to take on a concubine in those days (as opposed to just keeping them around for sex).

But as I read the Independent piece, "Chinese Concubines Return Thanks To Increasing Capitalism," which cited one corrupt government official after another keeping mistresses and sometimes offering those women kickbacks, I began to wonder what the difference was between a concubine and a mistress. Was it only semantics? Or was there some kind of legal difference?

As it turns out, concubinage has always been differentiated from having a mistress because of its legal status. According to the Reference.com encyclopedia:

Concubines have limited rights of support from the man, and their offspring are publicly acknowledged as the man's children, albeit of lower status than children born by the official wife or wives; these legal rights distinguish a concubine from a mistress.

Since having concubines has been illegal in China since the founding of the Republic in 1912, why are these modern-day Chinese mistresses being called "concubines"? Why is The Independent insisting that China's bringing back this "feudal institution"?

Oh right. Because we're talking about China. Exotic, mysterious, fetish-y, weird, sexually perverse China. Land of half-a-billion sideways vaginas. Got it.

[via HuffPo]

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Comments

[RobinSeattle]

I wrote pretty much the same thing in response to the Independent article and a couple of the commenters said I was wrong. Nice to have my viewpoint backed up. Because what the Independent article described was not concubinage in the classical sense, but just keeping mistresses with cash in the name of extra curricular whoopee. There is no coercion here as with classical concubinage. It's just too bad that some people are too stupid to realize it.

They probably could have used the word "courtesan," if they wanted to employ a less racially loaded term to describe such relationships, but no, they went for the oh so hot image of the Asian concubine to titillate readers.

[lipai]

No, the reason why the Independent is talking about this is because it is about power. There's a fundamental shift in the power structure that's going on in China. Remember, lineage has power, and one must be very conservative when playing with the amount of power the Communist party in China wield. And in lineage, though she may be a concubine, her offspring are viewed as legitimate, which in a reverse way gives the concubine some leverage (how much I don't know). IMHO, during feudal times, this was an effective way of continuing the power structure but at the same time inviting fresh blood. The practice was outlawed because it was so effective and it made the country weak to foreign invaders, the West.

Why this practice is being renewed now is the more fundamental question here. I think this is a mistake on their part. With this much influx of capital coming in, the more natural response would have been solidifying one's position rather than renewing it. Unless something else is going on, and that there's been a significant shift in power. I think we may see an entirely new government in 30 years.

[PPatt]

I thnik you nailed it. Glad to read your post.

We see this all too often these days...some writer needing to find some purchase, some outrage, and a way to cast something in a more provocative way than reality would have it. They have no inclination to provide context if they do even know what that might be.

I have no patience for that. Thanks for shing the light on this.

[DamaskinosWasRight]

HA!