The Institution of Polygamy in the Chinese Imperial Palace

Keith McMahon will speak on polygamy in the Chinese Imperial Palace at Columbia University as part of their Premodern China Lecture Series.

"The Institution of Polygamy in the Chinese Imperial Palace" examines imperial polygamy from two aspects, as institution and as practice. Institution refers to its existence as a set of rules and expectations. Practice refers to the conduct and behavior of polygamy, the way imperial men and women carried out polygamy whether or not they followed institutionalized prescriptions. The key to the institutionalization of these practices 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 a social being. He was obligated to extend the patriline and in this was as if following a hallowed directive. Practice has to do with what rules and expectations could not control and predict, including how a man justified his role as polygamist and how he expressed or hid the expression of his desire for as many women as possible. The realm of practice also has to do with women’s opposition to polygamy, including in rare cases shadowy forms of polygamy among ruling women, and the dangers posed by competing offspring.