Lisa Tran. Concubines in Court

In Concubines in Court: Marriage and Monogamy in Twentieth-Century China, Lisa Tran focuses on the history of concubinage to understand the changing perception and practices of marriage in the twentieth century. Tran uses a wide array of sources in her book, including official documents, popular publications, newspaper reports, and legal records containing a collection of judicial interpretations and rulings. She also has done extensive research in many places in China, including rural and urban areas. The wide range of materials and regional data is impressive. One of Tran’s themes in the book is how the early Republican legal perception of concubinage was influenced by imported principles and notions of monogamy and gender equality, and yet at the same time was restrained by the widespread practices of concubinage inherited from the Qing dynasty. Tran starts her narrative by examining the early Republican code. A concubine had an ambiguous status: she had a familial relationship with the master of the household, and yet she was not a legitimate wife. To deal with the contradictions, the Guomindang (GMD) treated concubinage with implicit acceptance as a private matter within a household. Tran discusses in detail the difficulty in reconciling the ideal with the social practice. On the one hand, the GMD could not do much about the fact that concubinage was an important part of the family structure; on the other hand, it wanted to demonstrate its commitment to the modern ideals of monogamy and marriage equality.

Art · China · Genealogy · Ideal (ethics) · Literature · Narrative · Newspaper · Political science · Sociology · Wife · Gender Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies