Concubinage And Family Life In The Qing Dynasty

This paper aims to find out the social roots of concubinage, a long-standing custom in ancient China, and analyzes the laws and features of the phenomenon. Based on research methods in sociology and philology, the author combs genealogies, county annals, historical records and scholarly works of the Qing Dynasty and tries to depict a clear picture of concubinage at that time.In the Qing Dynasty, traditional mindsets, full-fledged agricultural society and social life all contributed to the prevalence of concubinage. It, apart from increasing household workforce, was regarded as a means to carry on the family line and increase one's say in the clan. Files of the Qing Dynasty show that concubinage could also suggest wealth of clans given its large expenditure.The prevailing concubinage in the late dynasty exerted comprehensive influences on the then family life, like expediting the asset distribution and land division among the wealthy. The peasant economy, though not created by concubinage, was encouraged accordingly.The popular phenomenon also had profound implications for the concepts of marriage and family of the time. The occurences of pawning wives, drowning female infants and human trafficking were simply common as a result, giving rise to serious social problems.