Two
Imperial Marriage in the Native Chinese and Non-Han State, Han to Ming
Jennifer Holmgren
For about half its recorded history, China has been ruled either in part or wholly by peoples of non-Chinese (non-Han) origin. Indeed, in the last thousand years only two of six imperial families were of local or native Chinese background. The others came from the steppe/Manchurian area to the north of China proper (see the Chronology). One aspect of the cultural interaction during such periods of conquest has long fascinated both Chinese and Western scholars—namely, the influence of those northern cultures on Chinese attitudes toward women. It is often suggested, for example, that the high political profile of imperial wives and princesses during the early T'ang period (seventh-eighth centuries) was the result of the relatively high status of women in steppe society and their consequent involvement in court politics during the preceding conquest era. In a similar vein, the well-documented concern of the founder of the Ming dynasty to restrict the power of imperial wives in the fourteenth century has been seen as a reaction against the authority assumed by such women in the preceding Mongol-Yuan era. Although firmly entrenched in both the scholarly and the popular imagination, this hypothesis has never been seriously tested; it is based on accounts of curious lives and extraordinary events rather than on an examination of the principles behind continuity and change. This chapter seeks to redress that situation by looking at the structure underlying attitudes to imperial marriage and the political role of the emperor's wife in the native Chinese and non-Han state.
The first section of the chapter begins by establishing the principles behind events commonly encountered in the historical narrative of the native state from Han times through to the end of the Ming dynasty (206 B. C .-A. D .). 1644). For our purposes, the most illustrative events include disputes between the emperor and the bureaucracy over the appointment of an empress;
accusations that imperial relatives were conspiring to usurp the throne; dethronements by dowager empresses; complaints about the conduct of imperial princesses; harem disputes leading to the murder of imperial wives and their offspring; and so forth. These "structural principles" are then used to evaluate the changes within and across individual native regimes. I shall show that some conditions previously thought to be unique to one particular period (and thus probably the result of foreign influence or externally derived ideas) are easily explained without reference to the non-Han state.
The second section of the chapter demonstrates the variety and political ingenuity of marriage systems designed by the leaders of the conquest dynasties. For reasons that shall become apparent, each non-Han regime is discussed separately. Three states, whose histories span both sides of the T'ang-Sung transition era—the T'o-pa state of Wei (A. D . 399-534), the Ch'i-tan (Khitan) Liao dynasty (A. D . 916-1122), and the Mongol empire (c. A. D . 1200-1368)—have been selected for investigation. The final section discusses how an analysis of the non-Han condition throws new light on the question of continuity and change in Chinese society and then summarizes the political status of different sets of imperial kin in each of the systems described
In this essay three main categories of the emperor's kin are distinguished—paternal, maternal, and sororal. The term "paternal kin" covers male and female relatives in the male line (e.g., the emperor's father's siblings, his father's brothers' offspring, his own siblings, his brother's offspring, etc.), while that of "maternal kin" (matrilateral kin) embraces relationships established through the mother (e.g., the emperor's mother's parents and her siblings and their offspring). The term "sororal relative" covers relationships established through the marriages of princesses (the emperor's paternal aunts [FZ], sisters, and daughters); i.e., it refers to the offspring of these women, their husbands, husbands' parents, and siblings (wife-taking families).
This chapter outlines the social and political inequalities between the different sets of women whose marriages provided the essential building blocks for political activity at court and highlights some unexpected features of the unequal relations between these women and the various males (including the emperor) with whom they were closely associated. Where non-Han states are concerned, the chapter also touches on the question of marriage and ethnic inequality. The theme of inequality between imperial clans-women and their spouses is addressed more broadly by John W. Chaffee in his chapter on the Sung, while that of marriage and ethnic inequality is taken up again by Evelyn S. Rawski in her chapter on the Ch'ing.
The Native Chinese State
In general, laws and regulations relating to marriage in the larger society also prevailed at the imperial level of the native Chinese state. Some were already in place in preimperial times (see Thatcher's chapter in this volume) and may be summarized as follows: (1) surname exogamy (TL 14:262-63; SHT 14:218-19; ML 6:16; Feng 1948:33-46); (2) serial monogamy with concubinage (TL 13:255; SHT 13:214; TML 13:275; Ch'ü 1972:46); (3) the wife as titular or legal mother to all offspring (Tjan 1949:260; Watsons chapter in this volume); (4) a ban on demoting wives to the rank of concubine and on elevating concubines to the status of wife (SHT 13:214-15; ML 6:9-10; TML 13:275-76; Ebrey 1986); and (5) a ban on cross-generational alliance (TL 14:263; SHT 14:218-19; TML 14:287; Ch'ü 1961:94-95). At the imperial level, the emphasis on monogamy meant that the title of empress went to the woman who had held the position of wife before her husband's accession to the throne. It also meant that there could be only one empress at any one time (Chung 1981:147) and that she was the titular mother of the next ruler whether or not she herself was his biological mother. The rule of surname exogamy meant that no matter how distant the relationship, members of the ruling family could not marry imperial clansmen but had to marry out and downward. Finally, although cousins of a different surname might marry (MBD/FZD), unions between heirs to the throne and their aunts (MZ/FZ) or nieces (FDD/MDD) were forbidden (see n. 3). These restrictions were but one of many conditions preventing individual families from gaining an exclusive permanent hold on marriage relations with the throne.[1]
There were other, more general customs and practices that conditioned marriage both in the larger society and at the imperial level. For example, married women continued ties to their natal kin (Ebrey 1981; the chapters by Thatcher and Watson in this volume); in the event of minority rule, widows managed their husbands' estates on behalf of a successor (Ch'ü 1961:104; Shiga 1978:120; Holmgren 1985:7,16); and widows maintained rights in heir and spouse selection (Ch'ü 1961:30-31, 104; Waltner 1981:142; Ebrey 1984a:234-37). Widows also demanded total obedience from the father's sons (Ch'ü 1961:120-2l; Ch'ü 1972:53). In its broader form, filial piety—obedience to parents, with the wife subordinate to the husband (see Mann's chapter in this volume)—underpinned the entire moral-political order from the highest levels of society down to the village.
Although members of the ruling family had to marry down in the native Chinese state, care was taken that alliances were contracted with families from the highest stratum of the elite. The intention was not so much to conform to any ideal of class endogamy but rather to control powerful interest groups. The usual pattern was for early supporters of the founder, often
military leaders, to be given preference in marriage relations until such time as they had ceased to be actively involved in the critical functions of government. There was thus a strong pull toward repetitive intermarriage with the same set of families. But the marriage circle always remained open, tending to evolve according to shifts in the ruling elite.[2]
Where members of the ruling family were concerned, senior officials of the outer court (chosen, in theory, according to merit) acted as guardians of the moral-political order (see Fang 1952:106-7; 1965:384; Fitzgerald 1968:27-28; Chung 1981:47, 62-63). This is not to say that strong-minded rulers and those who controlled the throne, including senior bureaucrats, did not try to manipulate custom and law when it suited their purpose.[3] Indeed, as a group, senior officials often openly agreed to bend or break some rules in order to square conditions with other, more important considerations. They would not usually object, for example, to an emperor's wish to promote his favorite concubine to the rank of empress if that position were vacant and if the concubine were the mother of the eldest son (see Chung 1981:47, 49). As we shall see, the practical need to override the established rule that a concubine should not be elevated to the status of wife derived from the particular form of succession that operated at the imperial level.
Rather than partible inheritance among all sons regardless of the mothers' status—the normal and preferred option among the scholar-elite and peasantry (Schurmann 1955-56:511-12; Shiga 1978:135, 141-43)—only one person could succeed to the throne. That person was the eldest son born of the empress (Tao 1978:173-75; Chang 1966:5-6).[4] If she produced no son, the eldest, regardless of his mother's position, was usually selected as heir, with the empress/wife acting as titular mother (also discussed by Thatcher in this volume). The heir (and his eldest son) resided in the palace beside his parents. All other sons were given fiefs at some distance from the locus of power. Although well provided for, they spent their lives in political obscurity. Direct access even to the wealth of the fief was denied, centralized bureaucratic control over its management being absolute. In sum, a distinction was drawn between male offspring on the basis of seniority and the status of the mother, with inheritance portions for younger sons being limited to a share of the tax revenue. Such was the case in the mature systems of all major Chinese regimes.[5]
Because younger sons of the emperor were without political, military, or fiscal authority, the only kinship bonds that could be effectively used by the throne for political purposes were its ties to wife-givers and wife-takers. The marriages of women—both the bestowal of the ruler's aunts (FZ), sisters, and daughters on families outside the palace and the entry of women into the imperial harem—therefore took on unparalleled political importance, with the ruler's maternal relatives becoming at once his chief means of support
and a most dangerous threat to his independence. The section below outlines the main features of the relations between the emperor, his mother, and his wife.
Whenever the throne was vacant or the emperor too young, ill, or feeble-minded to govern in his own right, the wife in the oldest surviving generation (empress, empress dowager, or grand empress dowager—hereafter referred to as the "widow" or "senior widow") acted as regent for state affairs (Chao 1937:155-58; Yang 1968:50-51; Bernard 1972:65-75). When the main line failed, the widow selected an heir from among her husband's collateral kin (de Crespigny 1975:5). She also had powers of spouse selection and dethronement. Even when she was little more than a child, with de facto power in the hands of senior members of the bureaucracy who were her natal relatives (as happened in the case of the fifteen-year-old empress dowager, née Huo, of Former Han [Tao 1978:179]), the legal power of dethronement still lay with her (Wallacker 1987). In all this, the empire was treated as family property, the chief difference being that the widow worked in concert, not with her husband's collateral kin, but with senior members of the bureaucracy who were either unrelated to the throne or were its wifely or maternal kin.
Whereas the role of the widow accorded with basic Chinese principles of family management and the all-important code of filial piety and was considerably strengthened by the political restrictions imposed on male agnates, filial piety and the idea of a female regent were at odds with the concept of sovereign power of the emperor (see Ch'ü 1972:59). The compromise was an uneasy one, for it involved voluntary withdrawal by the widow, keeping her powers of heir selection and dethronement in reserve for times of emergency. In practice, the widow usually withdrew from court in the formal way demanded by the bureaucracy but continued to maintain her hand in government affairs through (1) her psychological advantage as the emperor's mother or grandmother; (2) controlling the marriage process; and (3) placing her male kin in key civilian and military posts. These strategies were first put into place in imperial times by the empress dowager, née Lü (d. 180 B.C .), of the Former Han (Ward-Czynska 1978:2-6) and from there became the standard means by which ambitious mothers, wives, and favorite concubines tried to perpetuate their influence. In these cases, MBD/FMBSD alliances for heirs to the throne (figure 2.1) aimed to avoid a clash with incoming women, while the placement of relatives in strategic administrative posts ensured control over information reaching the throne.
In the native Chinese state it was thus common 'to find relatives of the senior widow controlling communication between the emperor and the outer court. No consort family managed, however, to maintain its political dominance for more than two or, at the most, three generations of rule. One difficulty lay in the legal restrictions imposed on intermarriage with close kin, and another in the role played by senior members of the bureaucuracy as
Fig. 2.1.
Marriage with MBD/FMBSD in the Chinese state
guardians of the moral-political order, which led to their consequent interest and participation in the spouse-selection process (see Fitzgerald 1968:27-28; Chung 1981:62-63). Senior ministers jealously guarded their right to independent access to the throne and, through that, their right to join the imperial marriage circle. There were thus no customs or laws limiting the choice of wife to women from one particular family or group of families. This meant, however, that the system suffered from chronic tension between the throne, consort families, and the larger bureaucratic elite.
Another factor that prevented the development of a closed marriage circle lay in the custom whereby the wife could not control the marriage process until after the death of her husband.[6] Consequently, she often controlled only the marriage of a grandson and was thus constantly at odds with her son's wife chosen either by her husband or by his mother or grandmother. In this way, conflict between successive generations of imperial wives became a recurrent theme in the history of the native state. In the outer court, the conflict was represented by alliances between relatives and supporters of the ruler's grandmother and wife against the family of his mother.[7] From the emperor's point of view, his mother's family was useful in combatting either the combined influence of his grandmother and wife or that of the bureaucrat-
ic elite in general whenever it obstructed his purpose. Thus, when the emperor was in control, he often gave his mother's relatives the choice posts for high office.[8] In this way, the top echelons of the bureaucracy were rarely free from domination by consort kin, yet the position of any one family was highly unstable, with the death of an influential widow often heralding a violent shake-up of the administration.
Having lived long enough to reach the status of senior widow able to control the marriage of her grandson, a woman found that any alliance with her family arranged for the heir was marred by the incoming spouse, who came with a set of ready-made female relatives (namely, a mother and grandmother) whose loyalties often lay with their natal kin. Thus, the senior widow always faced competition from relatives of incoming wives (see figure 2.1), and the throne might ally itself with any one of these families against that of the widow. But perhaps the most serious problem faced by imperial wives and their relatives lay in biology: the empress was often not the biological mother of the incoming ruler. Infertility and high infant mortality certainly were factors,[9] but the emperor's deliberate sexual avoidance of the empress also played a role (see de Crespigny 1975:29). The dislike felt by many an emperor for his wife is easily explained: the woman was imposed on him when he was little more than a child. His favorite, then, was usually a concubine or palace attendant, and these women, rather than the wife, tended to conceive heirs to the throne.[10] The emperor's dislike of his empress intensified when she was a close relative of an overly dominant senior widow. She was then seen to be an enemy or spy and indeed often acted as such (ibid., 8; Chung 1981:62, 75-76).
Such marriage dynamics explain many incidents related in the historical accounts of the Chinese court. They also explain the great variety of adoption and informal support strategies used by unrelated females in the harem and palace service sector—for example, the protection an empress or influential wet nurse gave to a young attendant, slave, or orphaned child. Here, the older woman hoped the young protegée might become the prince's favorite and keep rivals away from the throne. Such strategies were most effective when they cut across social barriers in the outer society and status hierarchies within the palace. Only in this way could the older, more senior woman be fairly sure of maintaining her authority over the younger woman in the harem (see PCS 9:128; Fitzgerald 1968:18-20; Chung 1981:60; MS 113: 3514).
Like wives in the larger society, an empress could be divorced for barrenness (see Tai 1978), and many a ruler tried to use this law to rid himself of his wife following the death of the senior widow (see Ward-Czynska 1978:14-17; Chung 1981:28, 47; MS 113:3513). Yet from the middle of the Former Han when wives came mostly from powerful lineages with secure footholds in the upper echelons of the administration (see Ward-Czynska 1978), members of
the bureaucracy became increasingly adamant that the empress should not be cast aside simply to make way for a current favorite. In fact, T'ang and Sung law expressly forbad divorce on the ground of barrenness (Tai 1978:86-87). Against this, the bureaucracy had to weigh the cost of infighting between the biological concubine-mother and the titular mother (and regent) when both women survived into the next generation. Then, a clash of wills was inevitable. The Chinese solution to this problem was to prevent wherever possible the separation of the wife's political functions from her biological one of producing an heir to the throne. To this end, officials invariably agreed to elevate a favorite concubine who had produced the eldest son to the rank of empress if and when the current empress died or was divorced. The possibility of such promotions, however, encouraged rulers and favorite concubines, and sometimes mothers and maternal relatives, to engineer the death or disgrace of the empress, a problem also recorded for preimperial times (see Thatcher's chapter in this volume).
Given the frequency with which concubines' sons came to the throne (see n. 10), a ruler might well be surrounded by, not two, but up to four distinct sets of competing relatives centered around his biological and titular mothers (dowager empresses) and his biological and titular grandmothers (grand dowager empresses), some or all of which might be competing with the family of his wife (the empress). This competition, it should be noted, was important in preventing usurpation of the throne by consort families. Wang Mang (r. A.D . 9-23), whose case provides one of the few examples of successful usurpation, had to remove three other consort families from power before he could properly begin to engineer his coup d'état (Dubs 1955:44-49; Loewe 1974:286-306; Ward-Czynska 1978:41-47, 56-61). In contrast to Wang Mang, most imperial relatives confined themselves to the more realistic goal of domination. Even so, the lack of support from male agnates and the permanent tension among consort families, the throne, and members of the bureaucratic elite meant that fear of maternal kin was a major destabilizing factor in the history of the native state.
We have seen that an imperial wife held an unstable position in the early years of her career, when she relied in large part on the senior widow and members of the bureaucratic elite (including her own kin) for protection. With her husband's death, however, she might become head of the ruling house and on many occasions de facto ruler of the empire. Here, the widow not only assumed leadership of the ruling house but also (and quite logically) the de facto headship of her natal lineage (see Ch'ü 1972:58-59). Her influence was most widely felt when the emperor was her biological son or grandson and when he was young, weak-willed, or uninterested in government affairs. Thus, she invariably chose an infant or child rather than an adult when in a position to exercise her authority in choosing an heir (see HHS 10A:423). But the accession of a series of young and ineffectual rulers,
as occurred during the Later Hah (see Ch'ü 1972:215-16), did little for the morale of the administration because direct access to the throne was effectively blocked for all but the woman's family and supporters. For this reason, the death of an influential senior widow often heralded a violent fall in status for her family, sometimes bringing in its wake the death or disgrace of the empress and/or the wife of the heir-apparent.
In contrast to relatives of the emperor's mother and wife (wife-givers), the husbands and offspring of his sisters and daughters (sororal, or wife-taking, kin) were in a weak position when it came to succession politics. Sisters and sisters' sons were ineligible for the throne, and sororal kin were excluded from regency powers both by custom and by jealous wifely/maternal kin. In this way, however, the marriages of imperial sisters and daughters provided the throne with a way of establishing nonthreatening relations with influential members of the bureaucratic elite.[11]
As with incoming women, sororal ties were established by emphasizing customs and laws found in the wider society—property shares for daughters in the form of dowry (see Ch'ü 1972:273 n. 107, 283; Tai 1978:105-6; Ebrey 1981; Holmgren 1985) and educational and economic strategies centered on the mother (see Waltner 1981:144-52; Walton 1984:44-49). In addition, sororal ties benefited from the law of inheritance, that is, ranks and titles conferred on a woman without reference to her husband or son were to be treated as if granted to a man (TL 2:38; Johnson 1979:100-101). In the case of the princess, this condition was achieved by dispensing with the general law that made married women liable for punishments meted out to members of the husband's lineage (TCTC 76:2425). The princess's exemption from this law (see Ch'ü 1972:57; HTS 83:3647, 3650, 3653) meant that her status in no way depended on the position of her husband and his family. Rather, she retained her membership of the ruling line and was subject only to the throne (see Tang 1975:42; Wong 1979:136-37; DMB 1976.1:211). Because her status was conferred without reference to her husband, it could pass to her children. Thus, so long as they did not become wittingly involved in plots against the emperor, sororal cousins, nephews, and nieces were, like their mothers, exempt from severe punishment (see SKC 50:1198; 57:1340).
The material wealth a princess brought into marriage symbolized her condition. The lavish wedding gifts provided by the throne (see Chaffee's chapter in this volume) indicated the social and political superiority of her natal lineage over the husband and his family; the fief and its accompanying stipend (see Bielenstein 1967:21-22) symbolized that marriage had not altered her status. If the marriage lasted, most of the property eventually passed to the husband's family and out into the wider society through the woman's Offspring, the fief title going to her eldest son in accordance with the general law (see Dull 1978: 63 n. 188; Tang 1975:100; Shiga 1978:118). As befitting their elevated status as honorary members of the imperial line, the
woman's sons received imperial patronage in selection for high office. In this way, the sororal bond was transformed into an arm of the ruling line, reaching out into the wider community and establishing pockets of loyalty within other, potentially dangerous, lineages without the threat of domination or usurpation.[12]
Although the recipient lineage derived some comfort from the knowledge that at least one of its branches was insulated from political disaster, the throne benefited more from the arrangement because the princess could be counted on to put the imperial interest above that of her husband's family (see n. 12). For the woman's part, her exemption from severe punishment gave her a personal freedom denied to other members of the society, including her brothers. Unlike male agnates, who were perceived as a threat to the throne, the princess could remain in the capital at the center of power. Moreover, being female, she was not barred from the inner recesses of the palace as were the male officials of the outer court. Nor was she confined to the palace like an imperial mother or wife. In every respect, then, she was ideally placed to act as a power broker between the throne and families of the wider elite.
As a permanent member of the ruling line, the social status of the princess was higher than that of the imperial mother or wife. Indeed, her social position closely approximated that of the emperor himself. During the Southern Dynasties (A.D . 317-589), one woman used her exalted position to argue that, like her brother, the emperor, she too should have a harem. She was given thirty male "concubines" (Wong 1979:10). In short, although the princess never reached the political heights of an imperial mother or wife who acted as regent and de facto ruler of the state, and although her influence had no strong legal basis, her freedom of movement was considerable and her position solid. Because her status was not conditioned by ties beyond the throne, her influence depended on the accession of a strong ruler able to control his maternal relatives and to override any objections from the bureaucracy about her behavior. The tension between sisters and wives (princesses and empresses) at the imperial level was thus acute. Moreover, because all attention was directed toward a single male, competition among the princesses themselves was also intense—both among sisters and among different generations of female offspring (FFZ, FZ, and Z; see n. 15).
The princess's considerable status, which she passed to her children, meant that those children were eminently suitable as spouses for the next generation of imperial offspring. In fact, rulers often gave their children in marriage to sororal nephews and nieces. Although it was relatively easy, however, for a favorite sister to persuade her brother to give one of his many daughters in marriage to her son, her ultimate aim was to marry one of her daughters to the heir-apparent (FZD). Such a union would enable her to become de facto ruler of the state through her daughter, who would be in line
Fig. 2.2.
Marriage with FZD/FMDD in the Chinese state
for the position of empress. Here, however, the princess faced fierce opposition from the ruler's grandmother, mother, and wife, as well as from other princesses with the same ambition. The senior widow, in conjunction with members of the outer court, controlled the marriage of the heir. So in practice a princess might achieve her ambition only (1) if she were the favorite sister of a strong-minded ruler whose mother and grandmother had passed away; (2) if she were the biological daughter of the senior widow; or (3) if an accident brought to the throne a younger half brother of the appointed heir—one who had previously married into her family (figure 2.2). Some women attempted to induce the latter condition by forming an alliance with an imperial concubine who had a son in order to bring about the disgrace and demotion of the appointed heir and his mother. But few women were able to bring such a complex strategy to fruition.[13] In practice, then, the empress in the native Chinese state was often a maternal cousin of the emperor (MBD or MBD/FMBSD), but she was rarely his paternal cousin (FZD).[14] In this way, sororal relatives (or wife-takers) tended to remain somewhat separate from wifely/maternal kin (or wife-givers), again helping to prevent the emergence of a truly aristocratic closed marriage circle. In short, the open-ended marriage system described in the chapter by Thatcher for the Spring and Autumn period continued on into late imperial times.
The political importance of the sororal bond for the throne meant that unmarried aunts (FZ), sisters, and daughters were always in short supply. Thus, those who were widowed (with or without children) usually remarried. If a recipient family fell from grace, the woman might well be summarily
divorced and given to another lineage, young sons following her into the new alliance. Because a favorite sister was also well placed to obtain a divorce on grounds of incompatibility and because marital discord might itself bring political catastrophe to the lineage, it was not unusual for an imperial princess to become the de facto head of the husband's family, controlling its finances, organizing its marriages, and determining its political strategy. For this reason, some families tried to avoid a sororal relationship with the throne (see Ch'ü 1972:295-96; Wong 1979:206 n. 66). The problem was not confined, however, to imperial relationships: any family interested in furthering its economic, political, or social condition through the upward marriage of a son chanced subordination to the wife and her kin (on this point see Chaffee's chapter).
Although this inversion of the normal husband-wife relationship brought complaints (see HHS 62:2052-53; Wong 1979:95-96, 99; and below), and although praise might be heaped on the princess who refused to remarry after widowhood or forced divorce (see Sui shu 80:1798), greater exception was taken to women who flaunted their superior status before the husband's parents, thus violating the code of filial piety. In such cases, senior officials pressured the throne into trying to get the princess to moderate her behavior. As we have seen, however, the issue of filial piety posed an even greater problem for the emperor's personal relationships. Divorce was kept within reasonable bounds by the knowledge that a crucial political alliance was at stake and by the idea that the severing of an established bond between a man and his wife for political gain was objectionable to senior members of the bureaucracy because it undercut family harmony, the foundation stone of the moral-political order, and because they themselves were the potential victims of policies embracing arbitrary divorce (see Chaffee's chapter in this volume). In the main, then, an imperial princess was not summarily divorced unless her husband suffered a drastic punishment like exile or execution. At the same time, princesses, unlike other women, were not expected to undergo any hardship or punishment that might accrue to the husband's lineage, and a man who abused his princess-wife (whatever the provocation) could be sentenced to death (see Ch'ü 1972:58).
In summary, we can say that the political impotence of the emperor's male agnates, who were greatly distrusted by both the throne and the bureaucracy, heightened the political significance of the marriages of women and the position of the emperor's mother, wife, aunt (FZ), sister, and daughter. The mother, or senior widow, and her relatives provided support both against the ambitions of male collateral kin and against the larger bureaucratic elite when either attempted to obstruct the will of the throne. For this reason (and because the power of maternal kin was balanced only by sororal bonds established through the marriages of female offspring), the political authority of the imperial wife was greatly feared. Because attention was
focused on a single male (the emperor or his heir), however, competition · between different generations of imperial wives and between them and the ruler's sisters and daughters, as well as among sisters themselves, was fierce. Such rivalries helped to prevent the development of a monopoly by any one family, greatly reducing the threat of usurpation by maternal kin. Yet the marriage circle tended to follow shifts within the political elite, so that competition also destabilized government. The following discussion focuses on the development of this system and how the founders of some regimes addressed the problem posed by the power of maternal kin.
Historical Development and Evolution
Perhaps the nearest a native Chinese regime came to instituting an exclusive system of marriage exchange with one particular family was at the beginning of the Former Han, when the empress dowager, née Lü (d. 180 B.C .) arranged a series of strategic marriages in order to perpetuate control of the government by members of her family (Ward-Czynska 1978:2-5). With the struggle to oust the Lüs after her death, however, potential heirs to the throne who were connected with her family were killed. Moreover, the next emperor was chosen for the lowly status and meager numbers of his maternal and wifely kin (Ward-Czynska 1978:1-11; Tao 1978:178; Kamada 1962:80). The next few reigns saw a relatively free system of marriage that regarded the selection of a spouse as a purely private or family matter. No definitive marriage group emerged because little formal connection existed between consort families and the established elite. In this period, then, wifely and maternal kin were even more vulnerable to changes in fortune than in later times, when they had an independent foothold in the bureaucracy.
Emperor Wu (r. 140-87 B.C .) changed this marriage pattern. Coming to power through a palace intrigue manipulated by his paternal aunt (FZ), Emperor Wu began his reign under two warring consort factions (Ch'ü 1972:169). His first wife was his father's sister's daughter, chosen for him by his grandmother, the grand empress dowager, née Tou (FZD/FMDD; figure 2.3). He degraded his wife after the death of his grandmother, and replaced her with a singing girl introduced by one of his sisters (Ward-Czynska 1978:12-17; Loewe 1974:51). Then, after having lost his first heir through political intrigue, and with a very young son to succeed him, he tried to put an end to consort power by forcing the mother of that son to commit suicide. He chose three ministers of the outer court to act as regents after his death (Ward-Czynska 1978:20-25; Loewe 1974:35-70). But this strategy failed because the appointed regents, all of whom were connected by marriage, simply selected a relative (a child of six) to be wife and empress for the young ruler. This arrangement initiated a twenty-year period (87-66 B.C .) of complete subordination for both the bureaucracy and the throne to consort families (see Loewe 1974:73-81; Wallacker 1987:58-59). In the short term, then, Emperor Wu's strategy produced a return to conditions seen at the
Fig. 2.3.
Family ties of Emperor Wu of the Former Han
* Empress dowager Po and Empress Po were kinswomen.
beginning of the dynasty; that is, to domination of the government by a particular consort group. In the long term, the strategy instituted a system that drew wives from families of the political elite, with members of that elite deciding marriages in consultation with the senior widow (see Ch'ü 1972: 173-74, 210-29).
In Emperor Wu's time, the last vestiges of regional authority given to male paternal kin were stripped away (see Kamada 1962; Tao 1974). Some three centuries later, however, under the state of Wu (A.D. 222-80) in southeastern China, princes of the house were once again given regional military powers and made coregents and advisers to the throne (see Fang 1952; 1965). This condition continued on through Western Chin (A.D. 265-316) and the South-
ern dynasties (A.D. 317-589) into the early T'ang period (see Grafflin 1980:183-93; Tang 1975:50-54). For later Chinese the dramatic events of Western Chin (see Straughair 1973:2-5; Grafflin 1980:26-29, 94-95) reinforced two separate messages: first, that authority allotted to the ruler's male agnates would probably result in succession disputes that might well bring down the regime, and, second, that constant vigilance was needed against the ambitions of imperial wives, who—like the empress, née Chia, of Western Chin—might be tempted to depose the legitimate heir in favor of one of their own relatives (CS 31:965; CS 53:1459-62).
By comparing the history of Western Chin with that of other eras that gave male agnates a share of political power (see n. 5), we can see that influential male kin complicated the alliance patterns described above. An imperial wife could now appeal not only to her natal kin but also to individual princes of the house for support against other women or against the throne itself. Conversely, a princess was also able to support, or gain the support of, uncles and brothers whenever the throne appeared to be overly dominated by imperial wives. At such times, the political activities of female offspring were no longer masked by the machinations of the throne or maternal kin. As a consequence, the normal patterns of conflict between women not only spilled over into the outer court, disrupting the functions of government, but also set one prince against another, creating instability in the succession. Such disruptions were common in early and middle Former Han, Wu, and early T'ang and during the Western Chin when civil war erupted.
In the state of Wu, the roles played by princesses of the ruling house in succession problems (see Fang 1965) prefigure those of the early T'ang era (see Tang 1975). One can discern these same outlines in the history of early and middle Former Han (see Ward-Czynska 1978). In these periods, imperial princesses were not only divided among themselves and set in opposition to particular wives and heirs to the throne but also on occasion found themselves opposed to their own husbands. As members of the bureaucratic elite, the husbands of princesses sometimes sided with the heir or with another prince of the house to oppose female influence in general (that of mothers, wives, and sisters). Such alliances account in part for the high rate of divorce and widow-remarriage among imperial princesses in these periods. In early T'ang the underlying gender conflict between the all-male bureaucracy and females who provided the throne with its personal base of support was intensified by the presence of Empress Wu acting as de jure ruler of the state (A.D. 684—707).[15]
In sum, conditions in early T'ang represent one of several major realignments of the elite marriage system. The first of these shifts occurred during the Later Han when the throne, the bureaucracy, and even individual mothers and wives became subject to males of the consort family (see Young 1986 for details); the last was to occur during the Ming dynasty when the
throne, mothers and wives, and their male relatives became subject to the bureaucracy, a development we shall discuss below.
It is commonly thought that with the establishment of the examination system in the T'ang-Sung era, late imperial China experienced a social and political mobility that put an end to the early aristocratic system of government and produced a concomitant shift away from class endogamy toward a marriage system in which rank could be exchanged for material wealth, scholastic repute, and so forth (see Ebrey's chapter, this volume). The status of emperor is said to have changed from that of "first among equals" (many of whom provided spouses for the imperial house) to autocrat (Sung) and, finally, to tyrant (Ming). The despotic tradition of the Mongol-Yuan era (c. A.D. 1200-1360) is believed to have influenced the development of tyranny during the Ming dynasty. In a recent study of imperial marriage strategy in the mid T'ang, Chang Pang-wei (1986) linked the idea of a shift away from class endogamy to a demonstrated decrease in the proportion of imperial wives and concubines coming from the upper ranks of the elite. But other scholars have begun to question the accuracy of the underlying hypothesis: they suggest that depictions of pre-T'ang society as particularly static and of Sung society as highly mobile may be exaggerated. They also challenge the idea of a Mongol tradition of despotism arid the view of the late Ming ruler as tyrant.[16] The discussion below investigates some of these issues as they relate to imperial marriage under the Sung and Ming dynasties.
During Sung, certain founding families of the dynasty continued to provide spouses for, and to receive women from, the royal house long after their political fortunes had begun to wane.[17] This is one immediate explanation of Chang Pang-wei's data. By late Northern Sung these and other sororal kin were, furthermore, being specifically denied top-level posts in the central administration (SS 223:13579; SS 248:8777; HTCTC 153:4094; and Chaffee's chapter in this volume). In other words, royal spouses were no longer automatically chosen from the bureaucratic elite, and members of consort families were no longer given key administrative positions to the extent that they were able to enter and dominate the top ranks of the bureaucratic elite. The change had little to do with shifting attitudes toward marriage in the wider society. Rather, the initial impetus came from the throne and was an unintended side-effect of efforts to limit the power of the military. To this end, the first ruler of Sung came to an agreement with the founding generals of his regime that the latter would forgo real power in return for guaranteed social status through marriage ties with the royal house (Chung 1981:25). In fact, successful demilitarization of the political structure was a difficult and complex matter achieved through strategies that had nothing to do with marriage relations. Once demilitarization was under way, however, newly emerging bureaucratic groups saw the advantages of a policy that paired members of the ruling line with spouses from elite families on the decline.
The weakened relationship between political power at the top of the bureaucratic hierarchy and marriage relations with the throne also suited imperial wives. They could now dominate political affairs as dowagers and regents without hindrance from their male relatives or the emperor's sororal kin. For the consort families themselves, elevated social status coupled with political advantage at the lower levels of the hierarchy helped to sustain respectability at the local level (see Chung 1981:64-68, 79; Chaffee's chapter in this volume).
The growing disparity between the social and educational attributes of Sung, princesses and their spouses heightened the former's haughtiness toward their husbands and in-laws—a phenomenon that hardened attitudes about the husband's superiority over his wife and the wife's subordination to her husband's parents. This development was independent but supportive of trends in the larger society. The declining status of imperial marriage partners in general led to discussion of the qualities required of an empress: here "pedigree," meaning membership in the founding elite and/or respectable middle-ranking military background, as well as individual social skills—education, intelligence, and reputation for ethical behavior (Chung 1981:24-25)—became the chief selection criteria.
If action against the power of consort families was particularly gentle in the Sung, this was not so in the Ming, the first native regime to maintain a deliberate policy of choosing imperial spouses from families with no bureaucratic connections (Soullière 1988). The strategy was not entirely new, however. It had been tried (with little success) as early as the first century B.C. by Emperor Hsuan (d. 49 B.C. ) of the Former Han (see Ward-Czynska 1978:32-34, 40-41). But then the strategy had ignored the fundamental issue—the widow's role as final arbiter of the political process. The Ming addressed this issue by placing an additional ban on the delegation of imperial authority to harem women (Greiner 1979/80:6-7, 47; Soullière 1984:138; de Heer 1986:10). This too had been tried in earlier times—by the founder of Wei (A.D. 220-65), who had tried to dispense simultaneously with both the authority of the widow and support from close male agnates (TCTC 69:2206). Relying largely on sororal kin and a few select fraternal bonds to establish ties with the political elite of the former regime, the Wei throne had quickly fallen prey to usurpation by outsiders (see nn. 5, 8, and 12). The Ming dynasty did not suffer this fate, but a parallel nevertheless exists in the weakening position of the Ming throne vis-à-vis the bureaucracy in the absence of key matrilateral support.
Like the state of Wei, Ming governments found they still faced the problem of delegating authority during minority rule. Ironically, although no empress ever became regent (Soullière 1984:138), senior widows retained the authority to appoint a regent and to choose heirs and spouses just as they had in third-century Wei (see Fang 1965:165-66, 337, 352; de Heer 1986:25-27).
In practice, an imperial wife during the Ming dynasty played much the same role, albeit less prominently, as she had in the past.
Ming marriage strategy originated with the founder of the regime and reached maturity over the course of several reigns. Spouses were selected from low-ranking military families in the capital area on the basis of temperament and physical appearance (Soullière 1988:1, 20, 23-24, 30). Without a solid political base, families of the bureaucratic elite that supplied women for the imperial house could not supply more than one empress (ibid., 39). Consequently, this period witnessed a degree of upward and downward social mobility among imperial in-laws not seen in the native state since early Former Han. It would seem, then, that the phenomenon observed by Chang (1986) wherein imperial wives were increasingly drawn from the lower ranks of the elite and even from commoner families is best explained, not by changing attitudes in the wider society, but by the increasingly deliberate denial of power to consort families. The rationale and strategies underpinning this development during the Ming dynasty were firmly rooted in the Chinese tradition of pre-T'ang times.
Studies of Ming imperial marriage relations by Soullière (1984, 1987, 1988) support the current view that, far from being a despot, the Ming ruler had gradually been reduced to titular ruler and was made a virtual prisoner in his own palace. Without a powerful consort family as his ally, he was unable to assert his independence against the bureaucracy and sometimes sought to withdraw from the system entirely, forcing senior bureaucrats to turn to eunuchs and harem women for help in maintaining the link with the palace (Soullière 1984:132-34). In this period there was a swing away from educating imperial princesses in the virtues of wifely submission (as in the Sung) toward that of teaching their husbands and in-laws the art of being subordinate (see Soullière 1988:21). The development accorded with the new relationship between the bureaucratic elite and eunuch factions in the palace in cutting the emperor off from his traditional base of support. In short, the policy developed by the founder of the Ming to ensure the integrity of the throne against imperial wives and consort families was gradually appropriated by the bureaucratic elite so that all imperial women—mothers, sisters, and wives—now owed obedience, not to the husband or to male natal kin as in the past, but to the outer court.
In summary, power at the Chinese court oscillated between three officially sanctioned forces: the emperor, the senior widow, and members of the bureaucracy. Four other forces lay on the periphery (eunuchs, not dealt with here, and the emperor's paternal, sororal, and wifely/maternal kin). Any of these could be called into action by one of the major parties. Whether in Han times or Ming, however, the key to major shifts in the balance of power lay with close male relatives of the widow (wifely/maternal kin). When they were in a position to bridge the gap between the harem and the outer court by
occupying senior positions in the bureaucracy, power tended to swing away from the throne and unrelated members of the bureaucratic elite toward the widow and her family. Conversely, the widow was at her weakest whenever her natal kin had no established foothold within the bureaucratic elite. When this happened—as in the Wei (Three Kingdoms) and the Ming—power initially resided with the throne but tended to gravitate quickly toward the bureaucratic elite. Caught between the other two forces, the throne attempted to play off the widow's party against the bureaucratic elite, or to invoke the aid of one of the lesser peripheral bodies named above.
Accounts of the relationship between the emperor and these other parties were mostly composed, or at least approved, by men whose families had well-established relationships with sectors of the bureaucracy mainly outside the imperial marriage system. Thus, any choice of words in these accounts suggesting despotism on the part of the emperor or usurpation of power by imperial wives, relatives, or eunuchs should be seen as a signal of a significant shift in power away from the bureaucratic elite. Conversely, literature on the Sung indicates the stable and equitable balance of power between the major parties. A similar absence for mid- to late Ming, however, would reflect the complacency of a dominant bureaucracy. In other words, the mature Sung and Ming dynasties were seen to have largely avoided not only the "faults" of the Later Han, when the bureaucracy (as well as the throne and individual wives) had been subject to the consort clan, but also the "problems" of Wu, Western Chin, and early T'ang in dealing with the emperor's paternal kin as well as the various evils of late T'ang, when eunuchs had been the dominant policymakers.
We have seen how shifts in the balance of power during the Sung and Ming dynasties were in fact brought on by one of the constants of early Chinese history—namely, the acknowledgment by all parties that the position of the senior widow was such that the emperor and the bureaucratic elite could best (or perhaps only) assert their power by breaking the bond between political service and intermarriage with the throne. In this respect, the institution and the development of a public examination system (T'ang-Sung) possibly helped to weaken that bond. Yet the examination system was only a coincidental factor, for, as we have seen, conditions under the Ming were quite unlike, and in no way contingent upon, developments in either the T'ang or Sung dynasties. Moreover, and most important, each of those developments, as well as those that took place during the Ming, fell within parameters of change (both structural and ideological) already set in place by the end of the third century A.D. In short, despite major social changes in the wider society (see Ebrey and others in this volume), structure and strategy at court remained much the same in the native Chinese state from Han through to the end of Ming.
The Non-Han State
In the non-Han culture of the steppe, marriage may be characterized as (1) a transaction in which considerable wealth (or its substitute, labor) passed from the family of the groom to that of the bride (i.e., the "brideprice"); (2) a polygynous arrangement whereby all wives, or a group of senior wives, had equal status; (3) cross-generational alliance; (4) separate residence for married sons; and (5) an exogamous system in which intermarriage with the paternal line was permitted after a given number of generations (five, seven, or nine) (see Krader 1963). Women were well integrated into the husband's family, so much so that they sometimes received a personal share of the husband's patrimony apart from that given to male offspring. This in turn meant that wives rarely left the husband's family to remarry. Should a widow be unable to survive on her share of the patrimony, that share would be amalgamated with that of another male in the family through the levirate—marriage to a brother, uncle, nephew, or son (by another woman) of the late husband. Polygamy, separate residence for adult sons, and the absence of a ban on cross-generational marriage alliance facilitated the movement of widows from one unit of the family to another (see Holmgren 1986b).
Leaders were selected primarily on the basis of maturity and competence, thus obviating the need for regents—male or female (Holmgren 1981-83b; Fletcher 1986; Holmgren 1986c, 1987). This meant that consort families participated in government only as heads of tribal subunits within the confederation, not as wifely, sororal, or maternal kin. Because marriage could not be used by one group to undermine the authority of another, it was able to develop as a diplomatic device, usually taking the form of a simultaneous exchange of women conducted across a range of leaderships. The condition contrasts with that of the Chinese state, which was hampered in foreign marriage diplomacy by its emphasis on lineal succession, monogamy, and the role of the wife and her relatives in supporting the throne during minority rule (Holmgren n.d.).
For China specialists, the absence of steppe customs in states of non-Han origin, or the presence of forms approximating those found in the native Chinese regime, is often seen as evidence of sinification. But similarities can be misleading. One cannot assume that they arise for the same reasons. For example, the Ch'i-tan (Khitan) abandoned the exchange of women with foreign states during the Liao period (A.D. 916-1122) because one particular group of outsiders had been given an exclusive permanent lien on marriage relations with the ruling house. In fact, the Chinese model was never completely adopted by any conquest regime. Rather, individual elements of the model were selected, modified, and integrated with the steppe tradition. In each case, the mix provided a well-integrated, workable system of control
designed to meet specific political needs. At the same time, each approach was unique; that is, the amalgam of Chinese and steppe traditions was never exactly the same.
The variety and political ingenuity of systems developed by non-Hah states are demonstrated below. Here it remains to point out some common characteristics. First, nearly all non-Han states actively discouraged or severely circumscribed marriage ties between the throne and the Chinese. Second, the circle of imperial marriage partners tended to remain relatively stable, and consequently the various sets of in-laws overlapped to a much greater extent than in the native Chinese regime; that is, the same groups continued to supply both wives and husbands for imperial offspring almost indefinitely. Third, in non-Han states there was a more carefully regulated, and thus much greater, correlation between political privilege and social status as seen through marriage relations with the royal house than in the Chinese state (on these points, see also Rawski's chapter in this volume). Even Northern Wei, the one great exception to these generalizations, moved toward this type of system in its later years.
All these characteristics grew out of the need to protect the non-Han minority's privileged place in government against encroachment by the Chinese. Finally, examination of the histories of these northern conquerors in predynastic and dynastic times reveals a link between the abrupt appearance of new forms and attitudes to marriage and a shift in power-sharing among males of the ruling lineage. The link is highlighted most forcefully in T'o-pa history, which saw two quite distinct shifts in attitudes to marriage and inheritance—the first occurring during the foundation era, the other at midpoint in the history of the imperial state. A similar, equally dramatic shift can also be observed in early Ch'i-tan and Mongol history (see Holmgren 1987). The sections below outline the main features of the marriage systems that developed in tandem with this new approach to power-sharing among male kin. As we shall see, the systems so devised had little in common with each other or with the model established by the native Chinese state.[18]
The T'o-pa Wei
Northern Wei (A.D. 399-534) developed a marriage system that emphasized the common interest between the throne and collateral branches of the ruling house in controlling the ambitions of outsiders, both Chinese and non-Han. That is, Wei marriage strategy protected the privileged place of paternal kin in selection for office by denying other interest groups access to power through marriage ties with the throne. Thus, in spirit and form Northern Wei policy resembles that of the Ming: imperial wives and concubines came from outside the ranks of the bureaucratic and military elite; there was active discrimination against the ruler's wifely and maternal kin in selection for high office; and there were few cross-ties between sororal and wifely kin; that
is, daughters of princesses (FZD) and maternal cousins (MBD) were not taken into the imperial harem.
Wei strategy went much further, however, in that the T'o-pa attempted to separate the wife's biological function of producing an heir from her political role. First, mothers of eldest sons were never appointed to the rank of empress in their lifetimes and might well be made to commit suicide after the son was named as heir to the throne. Second, empresses were appointed only on an irregular basis and were invariably childless. They did not act as titular or foster mothers to eldest sons, and they all came from the ruling families of recently conquered states and thus had few if any relatives of influence in the outer court. They were thus purely symbolic figures representing the integration of their peoples into the T'o-pa empire. In short, the T'o-pa adopted the Chinese principle of primogeniture but rejected the idea of succession by a son of the empress. They thus dispensed with the most critical aspect of the Chinese system—the role of the senior widow as head of the ruling house and de facto head of state in times of political crisis. Under the T'o-pa such crises were to be addressed by senior officials of the outer court who were either unrelated to the throne or were princes of the blood or select sororal kin. In this system, imperial princesses were given in marriage either to leaders of refugee groups arriving in Wei from other states, or to members of a select line of a non-Han lineage (the Mu family). In the former case, the aim was to neutralize a potentially hostile group that had settled in the realm. In the latter instance, repeated bestowal of daughters upon sororal nephews (ZS) created a group of loyal kin who, being T'o-pa in all but name, could be chosen for office in the same way as princes of the blood, thus supplementing the latter's meager numbers. Care was taken, however, that these sororal bonds were never translated into wifely/maternal relationships.
Measures taken to control the ambitions of agnates centered not on supervising their marriages, but on bestowing equal rights in selection for office. Political rank and social standing within the ruling lineage therefore depended on loyalty and service to the throne as perceived by the emperor of the day. Thus, for princes of the house (the most privileged group in the empire), marriage was apolitical. And because brothers, nephews, and younger sons were free to choose wives without reference to the throne, many branches of the house intermarried with commoner, even slave, families—wives being chosen for reasons of love or physical beauty. It seems, then, that for the T'o-pa, the wife's social standing was of little consequence.
In summary, the early Wei ruler was not primus inter pares but a true autocrat who derived his chief support from, but nevertheless controlled in an absolute way, all members of the imperial lineage as well as senior bureaucrats of the outer court. In the early Wei system (400-490s) all paternal kin, males and females, were far more trusted than wives. Although the trust placed in sisters was in some cases extended to their husbands and sons,
sisters' daughters did not marry back into the imperial line to become wives and mothers of emperors. Nor were the female offspring of distant male agnates permitted to marry back into the ruling line, as might have happened in the steppe tradition.
In the 480s the throne began to use the marriages of female offspring to gain access to the social network of the Chinese elite. The change in policy was geared to the better integration of wealthy provincial Chinese into state-controlled political and economic structures. In this way, the policy of marriage avoidance with the bureaucratic elite began to break down. Other strategies remained in place, however, in particular those relating to the political power of mothers and wives. A decade later, the narrow aim of protecting the government positions of paternal kin was widened to encompass all non-Han elites. To this end, the system of selection to office was overhauled so that political rank now depended on social status, with the latter being defined (for the non-Han) by ancestral service or degree of blood/ marriage relation to the throne. The 490s thus saw a revival of the predynastic tradition whereby all lines of the ruling family were ranked according to seniority (birth). This revival was accompanied by a shift in attitude toward marriage for male offspring. That is, a controlled, elitist marriage strategy was developed during the 490s in an effort to establish a recognizable and "respectable" circle of families from which the ruling line and close paternal kin (males and females) could draw their spouses. From there, Wei moved rapidly toward the system seen under conquest regimes, namely, marriage exchange within a closed circle of mestizo and non-Han elites who dominated key administrative posts.
Such changes in the marriage system created instability in the top echelons of the bureaucracy as male agnates clashed with the throne over the issue of political privilege for relatives of the emperor's mother and wife. In addition, distant branches of the emperor's family suffered a decline in political status as they struggled to protect their place in government against incursions from the emperor's more privileged uncles and brothers and other non-Han elites who now had better access to power through wifely and maternal ties with the throne. In the search for ways to maintain their status, distant male kin turned to marriage alliance with the families of eunuchs and palace attendants. Here, long-term social security associated with membership of the imperial house was exchanged for informal, high-level (but often short-lived) political influence. Such cross-status alliances were no longer tolerated, however, for they were held to be subversive to the new political order.
The Ch'i-tan Liao
Whereas early Wei marriage strategy focused on protecting the throne and paternal kin from the ambitions of powerful outside interest groups, Liao (A.D. 916-1122) marriages were designed to minimize the dangers posed by
the emperor's male agnates. The system grew out of the support given to the founder of the regime by his wife and her family against other tribal leaders and, more important, against the founder's uncles and brothers, who refused to relinquish their traditional leadership rights. In this system, princes of the blood who were only distantly or remotely related to the throne were more trusted than close male agnates. Accordingly, the latter were given mainly honorary titles and nonfunctional posts associated with the shell of the old political order. As reward for their support in helping to institute the new monarchical and centralized system of government, the family of the first empress (an outsider in relation to the old power structure) was given exclusive rights to marriage relations with the throne and a hereditary lien on key posts in the newly developing system of administration.
In the mature Liao marriage system, all branches of the imperial house (the Yeh-lü) as well as those of the consort clan (the Hsiao) were ranked according to degree of kinship with the founding emperor and empress. The highest-ranking branches of the ruling family (the emperor and his close relatives) married into those of the consort clan and vice-versa. In this way, the ruler was supported not only by his mother and her uncles and brothers (who doubled as senior officials of the outer court), as in the Chinese system, but also by his mother's female kin—her sisters and nieces—who doubled as consorts for his uncles (FB), brothers, and nephews (BS). Here, cross-generational alliance flourished, with members of the consort clan marrying down into younger generations of the imperial house, all of which increased the likelihood that the empress's sisters and nieces would be able to control their husbands and thus help to protect the ruling line from the threat of armed revolt or usurpation by close paternal kin (figure 2.4).
The Liao system, then, was almost a parody of that of the Chinese. Ranking within the harem was determined by the political status of the woman's male kin, and the status of her male kin was determined by social rank defined according to blood ties with the founding empress and current ruler. The correlation of social status, selection for office, and provision of spouses for the royal house was thus much higher than ever intended or seen under any Chinese regime. This is not to say that there was no political and social mobility. Indeed, the middle Liao period saw considerable upward mobility as the throne attempted to weaken the power of relatives of the first empress by broadening the base of the consort clan: here, the new rules of surname exogamy, repetitive marriage-exchange, and hereditary rights to office were circumvented by the simple device of surname adoption; that is, by using the steppe practice of fictive kinship to integrate outsiders into the political system. The same device was later taken up by the consort clan as a means of incorporating its followers into the system. It was only after the system was revamped in the latter part of the regime (1020s) that genuine blood ties with the founding unit were stressed.
Although most Liao rulers married maternal cousins (MBD), distinctions
Fig. 2.4.
Cross-generational marriage: Liao
such as MBD and FZD, relevant to the Chinese model, are less applicable because the system of exchange meant that a wife who was MBD might also be FZD. Cross-generational alliances complicated the situation. The eighth ruler, for example, married a woman who was his mother's paternal cousin (MFBD) and his father's maternal cousin (FMBD) (figure 2.5). Although Liao rulers could marry their maternal aunts (MZ) as well as daughters of the mother's or grandmother's brother (MBD or FMBD), they could not,
Fig. 2.5.
Cross-generational marriage with MFBD/FMBD in late Liao
despite the high status of maternal aunts and cousins, take the female offspring of such women into the imperial harem (MZD). Liao practice here differed from China's because such offspring always carried the surname of the imperial house (Yeh-lü). This explains why power held by the empress's aunts and sisters did not pass to their offspring (although it did reappear in the following generation through the female line). For males of the consort clan, political status initially passed to both male and female offspring but from there was transmitted only through the male line. In short, all members of the consort clan, whatever their gender, tended to have more power than their spouses, including the emperor himself. Because the status of the empress dowager extended to her close relatives regardless of gender, the normal gender inequality between husband and wife was reversed, not for the emperor's sisters as in the Chinese model, but for those of the empress and empress dowager. The military authority assumed by these women in times of crisis (see Wittfogel and Feng 1949:200, 557) was a symptom of this condition.
In theory, the Liao system of marriage exchange should ultimately have
incorporated the consort clan into the imperial house to such an extent that all divergent interests between it, the throne, and paternal kin would disappear. The system favored the consort clan, however, more than it did the throne. Even in early Liao, the emperor was in danger of being overshadowed by members of the consort clan. Action taken to redress this situation was short lived, ending in the fourth reign with the emperor's personal withdrawal from government in a manner similar to that seen in the late Ming. In the latter part of Liao, however, the authority of the throne was protected to some extent by factionalism within the consort clan as wives of one generation battled with those of the next, and as barren empresses struggled to hold their place in the system against fertile concubines. In effect, the various branches of the consort clan began to behave in the same manner as competing generations of wifely and maternal kin in the native Chinese state.
The Mongol Yuan
In predynastic times the Mongol leadership (early 1200s) developed a marriage system that achieved a near-perfect balance among all the parties discussed above. It continued on into the Yuan era (A.D. 1260-1368) with very little change other than a gradual drift in administrative, fiscal, and military power away from the periphery toward the center. This shift ultimately left secondary branches of the imperial house unable to defend the integrity of the throne against bureaucratic forces.
Distinctions were horizontal in the Mongol system rather than vertical. Paternal relatives and the leaders of subordinate tribes and allied states were invested with identical powers that, although located away from the center, were basically imitative of those held by the supreme ruler in the central domain. In this system, close paternal kin tended to be more trusted than remotely related male agnates. Accordingly, they were given a significant amount of autonomy on the outermost rim of the empire. Their role as regional overlords and the local autonomy granted to other tribal leaders together formed the linchpin of government. Power, then, was invested as much on the periphery of the realm as at the center.
Participation by princes and allied leaders in the selection of the supreme ruler and strict supervision of marriage and succession procedures within the various kingdoms and fiefs were some of the means the center used to control the strong centripetal forces within the realm. By early Yuan times, inheritance of territories held by collateral branches of the house was regulated so as to emphasize service to the center and to prevent control of the fief from falling into the hands of outsiders. Older sons were expected to earn their own kingdoms, and the fief went, not to the youngest son of the wife in the traditional manner (ultimogeniture), but to the youngest adult son who had no fief of his own at the time of his father's death or to a collateral male relative who held the territory in trust until the youngest son came of age. In
this way, families that married into the ruling lineage were unable to gain control of the various princely domains. Marriage alliances were also carefully scrutinized by the center to prevent collusion between princes of the house and allied tribal leaders also on the periphery.
The local autonomy granted to conquered and allied leaders was contingent upon their acceptance of a sister or daughter of the Mongol ruler in marriage. This, combined with an enforced system of monogamy, lineal succession (ultimogeniture), and female regencies within the allied state, guaranteed effective control over the subject tribesmen by the central domain. In the final analysis, however, control rested on the demonstrated military superiority of members of the ruling house. Herein lay one of the chief weaknesses of the system: fragmentation could be prevented only by continuous conquest and expansion or by instituting an overarching bureaucratic structure controlled by the center. The latter development in the Yuan era (1270s) led to the emasculation of the male agnates' traditional powers and domination of the throne by senior officials of the outer court who were unrelated to the throne.
Traditional Mongol practice emphasized polygamy and the full integration of wives into the husband's family, so the position of the ruler's married sisters and daughters as agents for the natal line was an anomaly. Thus, in contrast to brideprice systems operating at other levels of Mongol society, the imperial princess was furnished with a lavish dowry symbolic of her continuing membership of the ruling house. At the same time, remnants of the traditional mentality wherein the husband regarded his wife (or wives) as an integral, permanent part of the family worked to the advantage of the ruling house in that the allied leadership did not see the woman's participation in the affairs of the kingdom as a gross imposition. The continued existence of traditional ideology is also seen in the center's use of the levirate: sisters and daughters who failed to produce offspring able to inherit the kingdom simply married the incoming heir—one of the late husband's uncles, brothers, nephews, or sons by another woman. In this way, the center managed to avoid problems of control arising from infertility, high infant mortality, and sexual avoidance.
In theory, pacts with allied leaders were between equals. Each allied group therefore had the right to exchange women with the ruling house in the traditional manner. The pacts were structured, however, to benefit the central domain rather than the allied kingdom. On the one hand, real sisters and daughters of Mongol rulers were sent out to become wives and mothers of the rulers of allied states, but on the other, women selected as spouses for the ruling house usually came from relatively powerless lines of the subject leadership—branches that in many cases had only a remote blood connection with the real leaders of the kingdom. This was particularly so where the Onggirat tribe was concerned, for it had a hereditary lien on the provision of
the senior wife who produced heirs for the supreme office. Thus, at the center, MBD alliances were as rare as those of FZD, and allied tribal leaders (sororal kin) had no chance of becoming wifely/maternal relatives of the emperor and were thus effectively barred from excessive interference in the affairs of the ruling house. All this helped to maintain an equitable balance of power between sororal and paternal kin stationed on the periphery of the realm.
Because the different sets of imperial relatives were confined to administrative duties associated with specific territories located beyond the center, the Mongol ruler, along with his mother and wife, worked in isolation with a group of advisers of non-Han, but largely non-Mongol, origin who were set quite apart from the marriage circle. In effect, then, the ruler's wife was cut off from her natal family both by physical distance and by sororal kin who controlled communication between the center and forces within the allied kingdom. As we have seen, identification of the empress with the interests of the throne and the bureaucracy free of reference to the aspirations of her natal kin had been a long-held dream of many Chinese. It was achieved by the Mongols primarily through the decentralized system of control, but the condition also accorded with traditional ideology that saw the wife as an integral part of the husband's family. In sum, the empress in the Mongol-Yuan dynasty was seen as an individual to be entrusted with power and authority in the same manner as an imperial sister or brother.
The alienation of brothers and sisters was prevented by their participation in the election of the supreme ruler. As in the Liao, all adult sons of the wife were potential heirs to the throne, with the final decision being made after the death of the ruler. The successor was chosen at an assembly of relatives who were major fief holders—princes of the house, the late ruler's paternal aunts (FZ), sisters, and daughters, their husbands and/or sons, and the late ruler's mother and wife. In the interim, either the youngest adult son by the wife, or the wife herself, acted as regent. Because only competent adults were eligible for the position of leader and adult males could assume regency powers, the opportunity for mothers and wives to assume the full powers of state fell well short of that provided by the Chinese system. As we have seen, in the Chinese state, male agnates were usually barred from holding regency powers, and the senior widow was able to govern in the name of an infant or child, retaining the power of dethronement. Neither that power nor heir selection was the sole prerogative of the Mongol wife; all such matters were decided through the family assembly.
This, then, was the system that prevailed in the early years of the Yuan dynasty. Expansion of the bureaucratic sector at the provincial and central levels in the dynastic era saw a gradual shift, however, in the balance of power away from the emperor at the center and the various kingdoms and fiefs on the periphery toward bureaucratic forces beyond the marriage circle.
In this shift, the power of the wife (the empress) moved away from her traditional place in the extended family of fief holders toward Chinese-style relations with members of the outer court. But, unlike conditions in most native regimes, her working relationship with senior officials was not supported by the presence of natal kin, and thus her position was far less secure than in the native state. As we have seen, such conditions had existed in the early state of Wei (A.D. 220-65), and a similar situation was to occur under the subsequent Ming regime, although in neither case did the system arise from influences or borrowings from the non-Han tradition.
Conclusion
We have seen that no non-Han regime was purely imitative of the native Chinese state. Rather, imperial marriage policy under conquest dynasties consisted of a judicious mix of elements taken from both the steppe and the Chinese tradition. In each case that mix provided the leadership with an integrated system of control geared to specific political demands. One demand common to all regimes was that the marriage system protect the privileged place in government of members of the non-Han community against encroachment by the Chinese. To this end each state focused on excluding or limiting in some way intermarriage with the Chinese and on emphasizing a direct correlation between political privilege and social status, with the latter being defined in part by consanguineous and marriage ties with the ruling house.
Despite the common focus on excluding or limiting ties with the Chinese, each dynasty developed a unique marriage system. The variety seen across different regimes stemmed in part from the different approach to traditional non-Han competitors, in particular the attitude toward the emperor's male agnates: early Northern Wei practice saw imperial marriage as a means of controlling outside groups for the benefit of all branches of the imperial house; the Yuan focused on protecting the throne and close collateral kin; and the Liao used marriage to control male agnates. The correlation between forms and attitudes to marriage and the approach to power sharing among males of the lineage in these states confirms the significance of a similar phenomenon noticed in the Chinese case. There, we saw how imperial marriage practice was based on customs and laws found in the larger society, with differences at the imperial level being determined in large part by the difference between succession and the mode of inheriting family property. It would seem, then, that whether in the non-Han or native Chinese regime, forms and attitudes to imperial marriage were strongly influenced by the relationship between the emperor and his uncles (FB), brothers, sons, and nephews (BS). That influence was felt not only in the degree of power sharing between the throne and agnatic kin but also in the physical proximity of
those relatives to the throne, the latter being responsible for some of the differences seen in the strategies devised by Northern Wei, where agnates rotated between the center and the periphery, and in the Mongol system, where they were permanently stationed on the frontier.
Under the mature Chinese state the ruling line stood alone, isolated both physically and psychologically from its collateral branches. Consequently, regency powers were invested in outsiders—namely, the late emperor's widow, who acted as head of the imperial lineage and on occasion de facto ruler of the empire. When her natal relatives were members of the bureaucratic elite stationed in the capital, her power was extended, indeed often delegated, to them. In this way, maternal kin became the chief means of support for the throne against paternal uncles, brothers, cousins, and nephews and against the larger bureaucratic elite. Because of this, however, maternal relatives were also a most dangerous threat to the ruler's independence. Because the power of the widow and her family was balanced only by the presence of the wider bureaucratic elite and a set of sororal bonds created through the strategic marriages of female offspring, fear of the consort clan was a perennial destabilizing factor, with the history of the native state becoming one of shifts in the balance of power among the throne, the bureaucracy, and imperial wives and their families. Such shifts took place within as much as across individual dynasties. Within this scenario, the political activities of the imperial princess were often obscured, her influence becoming fully evident in the historical narrative only when male agnates were able to provide a viable alternative to a weak throne dominated by mothers, wives, and maternal kin. In other periods, the power of the princess was manifest mainly in the record of social problems arising from her superior social position vis-à-vis her husband and his family.
In late imperial times, the Sung, Yuan, and Ming dynasties all saw a shift in the balance of power toward members of the bureaucratic elite unrelated to the throne. The Ming condition was not contingent, however, on developments in either the Sung or the Yuan dynasties. Indeed, in each dynasty, marriage systems arose from unique internal developments, with developments in the Ming occurring well within the parameters of change established for the native state in early times. In short, when the processes of change are viewed from the Hah dynasty through to the end of Ming, the T'ang-Sung transition era loses much of its apparent significance.
Both the Sung and the Ming regimes continued to be concerned about limiting the political influence of the imperial wife, and each developed a unique approach to traditional concerns about the status of the imperial princess vis-à-vis her husband. Conditions in the Sung dynasty permitted a more concerted effort toward complying with the status quo seen in the larger society; while Ming society endorsed earlier imperial practice, stressing the education of the husband to cope with his subordinate position. This latter
approach grew out of the Ming's general emphasis on the subordination of consort families to the bureaucratic elite.
In sum, imperial marriage in the Chinese state was based on customs and laws found in the wider society, deviations and anomalies being explained in large part by the form of succession that prevailed at the imperial level. Once established, the system endured in basic form throughout the imperial era, from Han times through to the end of Ming, with very little reference to changing attitudes and practices in the larger society or to new modes of operation introduced by conquest regimes. Neither the history of early T'ang (when the historical narrative takes great account of the political activities of mothers, wives, and female offspring) nor that of early Ming (which saw a concerted effort to restrict the power of the imperial wife) deviates from the model established for the native state in pre-T'ang times.
If we were to take that model as a standard reference point in any comparative study of marriage relations, we could say that the Northern Wei and Liao dynasties represent two extremes in the spectrum of Chinese attitudes toward male agnates and maternal kin. As we have seen, Northern Wei history was dominated by excessive fear of outsiders working through the maternal bond. The practices of that era were therefore hedged around with numerous devices for keeping mothers and wives and their families from power. In contrast, the Liao system was characterized by fear of male agnates and thus placed an exaggerated trust in mothers and wives and their natal relatives. Such was that trust, the Liao state dispensed almost entirely with the checks and balances seen in the Chinese state: members of the consort clan were permitted to dominate the bureaucracy through an exclusive permanent lien on key offices; and the function of marriage for an imperial princess was solely biological—that of reproducing the consort clan. Here, then, as distinct from all other regimes, the imperial princess was subject to the authority of her husband. Liao was also the only dynasty to extend the status and power of the wife to all her relatives, both male and female. In this system, then, sisters of the mother were more trusted and given greater powers than imperial princes and princesses.
Both the Wei and Liao dynasties structured their marriage systems on the centralized bureaucratic state. Thus, those systems can be easily compared with each other and with that prevailing under the native regime. In contrast, imperial marriage under the Mongols evolved to fit a decentralized feudal mode of administration in which female offspring played a critical role in preserving the authority and independence of male agnates stationed on the periphery of the realm. In part because of decentralized control, the Yuan was one of the few regimes successful in breaking the link between authority delegated to the senior widow and the status and power of her family. In the Yuan, the position of the imperial wife was never dependent upon that of her family. Rather, she was entrusted with power in the same
way as a sister or brother. Moreover, her authority did not challenge, and was not challenged by, the sister or brother. All three were integral, permanent members of the ruling house and thus social equals. Additionally, the sister and wife both had regency powers—the one on the periphery, the other at the center—and, like a brother, both participated in choosing the supreme ruler. This was not the case in the native Chinese regime, where the social status of the sister was higher than that of the wife and where her political influence was more solidly based, but where she was denied the chance to act as de facto ruler of the empire with authority in heir selection and dethronement.
In discussing the status of women among the ruling elite, it is therefore necessary to distinguish between different categories of females in the same generation (sisters and wives, wives and concubines, etc.). It is also necessary to distinguish between the attitude toward a political role for those different categories of women and the attitude toward their relatives and consort families in general. As we have seen, at least four regimes, two of Chinese origin and two of non-Han background (Northern Wei, Sung, Yuan, and Ming), managed to prevent domination of the throne by the emperor's maternal relatives. Only two states (Northern Wei and Ming), however, set out to achieve this by relieving the imperial wife of power: in Sung, the declining influence of maternal kin was a by-product of other concerns; while during the Yuan the authority of the wife remained intact even though her close kin were excluded from power.
Although both the Northern Wei and Ming dynasties, as well as the Yuan, succeeded in diminishing the influence of maternal kin, no regime was able to stop individual mothers and wives from amassing power. Even the Northern Wei, despite its brutal approach to this problem, was dominated on two separate occasions by female regents. And as we have seen, the Ming regime, like other Chinese dynasties before it, faced chronic problems of delegated authority during times of emergency and minority rule. Thus the wife continued to play much the same role as she had in Han, T'ang, and Sung times, albeit at a less prominent level. Ironically, the Liao regime, which gave greatest political privilege to maternal kin, saw only three influential dowagers—considerably fewer than under many Chinese regimes. In fact, neither Liao nor any other steppe or China-based non-Han regime offered the imperial wife greater legal authority and power than did the native Chinese state.
References
Primary Sources
CS Chin shu
, by Fang Hsuan-ling 
et al. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1974.
HHS Hou Han shu
, by Fan Yeh 
. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1973.
HS Han shu
, by Pan Ku 
et al. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1975.
HTCTC Hsu tzu-chih t'ung-chien
, by Pi Yuan 
et al. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1979.
HTS Hsin T'ang shu
, by Ou-yang Hsiu 
and Sung Ch'i 
. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1975.
ML Ming-lü chi-chieh fu-li
. 1610; Taipei: Ch'eng-wen, 1970 facsimile of 1898 reprint.
MS Ming-shih
, by Chang T'ing-yü 
et al. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1984.
PCS Pei Ch'i shu
, by Li Te-lin 
and Li Po-yao 
. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1972.
SHT Sung hsing t'ung
, by Tou I 
. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1984.
SKC San-kuo chih
, by Ch'en Shou 
. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1975.
SS Sung shih
, ed. T'o T'o 
et al. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1977.
Sui shu
, by Wei Cheng 
et al. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1973.
TCTC Tzu-chih t'ung-chien
, by Ssu-ma Kuang 
. Hong Kong: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1971.
TML T'ang Ming lü ho-pien
, ed. Hsueh Yun-sheng 
. Kuo-hsueh chi-pen ts'ung-shu ed.
TL T'ang-lü shu-i
by Ch'ang-sun Wu-chi 
et al. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1983.
Secondary Works
Bernard, Elmar Maria. 1972. "Die Yuan-Hou und die Gesellschaftliche und Politische Stellung der Kaiserinnen gegen Ende der Ch'ien-Han-Periode" (Empress Yuan and the social and political position of empresses toward the end of Former Han). Ph.D. diss., Georg-August Universität zu Göttingen.
Bielenstein, Hans. 1967. "The Restoration of the Han Dynasty III." Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 39.2:5-198.
Chan, David B. 1976. The Usurpation of the Prince of Yen, 1398-1402 . San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center.
Chang, Curtis Chung. 1966. "Inheritance Problems in the First Two Reigns of the Sung Dynasty." M.A. thesis, University of Chicago.
Chang Pang-wei 
. 1986. "Shih-lun Sung-tai 'hun-yin pu wen fa-yueh'" 
(Examination of the Sung words "not considering family rank in marriage"). Sung Liao Chin Yuan shih , no. 2:21-36.
Chao Feng-chieh 
. 1937. Chung-kuo fu-nü tsai fa-lü shang chih ti-wei
(Legal position of Chinese women). Shanghai: Commercial Press.
Chiba Hiroshi 
. 1974. "Sodai no kohi; Taiso, Taiso, Shinso, Jinso shicho" 
(The imperial consorts of Emperors T'ai-tsu, T'ai-tsung, Chen-tsung, and Jen-tsung of Northern Sung). In Sodaishi ronso (Collection of essays on Sung history), special anniversary volume presented to Sadao Aoyama. Tokyo: Seishin shobo.
Ch'ü T'ung-tsu. 1961. Law and Society in Traditional China . Paris: Mouton.
———. 1972. Han Social Structure . Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Chung, Priscilla Ching. 1981. Palace Women in the Northern Sung, 960-1126 . Leiden: E.J. Brill.
de Heer, P. H. 1986. The Care-Taker Emperor: Aspects of the Imperial Institution in Fifteenth-Century, China as Reflected in the Political History of the Reign of Chu Ch'i-yu . Leiden: E.J. Brill.
de Crespigny, R. R. C. 1975. "The Harem of Emperor Huan: A Study of Court Politics in Later Han." Papers on Far Eastern History 12:1-42.
DMB (Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368-1664 ). 1976. Ed. L. C. Goodrich and Fang Chao-ying. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press.
Dubs, Homer H. 1955. The History of the Former Han Dynasty . Baltimore: Waverly.
Dull, Jack L. 1978. "Marriage and Divorce in Han China: A Glimpse at 'Pre-Confucian' Society." In Chinese Family Law and Social Change in Historical and Comparative Perspective , ed. David C. Buxbaum. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Ebrey, Patricia. 1981. "Women in the Kinship System of the Southern Song Upper Class." In Women in China , ed. Richard Guisso and Stanley Johannesen. Youngstown, N.Y.: Philo Press.
———. 1983. "Types of Lineages in Ch'ing China: A Re-examination of the Chang Lineage of T'ung-ch'eng." Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i 4.9:1-20.
———. 1984a. "Conceptions of the Family in the Sung Dynasty." Journal of Asian Studies 43. 2:219-45.
———. 1984b. Family and Property in Sung China: Yüan Ts'ai's Precepts for Social Life . Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. 1986. "Concubines in Sung China." Journal of Family History 11.1:1-24.
Endicott-West, Elizabeth. 1986. "Imperial Governance in Yüan Times." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 46.2:523-49.
Fang, Achilles. 1952. The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms . Vol. 1. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
———. 1965. The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms . Vol. 2. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Feng, Han-i. 1948. The Chinese Kinship System . Cambridge: Harvard-Yenching Institute.
Fitzgerald, C. P. 1968. The Empress Wu . Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney: F. W. Cheshire for the Australian National University.
Fletcher, Joseph. 1986. "The Mongols: Ecological and Social Perspectives." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 46.1:11-30.
Grafflin, Dennis. 1980. "Social Order in the Early Southern Dynasties: The Formation of Eastern Chin." Ph.D. diss., Harvard University.
———. 1981. "The Great Family in Medieval South China." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 41.1:63-74.
Greiner, Peter. 1979-80. "Die Frauen am Kaiserhof der Ming-Zeit" (Women at the Ming imperial court). Monumenta Serica 34:1-63.
Hartwell, Robert M. 1982. "Demographic, Political, and Social Transformations of China, 750-1550." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42:365-442.
Holmgren, J. 1980. "Lineage Falsification in the Northern Dynasties: Wei Shou's Ancestry." Papers on Far Eastern History 21:1-16.
———. 1981 "Widow Chastity in the Northern Dynasties: The Lieh-nü Biographies in the Wei-shu. " Papers on Far Eastern History 23:165-86.
———. 1981-83a. "Social Mobility in the Northern Dynasties: A Case Study of the Feng of Northern Yen." Monumenta Serica 35:19-32.
———. 1981-83b. "Women and Political Power in the Traditional T'o-pa Elite: A Preliminary Study of the Biographies of Empresses in the Wei-shu. " Monumenta Seri-ca 35:33-73.
———. 1983a. "The Harem in Northern Wei Politics—398-498 A.D. " Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 26.1:71-96.
———. 1983b. "The Lu Clan of Tai Commandary and Their Contribution to the T'o-pan State of Northern Wei in the Fifth Century." T'oung pao 69.4-5:272-312.
———. 1983c. "Wei-shu Records on the Bestowal of Imperial Princesses during the Northern Wei Dynasty." Papers on Far Eastern History 27:21-97.
———. 1984. "The Making of an Elite: Local Politics and Social Relations in Northeastern China during the Fifth Century A.D. " Papers on Far Eastern History 30:1-79.
———. 1985. "The Economic Foundations of Virtue: Widow-Remarriage in Early and Modern China." Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 13:1-27.
———. 1986a. "Marriage, Kinship and Succession under the Ch'i-tan Rulers of the Liao Dynasty (907-1125)." T'oung pao 72:44-91.
———. 1986b. "Observations on Marriage and Inheritance Practices in Early Mongol and Yuan Society, with Particular Reference to the Levirate." Journal of Asian History 20.2:127-92.
———. 1986c. "Yeh-lü, Yao-lien and Ta-ho: Views of the Hereditary Prerogative in Early Khitan Leadership." Papers on Far Eastern History 34:37-81.
———. 1987. "Political Organization of Non-Han States in China: The Role of Imperial Princes in Wei, Liao and Yuan." Journal of Oriental Studies 25.1:1-48.
———. N.d. "A Question of Strength: Military Capability and Princess Bestowal in Imperial China's Foreign Relations (Han to Ch'ing)." Monumenta Serica (forthcoming).
Hymes, Robert P. 1986. Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Johnson, Wallace. 1979. The T'ang Code . Vol. 1, General Principles . Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kamada, Shigeo, 1962. "Han Emperors' Policy of Oppressing Kingdoms," Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 21: 77-95.
Krader, Lawrence. 1963. Social Organization of the Mongol-Turkic Pastoral Nomads . Indiana University Publications, Uralic and Altaic Series, vol. 20. The Hague: Mouton.
Li Hsueh-ming (Lee Hok-ming) 
. 1970. "Ts'ung Tung Han cheng-ch'üan shih-chih lun ch'i shih ti-shih hun-yin ssu-hsu yü wai-ch'i sheng-chiang chih kuan-hsi" 
(The relationship between political power in Eastern [Later] Han and imperial marriage and succession and the mobility of distaff families). Hsin-ya hsueh-pao 9.2:225-82.
Loewe, Michael. 1974. Crisis and Conflict in Han China . London: George Allen & Unwin.
Sang Hsiu-yun 
. 1969. "Chin-shih Wan-yen shih hun-chih chih shih-shih"
Schurmann, H. F. 1955—56. "Traditional Property Concepts in China." Far Eastern Quarterly 15:507-16.
Shiga, Shuzo. 1978. "Family Property and the Law of Inheritance in Traditional China." In Chinese Family Law and Social Change in Historical and Comparative Perspective , ed. David C. Buxbaum. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Soullière, Ellen F. 1984. "Reflections on Chinese Despotism and the Power of the Inner Court." Asian Profile 12.2:130-45.
———. 1987. "Palace Women in the Ming Dynasty." Ph.D. diss., Princeton University.
———. 1988. "The Imperial Marriages of the Ming Dynasty." Papers on Far Eastern History 37:15-42.
Straughair, Anna. 1973. Chang Hua: A Statesman-Poet of the Chin Dynasty . Occasional Paper 15. Canberra: Australian National University, Faculty of Asian Studies.
Sung Te-chin 
. 1982. "Chin-tai Nü-chen tsu su shu-lun" 
(Jurchen customs in the Chin). Li-shih yen-chiu , no. 3:145-59.
Tai Yen-hui. 1978. "Divorce in Traditional Chinese Law." In Chinese Family Law and Social Change in Historical and Comparative Perspective , ed. David C. Buxbaum. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Tang, Karen Kai-ying. 1975. "Empress Wei, Consort Shang-kuan and the Political Conflicts in the Reign of Chung-tsung." M.A. thesis, University of British Columbia.
Tao Tien-yi. 1974. "Vassal Kings and Marquises of the Former Han Dynasty." Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology (Academia Sinica) 46.1:155-72.
———. 1978. "The System of Imperial Succession during China's Former Han Dynasty (206 B.C. -9 A.D. )." Papers on Far Eastern History 18:171-91.
Tjan, Tjoe Som. 1949, 1952. Reprint, 1973. Po Hu T'ung: The Comprehensive Discussions in the White Tiger Hall . 2 vols. Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press.
Wallacker, Benjamin E. 1987. "Dethronement and Due Process in Early Imperial China." Journal of Asian History 21.1:48-67.
Waltner, Ann Beth. 1981. "The Adoption of Children in Ming and Early Ch'ing China." Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley.
Walton, Linda. 1984. "Kinship, Marriage and Status in Song China: A Study of the Lou Lineage of Ningbo, c. 1050-1250." Journal of Asian History 18.1:35-77.
Ward-Czynska, Bonnie V. 1978. "A Political History of the Imperial Distaff Relatives of the Former Han Dynasty." M.A. thesis, Columbia University.
Wittfogel, K. A., and Feng Chia-sheng. 1949. History of Chinese Society. Liao . Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.
Wong Sun-ming. 1979. "Confucian Ideal and Reality: Transformation of the Institution of Marriage in T'ang China." Ph.D. diss., University of Washington.
Yang Lien-sheng. 1968. "Female Rulers in Imperial China." In Studies of Governmental Institutions in Chinese History , ed. John L. Bishop. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Young, Gregory C. 1986. "Court Politics in the Later Han: Officials and the Consort Clan, A.D. 132-44." Papers on Far Eastern History 34:1-36.