Misers, Shrews, and Polygamists: Sexuality and Male-female Relations in Eighteenth-century Chinese FictionHaving multiple wives was one of the mainstays of male privilege during the Ming and Qing dynasties of late imperial China. Based on a comprehensive reading of eighteenth-century Chinese novels and a theoretical approach grounded in poststructuralist, psychoanalytic, and feminist criticism, Misers, Shrews, and Polygamists examines how such privilege functions in these novels and provides the first full account of literary representations of sexuality and gender in pre-modern China. In many examples of rare erotic fiction, and in other works as well-known as Dream of the Red Chamber, Keith McMahon identifies a sexual economy defined by the figures of the "miser" and the "shrew"--caricatures of the retentive, self-containing man and the overflowing, male-enervating woman. Among these and other characters, the author explores the issues surrounding the practice of polygamy, the logic of its overvaluation of masculinity, and the nature of sexuality generally in Chinese society. How does the man with many wives manage and justify his sexual authority? Why and how might he escape or limit this presumed authority, sometimes to the point of portraying himself as abject before the shrewish woman? How do women accommodate or coddle the man, or else oppose, undermine, or remold him? And in what sense does the man place himself lower than the spiritually and morally superior woman? The most extensive English-language study of Chinese literature from the eighteenth century, this examination of polygamy will interest not only students of Chinese history, culture, and literature but also all those concerned with histories of gender and sexuality. |
Contents
Sexuality and MaleFemale Subjectivity in Qing Fiction1 The Various | 17 |
Polygamy According to Fiction and Prescriptive Models | 28 |
Shrews and Jealousy in Seventeenth and EighteenthCentury | 55 |
The Miser and the Ascetic | 82 |
The Chaste BeautyScholar Romance and the Superiority of | 99 |
The Erotic ScholarBeauty Romance | 126 |
Chaste Polygamy | 150 |
Polygyny Crossing of Gender and the Superiority of Women | 176 |
The Spoiled Son and the Doting Mother in Qilu Deng | 221 |
The Wastrel and the Prostitute | 234 |
The Benevolent Polygamist and the Domestication of Sexual | 251 |
Ernü Yingxiong Zhuan as Antidote to Honglou Meng | 265 |
Promiscuous Polygyny and Male SelfCritique | 283 |
Notes | 293 |
Bibliography | 327 |
Glossary of Chinese Characters | 341 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
ascetic Baochai beauty beauty-scholar romances Beijing University Beijing University library Caiyun Cao Xueqin chapter characters chaste romances chastity China chubanshe Chunwan concubine Confucian Daiyu daughter discussed early Qing edition Ernü yingxiong zhuan erotic romances erotica example father female Fenghuang gender Geng hero heroine Honglou meng husband intercourse Ishimpō Ji Dian Jia Baoyu Jiao Li Jin Ping Mei Jinzhonger Laozi late Ming Lin Lan Xiang lovers lust Lüye xianzong maid main wife male man's marriage marry Mengqing Ming and Qing miser monk monogamous monogamy mother novel numerous Pan Jinlian penis polygamist polygamy polygynist polygyny portrayal portrays prostitute Qilu deng Qing fiction Qingmeng role Rulin waishi Ruyu scholar sexual Shenlou zhi shrew shrewish story Suchen superior symmetry takes talented Tang Taohua ying Thirteenth Sister Wang wastrel wives woman women Xianger xianzong Xiaoguan Ximen Qing xing Xiren Xuan Yesou puyan Yu Jiao Yufeng Zhang Zhou