Polygamy and Sublime Passion: Sexuality in China on the Verge of Modernity

Keith McMahon

Published by University of Hawaii Press 2010

Polygamy and Sublime Passion

Sexuality in China on the Verge of Modernity

Keith McMahon

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824837648

Overview
Contents

About this book

For centuries of Chinese history, polygamy and prostitution were closely linked practices that legitimized the "polygynous male," the man with multiple sexual partners. Despite their strict hierarchies, these practices also addressed fundamental antagonisms in sexual relations in serious and constructive ways. Qing fiction abounds in stories of female resistance and superiority. Women—main wives, concubines, and prostitutes—were adept at exerting control and gaining status for themselves, while men indulged in elaborate fantasies about female power. In Polygamy and Sublime Passion, Keith McMahon introduces a new concept, "passive polygamy," to explain the unusual number of Qing stories in which women take charge of a man’s desires, turning him into an instrument of female will. To this he adds a story that haunted the institutions of polygamy and prostitution: the tale of "sublime passion," in which the main characters are a "remarkable" woman and her male lover.

Throughout the book McMahon examines how polygamy, prostitution, and the story of sublime passion encountered the first stages of paradigmatic change in the nineteenth century, decades before the legal abolition of polygamy. By the end of the Qing dynasty in 1911, love stories were celebrating the exploits of street-smart prostitutes who fleeced gullible patrons in the bustling city of Shanghai. What do these characters have in common with their early counterparts as men and women became inhabitants of a new city in an era flooded with ideas from radically foreign sources—all of this taking place in a time of economic and cultural dislocation? McMahon reads late Qing love stories in a historically symbolic way, taking them as part of a larger fantasy of Chinese civilization undergoing a fundamental crisis. The polygamous marriage and the affairs of the brothel became metaphorical staging grounds for portraying the destiny of China on the verge of modernity. Finally, McMahon speculates on the changes polygamous sexuality underwent after the Qing dynasty ended and whether it exerted a residual influence in later times.

Polygamy and Sublime Passion will undoubtedly engage those interested in Chinese society, culture, literature, and gender studies as well as comparativists seeking to understand the diverse responses to modernization around the world.

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Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	iii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	v
List of Frequently Cited Titles in English Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction: The Male Consort of the Remarkable Woman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter One: Sublime Passion and the Remarkable Woman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	16
Chapter Two: Qing Can Be With One and Only One Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
Chapter Four: The Love Story and Civilizational Crisis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	68
Chapter Five: Passive Polygyny in Two Kinds of Man-Child Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
Chapter Six: Fleecing the Customer in Shanghai Brothels of the 1890s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	100
Chapter Seven: Cultural Destiny and Polygynous Love in Zou Tao’s Shanghai Dust Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
Chapter Eight: The Polygynous Politics of the Modern Chinese Man in Nine-Times Cuckold Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	126
Conclusion: The Postpolygynous Future Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
Character Glossary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207

Language: English
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 224

eBook

Published: November 24, 2009
ISBN: 9780824837648