Just like a ‘modern’ wife? Concubines on the public stage in early Republican China

Abstract

Whilst scholars have highlighted a variety of women who became active in the public arena in early Republican China (1912–28), little attention has been given to concubines. Beyond reformers’ social and legal efforts to abolish the custom of concubinage, we know little about the public activities of concubines and social reactions to them. This article investigates how, under the influence of the Western practice of wives accompanying their official husbands for formal functions, Chinese officials were obliged to bring their wives out of domestic seclusion to appear with them in public. Many wives, however, did not feel comfortable doing so. Consequently, a unique opportunity opened up for the concubines of Chinese officials to play the role of a ‘modern’ wife on various social and diplomatic occasions both domestic and abroad, which brought an unprecedented degree of visibility and respectability to a category of women of traditionally low-status origin. Nevertheless, these women suffered and endured discrimination and stigmatization for a variety of reasons. Their public presence was full of tensions and contradictions, which reveal the social reality of a China caught between the legacies of custom and tradition and new ideals of gender and nation inspired by Western definitions of modernity.