More or Less; Marital Fertility and Physical Management in Late Imperial China

Abstract

Whence or whether human reproductive behavior has ever been entirely ”natural” is a topic much debated in modern demography. The presumably ”natural” sex drives, and the procreation that follows, as far back as recorded history may serve as meaningful witness, hardly ever coincide with human wishes to reproduce. Added to these other socio-economic and cultural conditions, we see ample room for intervention and manipulation. The enduring wish to exert some kind of control over the purely biological reproduction generates a variety of beliefs, knowledge, and skills, which influence ways of copulation and conception, as births were accorded more or less frequently as those under ”natural” conditions. Human motivation and the resultant techniques are thus at the very core of the questions to be confronted when we deal with the term natural fertility regime (NFR). In sex and reproduction, the Chinese, like others, never pursued simply the naturalist tendencies. Historically, they are known as preachers and practitioners of particular and well-articulated views on this biological process. The following essay examines the socio-cultural factors as well as the medical technology that may have had either a positive or a negative effect on fertility patterns in late imperial China. The demographic concepts of NFR, and marital fertility rate (MFR) are particularly intriguing given the complexity of reproductive behavior in historical China. On the one hand, socio-cultural considerations had long come into play regarding people's notions and habits of coition, as well as their decisions in child-bearing. More importantly, dating from very early times, medical knowledge and technical devices were available for altering nature's course in the timing and the number of births.