Hierarchy of the Chinese Harem
Working on LWJ’s harem au required me to do a bit of research into my own culture. Media only presents so much, and I had no idea that harems were this complicated. Now, I’m talking about non-royal harems, as in the harems of government officials or rich merchants, because royal harems are actually way more well understood. I thought since everyone probably would be interested to know for fanfic purposes or just for kicks, I would do a fleshed-out version of harem hierarchy for you.
Or as I like to call it: ancient china has exactly 0 chill.
Ultimate: the wife - zhengshi 正室, yuanpei 原配, qi 妻
Only the wife is qi, everyone else that I’m about to talk about is some sort of qie 妾. Qies come in 8-ish ranks, with 1 being the highest and 8 being the lowest. Below are brief explanations of what each rank entails. Remember, not every single one of these ranks have to be filled! These are just what concubines are designated to be once they enter the family based on their social status and relationship to the wife. Of note, these are what the ranks are denominated as, not the addresses people use in face to face conversation:
yingqie 媵妾 or ceshi 侧室 - this is the highest ranking concubine of the harem. Typically, a man does not have concubines before he has a legal wife. To do so would be evoking social taboo. Historical Chinese etiquette restricted men as well as women. Therefore a ceshi typically comes with the wife from her maiden family when the wife marries the husband. Ceishis are usually the wife’s younger blood sister - irrespective whether the sister is from the same mother or not - or female cousins (daughters of their paternal uncles shushu or bobo). It’s not uncommon for sisters to marry the same man, especially in rich and powerful families. Marriages were economic investments as well as social alliances. In the event that the legal wife dies, the ceshi may be raised in rank to the position of wife, so that the alliance of the two families do not end. However, even in that case, even though the ceshi now holds the position of wife and her children are now considered dichu (wife-born), the ceshi is nevertheless still tianfang 填房, meaning “the substitute/replacement house”. She will never be called yuanpei 原配, which means “the original pairing”. The good thing about being a ceshi even if she never becomes a main wife is that her name gets recorded in the family genealogy, and when she dies, her tomb plaque will be placed in the ancestral hall to be paid respects to and remembered. The other concubines lower on the list do not get this privilege.
fushi 副室 - the second highest ranking concubine type, is typically also those who marry into the marry at the same time as the wife. Fushi are usually the wife’s cousins with different last name as the wife, aka daughters of the wife’s paternal aunt (gugu) or maternal uncle (jiujiu) or maternal aunt (yimu).
pianshi 偏室 - these are also the wife’s cousins, married in at the same time as the wife, but typically are the lower ranking concubine-born daughters of the wife’s maternal aunt (yimu) or paternal aunt (gugu)’s family, so not necessarily blood related to the wife at all but still within the family. Pianshi can be concubine-born, since it’s lower in rank, and therefore the social status of the young woman does not need to be as rigorous.
pianfang 偏房 - these concubines have no blood relation to the wife and are not typically married in at the same time as the wife. They are from different families all together. There are three subcategories: 偏房贵妾 (guiqie), 偏房良妾 (liangqie), 偏房贱妾 (jianqie). Guiqie are usually concubine-born daughters of other high class families (i.e.: officials, nobles etc). Liangqie are usually daughters of regular families (ie: scholars, merchants, even farmers). These are good, well to do girls with clean pedigrees. Jianqie are usually women of somewhat ill-repute like courtesans or singers/actors that the husband favoured and somehow managed to marry into the family.
shiqie 侍妾 - now this is where it gets fucked up. Any female servant in the family is considered indentured and therefore property to the master. He can sleep with any of them at any given time (with or without consent). If he sleeps with them and then decide to elevate their rank from servitude, then they become an official concubine called shiqie. Depending on how much he likes her, she can live pretty comfortably. If she’s not favoured, then her allowance would not be that much, but at least being a shiqie means she’s a proper minor mistress of the household and not a servant any longer.
biqie 婢妾 - I’ll need to explain this in another post. Essentially she’s a woman with some kind of criminal/prison record. It’s more complicated than that. She’s almost no better than servants. Peifang (7) and tongfang da-yatou (8) even if they started off as servants, once they have children, their position is pretty much locked in and secured. They don’t have to worry about being sold off again. Biqie however, can still be sold off or given away, children or no children.
peifang 陪房 - Peifang is literally any female attendant and handmaid that the wife (or any of the other high ranking concubines above) brings to their husband’s family. These individuals, like dowry, now belong to the husband. BUT! These are higher ranking concubines’ closest confidants, so their position in the household is quite stable. Even if the master sleeps with them and then don’t make them into a minor concubine (shiqie 5), they’re still quite protected by the high ranking concubine they serve. If the master does favour them or they happen to fall pregnant, then their position as a minor mistress of the household is pretty much guaranteed.
tongfang da-yatou 通房大丫头 - this is a servant which originates from the husband’s side of the family, which the husband slept with but didn’t make elevate into a shiqie (5). In this case, she remains a servant. Typically, tongfang da-yatou are young maids who serve young masters during their early pubescent days. In a word, teenage boys be horny, but he isn’t married yet. Rather than letting him go whoring in a brothel, it’s almost expected that young handmaids “take care” of the problem. Remember, maids and servants are indentured. They basically belong to the family they serve. Typically, these maids know their young masters since childhood and they’re almost like childhood friends and share a greater bond. You can imagine that when the young master eventually marries, his legal wife is not gonna like that much. If she’s a kind woman, and her husband still very much likes the maid, then she will elevate the maid to be his shiqie (5). The husband has… almost very little say in this. Sometimes his parents will even force him to marry-off this maid to a male servant of the family before he marries his wife because they’re afraid that having this girl around is going to take his attention off his new wife. The thing about Chinese harems is that everything is dictated by etiquette. No matter how much a man loves his concubine, or many concubines he has, he should ALWAYS honour his wife first and foremost. To do so otherwise is to invite ridicule onto himself and dishonour upon the family.
So now you ask, is there such a thing as “mistress” then in ancient China? Why yes, there is. Concubines listed above are all women who are officially part of the husband’s household in some fashion or another. A mistress or a waishi, implies that she is someone not recognized by the family. In #4 I mentioned courtesans or singers. Typically, these women are not accepted by the elders of the family, and the man cannot marry them as jianqie concubines . If he wishes to retain them, he’ll have to set up property for them elsewhere, hence the term “waishi” - the external house.
* dichu (wife-born) vs shuchu (concubine-born) are two phrases you will encounter a lot in cdrama. The truth is ancient society was highly tiered. Even within the same family, children were considered more or less esteemed/respectable/important based on whose uterus they came out of. Children born to the wife will have better prospects than children born to concubine (usually). Daughters of wife usually strike better matches in the marriage market and go on to be wives themselves, whereas daughters of concubines may very well end up as concubines, especially if they are not loved by their father. However, some concubine-born daughter can make good matches and be legal wives. Concubine-born sons will never inherit before his wife-born brothers, no matter the age. Only when there are no wife-born sons would a concubine-born son inherit.
SO! I hope this helped. I know in another post I mentioned “xiao-niang” as an address for concubines, turns out… it’s more nuanced than that. I’ll add an addenum to that one!
Concubines Rank #1-3 woudl be referred to as X-fu’ren, X= maiden name
Concubine Rank #4-6 would be referred to as X-xiao’niang or X-yi’niang, X=maiden name
Concubine Rank #7-8 would be referred to as X-guniang, X= maiden name
Wife is just ‘Fu’ren’ full stop when speaking within the family. When outsiders speak to the wife, she is Husband’s Last Name-fu’ren.
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