What was the difference in status between concubines and wives in ancient times?

The wife is determined by the order of the husband's parents, while the concubine is entirely determined by the husband's preference, and the family usually does not interfere.

Therefore, the husband plays a decisive role in everything the concubine does in the family. We often say that a person only needs to be responsible for the person who controls his destiny. For a wife, the husband is not the most important factor in determining the wife. The status of the wife is not given by the husband. There is a strict patriarchal system for marrying and divorced wives. The husband is not allowed to make arbitrary demands, so the wife does not need to invite favors from her husband, or even basically ignore them.

We often see in film and television works that husbands hate their wives but are helpless. This is the reason. In the final analysis, the husband is not the decisive factor in the status of his wife. But the concubine is different. It can be said that everything she has is given by her husband. For me, her husband is everything to her in this family. Therefore, I will use all kinds of tricks to please her husband, and I will flatter her husband in every possible way. , in short, for the concubine, making her husband happy is more important than anything else.

Because the husband is the most important factor that determines the quality of the concubine's life, status, and even life and death. This is no exaggeration. In history, there were many people who killed their concubines with a stick, but there were only a few who killed their wives with a stick. Besides, the original purpose of a husband taking a concubine is to make himself happy, so when he can choose freely, he will of course choose the woman he likes as his concubine. Therefore, we often say that "a wife is not as good as a concubine" does not refer to the status gap, but the degree of favor in her husband's heart.

It is almost inevitable to prefer concubines, because you did not choose your wife, but you must be the one you like.

Let’s look at the relationship between concubine and wife. Once again, if the patriarchal system and legal provisions are strictly followed when it comes to favoring a concubine over the master, the concubine may be executed with a stick. Because a wife and a concubine are essentially a master-servant relationship.

The concubine’s oppression of his wife is the following crime. It is not just a matter of family conflict, but a matter of a slave offending his master. This is definitely a big deal in ancient ethics, so it is usually only seen in fictional film and television works. exist. Specifically, a wife can be compared with a husband. Husband and wife are a relationship between spouses and partners. According to the tradition of men taking charge of the outside and women taking charge of the house, the husband is the person in charge of the external affairs of the family, and the wife is the decision-maker of the internal affairs of the family. .

Therefore, all the wives of the concubine can intervene, because these are internal affairs matters and are the scope of the wife's power guaranteed by the patriarchal law. Looking at it more enlarged, even the emperor's favored concubine (essentially a concubine) must also get the queen's rights. (Essentially, it is the wife’s permission), so one can imagine how powerful the wife’s say in internal affairs of the family is. In fact, the truth is very simple when you think about it. The role of a wife is to maintain the bond between the family and the family's in-laws to a certain extent. The wavering of the wife's status will often affect the rise and fall of snobbery outside the family, and the concubine is just a plaything of the husband. Does it have any influence on the family? However, how can the two be equal in this status?

Of course, it should be explained here that these are all based on the standards of the patriarchal system. In fact, it is normal for many men to ignore etiquette, favor their concubines, and neglect their wives because of their pillow style. But the concubine must not behave in such a way that exceeds the rules towards his wife. Not only that, there are also clear regulations on the specific interactions between the two. For example, the concubine must greet his wife every day, and when the wife sits down, the concubine can only stand. Even if the wife gives her a seat, she can only do half of the buttocks, etc., so I won’t go into details here.

Let’s talk about the relationship between the concubine’s family and her husband’s family. We know that the wife's family and the husband's family are an in-law relationship. This kind of relationship was actually interdependent in ancient times. Therefore, in ancient times, three clans were slaughtered, namely the father's clan, the mother's clan and the wife's clan. Therefore, to a certain extent, the wife's family and the husband's family are strategic allies who both suffer and prosper. There is no such relationship between the concubine's family and the husband's family. As mentioned before, marrying a wife is a family behavior, so marrying a wife must be decided by the family, and concubinage is basically decided based on the husband's personal likes and dislikes. This is a This is a personal behavior, so the family will not be responsible for it, nor will it recognize any connection with the concubine's family. This is why the ancient concubine system never included the concubine family. Therefore, the husband's family does not recognize the concubine's family as a relative.

Finally, let’s talk about the relationship between the concubine and her husband’s children. First of all, it should be noted that there is basically no relationship between the concubine and the children of her husband's other women. The concubine has no obligation to take care of and raise these children, and these children have no responsibility to support their father's concubines. The two are strangers under the same roof.

The most important thing is the relationship between the concubine and her children. According to the requirements of the patriarchal system, this is only the mother-child relationship by blood, not the mother-child relationship recognized by the patriarchal law. The patriarchal mother-child relationship is all children. The relationship between (whether born from a concubine or a wife) and the husband's legitimate wife. Any child, whether born from a concubine or not, has no mother-child relationship with the concubine in the patriarchal sense. This seems a bit unhuman to us now, but the system is like this, and even the emperor has to follow it. An inaccurate example is in history. The famous ceremonial event of the Jiajing Dynasty was that the biological mother could not be recognized as her mother. Even the emperor could not change this, which shows the harshness of the ancient patriarchal system.

As can be seen from the above, concubines and wives are really very different, which is why many concubines always want to straighten them out. If this step is successful, it will really be a step to the sky. But the real situation is that very few concubines can successfully rise to the top. This is very relevant to our previous analysis of the different identities, different statuses, and different functions of wives and concubines.

Everyone looks at the gate of the mansion. When Bai Laoqi finally married Xiangxiu, Yang Jiuhong complained that he had never asked for support. This was not because he didn’t want to, but because it was too difficult. Later, this matter was opposed by the entire clan, because it was about marrying a wife, which was related to the family, while taking a concubine did not matter. Of course, only someone like Master Qi who is not bound by etiquette and law can be so ridiculous. Under normal circumstances, there is an essential difference between marrying a "wife" and marrying a "concubine".