현대 중국 사회 納妾의 과도기적 양상

Abstract

A Chinese Patriarchal clan system is fundamentally organized by a bloodline, a direct descendant, a relation with a family defines a wife or a concubine. Therefore a wife and a concubine were not fixed ideas but changeable ideas. A purpose of marriage, either west of east, is for the succession of one's family in premodern society. But Keeping a concubine is an unique system that is related to the custom notion of preferring sons to daughters. And in spite of making a new modern law, this custom was persistently alive in 1920-30's chinese society. In this paper, I studied about the transitional aspect of keeping a concubine through Ouyang yuqian's 「Pofu: a rough daughter-in- law」, Roushi's 「Wei nuli de muqin: a Mother who be sold into slavery」, Luoshu's 「Shengrenqi: a new wife」. In the higher ranges of society, keeping a concubine was still rampant for a son who was a successor to a family, and women of young generation ironically allowed their husbands to keep a concubine, too. Because women of young generation didn't want to give up traditional wife's social status. In addition to, a variety of keeping a concubine was spread in the lower classes of society, especially a farm area. Because of the impoverishment of rural communities in 1930's, a farmer had no money that celebrated a wedding. So some farmer mortgaged his wife, some farmer bought others' wife. Labor determine productive capacity in a farm area, so their mortgaging their wife was another keeping a concubine. As a matter of fact, a wife who mortgaged was a concubine, had no real wife's social status. The keeping a concubine could not be solved through a introduction of modern family system and women's liberation movement. And that problem is still effective in chinese society although the family law was revised in several times.