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Zusammenfassung d. Verlages: Having multiple wives was one of the mainstays of male privilege during the Ming and Qing dynasties of late imperial China. Based on a comprehensive reading of eighteenth-century Chinese novels and a theoretical approach grounded in poststructuralist, psychoanalytic, and feminist criticism, Misers, Shrews, and Polygamists examines how such privilege functions in these novels and provides the first full account of literary representations of sexuality and gender in pre-modern China In many examples of rare erotic fiction, and in other works as well-known as Dream of the Red Chamber, Keith McMahon identifies a sexual economy defined by the figures of the "miser" and the "shrew"caricatures of the retentive, self-containing man and the overflowing, male-enervating woman. Among these and other characters, the author explores the issues surrounding the practice of polygamy, the logic of its overvaluation of masculinity, and the nature of sexuality generally in Chinese society. How does the man with many wives manage and justify his sexual authority? Why and how might he escape or limit this presumed authority, sometimes to the point of portraying himself as abject before the shrewish woman? How do women accommodate or coddle the man, or else oppose, undermine, or remold him? And in what sense does the man place himself lower than the spiritually and morally superior woman? The most extensive English-language study of Chinese literature from the eighteenth century, this examination of polygamy will interest not only students of Chinese history, culture, and literature but also all those concerned with histories of gender and sexuality. Includes bibliographical references (p. [327]-340) and index Inhalt: Preface -- Notes on Romanization -- 1. Potent Polygamists and Chaste Monogamists -- Sexuality and Male-Female Subjectivity in Qing Fiction -- The Various Character Types and the Theme of Female Superiority -- Misers, Shrews, and Polygamists -- Marriage and Sexuality in Fiction and Other Sources of Qing History -- 2. Polygamy According to Fiction and Prescriptive Models -- The Problems of Polygyny in History, Fiction, and Prescriptive Texts -- Polygamy in Jin Ping Mei and Other Late Ming Fiction -- An Overview -- 3. Shrews and Jealousy in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Vernacular Fiction -- Jealous Wives and Henpecked Husbands -- The Ars Erotica, the Shrew Story, and the Sexual Power of the Woman -- The Repertoire of Stories about Shrews -- 4. The Self-Containing Man: The Miser and the Ascetic -- The Miser in Ming and Qing Fiction -- The Ascetic Ji Dian -- Self-Containment, Male and Female -- 5. The Chaste "Beauty-Scholar" Romance and the Superiority of the Talented Woman -- The Romantic Marriage of Talented Beauty and Handsome Scholar -- Definition of the Chaste Caizi Jiaren Romance -- The Remarkable Woman and her Relationship with the Man -- The Chaste Polygamous Romance Yu Jiao Li -- The Rational Optimism of the Beauty-Scholar Romance -- The Idealization of Women -- 6. The Erotic Scholar-Beauty Romance -- "Crossing the Wall" -- Between Chaste and Erotic in Jinxiang ting and Qingmeng tuo -- Further Departures from the Chaste Romance -- Contagious Promiscuity in Chundeng Mishi, Taohua Ying, and Xinghua Tian -- The Idealism of the Erotic Romance -- Inhalt: 7. A Case for Confucian Sexuality: Chaste Polygamy in Yesou Puyan -- The Confucian Superman -- The Author and his Work -- Confucian Superman in a Lascivious World -- Yesou Puyan in Light of Honglou Meng and Other Fiction of the Ming and Qing -- The Marriage of Confucian Orthodoxy and Erotic Literature -- 8. Polygyny, Crossing of Gender, and the Superiority of Women in Honglou Meng -- Honglou meng and the Chaste and Erotic Romances -- The Study of Honglou meng in China -- Symmetry and the Superiority of Women -- The Prepolygamist's Mingling with Women -- The Idealization of Presexual Adolescence -- 9. The Overly Virtuous Wife and the Wastrel Polygamist in Lin Lan Xiang -- Women's Sacrifice and Formation of Alliances -- Five Types of Women in the Polygamous Household -- The Hidden Influence of Virtuous Women -- 10. The Spoiled Son and the Doting Mother in Qilu Deng -- Qilu Deng on Women and Family Life -- The Ruination Caused by Motherly Love -- The Wastrel versus the Shrew -- 11. The Other Scholar and Beauty: The Wastrel and the Prostitute in Luye Xianzong -- The Wastrel and the Prostitute -- The Addiction to Sexual Desire -- Women's Demands and the Danger of Women -- 12. The Benevolent Polygamist and the Domestication of Sexual Pleasure in Shenlou Zhi -- The Mirage of Love -- Guangdong and the Contact with Foreigners -- The Good Polygamist, Nonwastrel, Nonmiser -- Male Sexual Bosses -- Xiaoguan, Suchen, and Baoyu -- 13. Ernu Yingxiong Zhuan as Antidote to Honglou Meng -- The Warrior Woman Thirteenth Sister -- The Soft Male Hero -- Health and Pollution -- 14. Promiscuous Polygyny and Male Self-Critique -- Chaste and Unchaste Heroines in Jin Yun Qiao and Jinghua Yuan -- Alienation and Alliance between Men and Women -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Glossary of Chinese Characters -- Index. |
