JANUARY 2011 : MISTRESSES OF THE MONTH : THE CHINESE CONCUBINES & MISTRESSES

This month we are looking at a category of mistressing that has taken place in another country and culture, China. The term concubine, is most commonly used.

Fiction and Non-Fiction about "Oriental" Mistresses is read here in the Western world as if these women were and are "other," as if their lives and the way they lived (and live) has nothing to do with ours. Historically Chinese men had many wives as well, and Judaic-Christianity was not the dominating religious factor while Confucius held sway. So came a social system that kept people in check based on where their social positions and the responsibilities that came with it. By today's Western standards Chinese women were some of the most dominated and repressed women ever, women of little value. Now China's one child policy has created a situation in which many men may never marry or father. Some Chinese men are sending to Korea for wives!

Yet, what we have in common with these Chinese mistresses, is what we have in common with all women (and it could be said all people who are not in power), the need to survive and society's dictates which make it difficult at times and sometimes impossible without relationships that involve sex, legal or not, acceptable to the majority or not.

Because Mistressing was not as underground or in the closet there and then in China than it is here and now, wives came to understand the role of mistresses in their lives. For some having a husband who had other wives and/or mistresses was a welcome feature of their married life, for others a misery.

One of the features of multiple wife and/or mistress lifestyle is that with so many women, it is a rare man who can provide for all sexually. Multiple wives in some cultures have reported that they were less "bothered" for sex by their mutual husband, and they had more freedom, independence, and child-care helpers, than women married to one man.

Missy Rapport 2011 C All Rights Reserved Internet and International as well...