Spring and Autumn Period –
The
origin of the Chinese courtesan culture can be traced as far back as the Spring
and Autumn period (771 – 476 BC). In those ancient times, it was customary for kings
and aristocrats to own slave consorts whose function was to perform music and
dance at court functions and to serve their masters in bed. Many of these slave
consorts and other street prostitutes were female relatives of defeated war
enemies.
Guan
Zhong, a chancellor of the State of Qi, saw fit to set up 700 brothels in a designated
area so as to apply some administrative control. It was in fact a ploy to
extract levies on the prostitution business to finance the army. Also, administrators
could summon these prostitutes to entertain visiting state dignitaries. This
was the earliest form of official prostitution.
Han Dynasty –
During
the Han Dynasty and Three Kingdom period, imperial rulers kept harems of
consorts while court officials owned and trained slave courtesans in music and
dancing in their homes.
In
times of battles, wives and daughters of slain or captured enemies were routinely
forced into sex slavery. It was Emperor Wu of Western Han (206 BC – 9 AD) who established
a centralized system of “barracks courtesans” to serve soldiers of all ranks in
military camps. When battles ended, these barracks courtesans were normally sold
to brothels or given to soldiers’ households to serve as maids.
Tang Dynasty –
It
was not until the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907) that the courtesan culture became institutionalized
and more visible in society.
Throughout
the Tang and subsequent dynasties, the Ministry of Rites was responsible for
running separate music and dance schools to train courtesans. Talented performers
were selected to become court entertainers in the inner court of Imperial
Palaces. Novices could be bought from slave traffickers.
Social
code grouped all courtesans, musicians, actors, actresses and prostitutes in
what was called the jianmin caste 賤民 (meaning worthless people), which was
hereditary. Marriage to commoners was strictly forbidden.
Emperor
Xuanzong (712 – 755), a zealous music lover, personally set up the Pear Garden 梨園 (the imperial music academy) and hand-picked
hundreds of top-rated musicians from the music school, training them to be
elite court entertainers. The prettiest girls from both the music and dance
schools would usually end up being picked out to serve as imperial consorts in
the Emperor’s harem.
This
kind of music and dance training then became trendy in society. Theatre
apprentices, novice music players and dancers as well as prostitutes were all eager
to get enrolled and trained at the prestigious court-run music and dance schools,
which offered them possible path to a vocation either as court entertainers or
high-class courtesans.
As
courtesans became more cultivated in the arts, romantic liaison between cultured
courtesans and scholars began to flourish and, very often, poetry writing acted
as a conduit. Poetry was an important part of Tang culture and officialdom, as
it was used as a yardstick in civil service examination to select scholars as state
officials. By extension, poetry skills also began to define cultured
courtesans.
Two
of the most renowned courtesan-poets of the Tang Dynasty were Xue Tao (770 –
832) and Yu Xuanji (840 – 868).
Song and Yuan Dynasties –
In
the Song (960 – 1279) and Yuan (1271 – 1368) Dynasties, the registration and regulation
of courtesans and entertainers remained in the hands of the court-run music and
dance schools, whose recruits could include girls sold by impoverished families
to slave traffickers. Those who were designated as “government courtesans” were
mostly enslaved female relatives of criminals and political prisoners, and were
on call to entertain ministry officials at public functions or in their homes.
In
general, social attitude towards courtesans was negative because of rigid class
distinction. With the rise of orthodox Neo-Confucianism in the Northern Song
Dynasty, scholar-officials’ association with courtesans was considered immoral
and generally frowned upon by society. Granted, it was common for scholar-officials
and wealthy merchants to purchase and keep trained courtesans for sex and
private entertainment.
The
most famous Song courtesan-poet was Li Shishi (1062 – 1127), who had a secret
passionate love affair with Song Emperor Huizong (1082 – 1135).
Ming Dynasty –
When
Zhu Yuanzhang (1328 – 1398) began his reign as the first Ming Emperor, he made Jinling
金陵 (present-day Nanjing)
his capital. During his rule, he established an entertainers’ compound along
the banks of the Qinhuai River 秦淮河
for the purpose of hosting public functions, to which courtesans were routinely
summoned to perform music and dance. This led to brothels congregating in the
area throughout the Ming Dynasty, and Qinhuai achieved renown as the Jinling
pleasure hub, while nearby Yangzhou became known for its supply of “thin horses”
(i.e. girl slaves trained for sale).
However,
the Great Ming Code decreed that it was a crime for scholar-officials to sleep
with courtesans, and offenders would be slapped with a punishment only one
degree below the death penalty. But in real life, it was not uncommon for
scholar-officials to flout this law.
Historians
have suggested that it was definitely in the late-Ming period that cultivated
courtesans came to be highly extolled, as romantic association between the literati
and cultivated courtesans normalized. Poetry writing and appreciation often
acted as a conduit in these romantic liaisons, and many courtesans were well
versed in the craft of poetry writing, calligraphy and painting. In fact, many
courtesan-poets/artists married into gentry families, becoming wives and concubines
of prominent scholar officials. This phenomenon was considered unique to the late-Ming
era.
In
Sufeng Xu’s 2007 dissertation entitled Lotus
Flowers Rising from the Dark Mud: Late Ming Courtesans and Their Poetry,
the McGill University scholar argues that the phenomenon owed much to the rise
of literary-political societies throughout the region of Jiangnan (South of the
Yangtze) during the troubled times of the Ming-Qing transition.
Elite
and non-conformist scholars of these societies would meet regularly and freely discuss
poetry and politics. Through promoting and anthologizing poetry writings by
cultivated courtesans, and through romantic involvement with them, these
scholars were in fact championing a counterculture, which could be seen as open
resistance to the austere Neo-Confucianism teachings. It was also a kind of
protest against the officialdom examination system that valued solely the art
of prose (called “eight-legged essays” 八股文),
a relatively insipid form of literature compared to Tang and Song poetry.
Thus,
it was this conscious effort on the part of the free-minded, poetry-loving
literati that helped to exalt the courtesan culture in the late-Ming period.
The
most celebrated late-Ming courtesan-poet was Liu Rushi (1618 - 1664), who was known
for her independent spirit and free thinking.
Qing Dynasty –
However,
ascetic classism again came to the fore during the Qing Manchu rule to denigrate
courtesans’ literary writings and suppress the semi-liberated courtesan
culture.
It
wasn’t until the reign of the Qing Yongzhen Emperor that courtesans,
entertainers and prostitutes were finally freed from the jianmin stigma and from then on ranked as commoners.
