為什麼中國皇帝有成千上萬的妃子，而西方皇帝只有一個妻子?_風聞

【來源龍騰網】

評論原創翻譯：

Why did the Chinese emperors have thousands of concubines, while the Western emperors had only one wife?

為什麼中國皇帝有成千上萬的妃子，而西方皇帝只有一個妻子?

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Ge Wang, lives in China

Usually the emperor only have one woman that has the title皇后, which is equivalent to a queen. The queen and the emperor’’s mother (which was also a queen when the emperor’’s father was ruling) are the two most powerful women. Other women are tools to produce an heir, although they do have some kinds of less important titles. The queen is usually sexted from noble and well educated families and is married to the emperor(who may be a crown prince) at a young age (around 15). The queen is the first few women the emperor had in his life.

It is not easy to upgrade to the queen for other women even when the queen becomes old. The queen’s first son would be next emperor. And when they don’’t have a son, other women’’s son would be given to the queen. The queen is the mother of all the sons by law. But the new emperor would respect his real mother and name her the title after his succession, so there may be three most powerful women in the palace. Sometimes a more beautiful woman who may also come from a noble and powerful family may challenge the queen and the emperor may like her and support her. A lot stories may happen. However, changing a queen who don’t conduct any bad behaviors is against the mainstream value so most scholars and the emperor’’s cabinet and advisors will argue with the emperor.

By the way, it is legal for every man, not only the emperors, to have more than one wife at the same time.

通常皇帝只有一個頭銜為“皇后”的女人，相當於一個女王。女王和皇帝的母親(在皇帝的父親統治時期也是女王)是兩個最有權勢的女人。其他女性是生育後代的工具，儘管她們確實擁有一些不那麼重要的頭銜。女王通常是從貴族和受過良好教育的家庭中挑選出來的，在很年輕的時候(大約15歲)就嫁給了皇帝(可能是皇太子)。女王是皇帝一生中遇到的第一個女人。

即使女王年紀大了，其他女人升級為女王也是不容易的。女王的長子將成為下一任皇帝。當他們沒有兒子的時候，其他女人的兒子就會被送給女王。根據法規，女王是所有兒子的母親。但新皇帝會尊重他的親生母親，並在他繼位後給她頭銜，所以皇宮裏可能有三個最有權勢的女人。有時，一個來自高貴和強大家庭的更漂亮的女人可能會挑戰女王，皇帝可能會喜歡和支持她。可能會發生很多故事。然而，更換一個沒有任何不良行為的女王是違背主流價值觀的，所以大多數學者和皇帝的內閣以及諫臣都會與皇帝爭論。

順便説一下，在同一時期，不僅是皇帝，每個男人有一個以上的妻子都是合法的。

Melania Van（回覆Steve Lukis）

Nope. Empress Consort can be abolished, however not easy. Wu Zetian tried to set up Empress Consort Wang, thus she could be the Empress Consort. Wang was imprisoned for years before getting killed. It was much easier to murder the Empress Consort than try to abolish her.

不。后妃是可以廢除的，但並不容易。武則天想陷害王皇后，這樣她自己就可以成為皇后。王在被殺前曾被囚禁多年。殺死皇后比廢除她要容易得多。

Valeri Leaver（回覆Melania Van）

Sounds great just another form of slavery to keep women in a place where they have no place in society and no place in the world. I’’m glad don’’t live in that world. That would have made her a mistress , whatever the hell you want to call it. Still humanity in its worst form

聽起來很好，不過是另一種奴役婦女的形式，讓她們在社會上沒有地位，在世界上也沒有地位。我很高興沒有生活在那樣的世界裏。那會使她成為一個情婦，不管你怎麼稱呼她。人類仍然處於最糟糕的狀態。

Melania Van（回覆Valeri Leaver）

Not that bad as u think. Those ladies could still claim power, and even controlled the entire Empire. i.e. the Empress Dowager Lv Zhi, Cixi, and the solo female Emperor of China, Wu Zetian. Ladies were not restricted in one place, they still have the chance to revisit thier family, go for tours, etc.

沒有你想的那麼糟。這些婦女仍然可以要求權力，甚至控制整個帝國。比如呂雉、慈禧太后和中國獨霸天下的女皇帝武則天。女士們沒有被限制在一個地方，她們仍然有機會去拜訪她們的家人，去旅遊等等。

Jesse Pollard（回覆Yao Zhan）

It wasn’t the Christian church - as Rome also had Emperors before Christianity existed, and they did not have more than one wife either.

I believe what prevented it was that Rome was run by families, and rather than weaken the emperor, only one wife was taken. A second wife would have weakened the hold/standing of the first wife’s family, invoked the rath of the family of the first wife… and the result would weaken the power of the emperor, with possible retaliation by the first wife’s family.

不是基督教的原因——因為在基督教存在之前，羅馬也有皇帝，他們也沒有一個以上的妻子。

我認為，羅馬之所以這樣，是因為它是由家族統治的，羅馬皇帝因只娶了一個妻子而沒有被削弱。第二個妻子會削弱第一個妻子家庭的地位，引起第一個妻子家庭的憤怒，這一結果將削弱皇帝的權力，並可能遭到第一位妻子的家人的報復。

原創翻譯：龍騰網 http://www.ltaaa.com 翻譯：魏晉餘孽 轉載請註明出處

Sam Meehan（回覆Jesse Pollard）

Plus it’s messy on issues like inheritance, tax and such to have multiple spouses. Mistresses and concubines can be more safely ignored when considering these things.

此外，在遺產、税收等問題上，多配偶會造成混亂。

考慮到這些東西時，情婦和嬪妃的身份能被安全的忽視。

John Fozdar（回覆Yao Zhan）

I don’t think this is true. It is reported that Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor had 6 or 8 wives. Martin Luther defended the Duke of Bavaria who was a bigamist. He challenged the Pope to show where bigamy was forbidden and got no answer.

我不認為這是真的。據記載，第一位神聖羅馬帝國皇帝查理曼大帝有6到8個妻子。馬丁·路德為重婚的巴伐利亞公爵辯護。他要求教皇指出重婚在哪裏是被禁止的，但沒有得到回答。

Alfred W Croucher, A diligent student of history.

Western Kings didn’’t have to sleep with their wife and often didn’’t. The marriage was usually a symbol of a political alliance. They had mistresses and courtesans to keep them amused.

西方國王不必和他們的妻子睡覺，通常也確實沒有睡。這樁婚姻通常是政治聯盟的象徵。他們有情婦和妓女逗他們開心。

Quora User

Monogamy was the custom in Greek/Roman culture, and this was also adopted by the early Christian church. This was in contrast to ancient Judaism, which recognized polygamy. Dropping polygamy, like dropping circumcision and Jewish dietary restrictions, was a way of making Christianity acceptable to non-Jewish Europeans.

As others have said though, this didn’t necessarily mean that powerful European men restricted themselves to one woman, just that the children of extramarital relations had no claim on the man’s inheritance.

一夫一妻制是希臘/羅馬文化的習俗，這也被早期的基督教會採用。這與古代猶太教形成了對比，古代猶太教承認一夫多妻制。取消一夫多妻制，就像取消割禮和猶太飲食限制一樣，是讓非猶太歐洲人接受基督教的一種方式。然而，正如其他人所説，這並不一定意味着有權勢的歐洲男人只侷限於一個女人，只是婚外關係的孩子無權繼承男人的遺產。

Assaph Mehr, I like to read.

were common across all cultures, not just Chinese.

In Western Europe it was a less common practice probably due to Christian influences that have roots in Latin and Greek cultures.

But don’’t fool yourself that European rulers limited themselves to just their wife when it came to sleeping arrangements. They just didn’’t keep harems.

在所有文化中都很普遍，不僅僅是中國。在西歐，這是一個不太常見的做法，可能是由於基督教的影響，根源於拉丁和希臘文化。但不要自欺欺人地認為，歐洲統治者在睡覺問題上只侷限於他們的妻子。他們只是不養後宮而已。

原創翻譯：龍騰網 http://www.ltaaa.com 翻譯：魏晉餘孽 轉載請註明出處

Anonymous

It’s unlikely that European kings had only one sexual partner. It should be remembered that European royals married not for love, but for political alliance. There is very good chance that many of such couples were unhappy with each others, yet divorce was not an option. After all, if a political alliance was sealed by a royal marriage, then divorce could be seen as breaking that alliance.

However, the fact that Catholic church insists on monogamy and the fact that Vatican was seen to be above the kings and is independent of the kings means that European kings couldn’t keep a stable of concubines of an obscene size like the Chinese monarchs did: “No limits were set for these consorts. This later created situation when more than 20,000 women were living in the Palace during the reign of Emperor Huan

and Emperor Ling.”

This is quite unusual. In most other civilizations, the priests were subject of the kings (which means the kings can do as they wish) or the kings were the chief priests (which also means the kings can do as they wish). Muslim kingdoms also had obscenely large stable of royal concubines even though Islam allows only up to 4 wives because Islam (or at least, Sunni Islam) has never had any Vatican-like institution.

歐洲的國王不可能只有一個性伴侶。應該記住，歐洲王室結婚不是為了愛情，而是為了政治聯盟。很有可能的是，許多這樣的夫妻對彼此都不滿意，但離婚又不是一個可選項。畢竟，如果一個政治聯盟是由皇室婚姻所締結的，那麼離婚可能會被視為打破了這個聯盟。

然而，事實是天主教會堅持一夫一妻制，梵蒂岡被視為凌駕於國王之上，獨立於國王之外意味着歐洲國王不能像中國君主那樣養一羣小妾：（中國）這些配偶沒有受到任何限制，這就造成了後來桓帝和靈帝統治時期，有兩萬多名婦女居住在宮中的局面。

這很不尋常。在大多數其他文明中，祭司是國王的臣民(這意味着國王可以做他們想做的事)，或者國王本身就是祭司長(這也意味着國王可以做他們想做的事)。雖然伊斯蘭教只允許4個妻子，但穆斯林王國也有大量的妃子，這是令人厭惡的，因為伊斯蘭教(或至少是遜尼派伊斯蘭教)從來沒有類似梵蒂岡的機構。