Post #11 Form A

“There was much talk of the future. But was there any future for the concubines of the dead sovereign? The mothers of kings may have been able to join their children posted in the province-kingdoms, but ordinary women had to choose between living in the funerary palace of the August Deceased, becoming nuns in monasteries, or dying alone in the Side Court.” (84) This is a major cultural difference. In ancient China, the women within the Forbidden City belonged to the sovereign. If that sovereign died they no longer belonged there and the new sovereign would bring in his own women for the Forbidden City. Those who had belonged to the deceased sovereign had to choose between going to live in the funerary palace for the rest of their lives, devoting their lives to Buddhism and becoming nuns in monasteries, or killing themselves so as to join their sovereign after death. Um, we don’t do that anymore.