An “acceptable” alternative to being a wife.

Readership: All
Theme: Wives and Mothers
Length: 2,200 words
Reading Time: 12 minutes + 13:22 minute video

Introduction

International Dating: Are Chinese women really left over? (2021/7/22) Length: 13:22 minutes

The Chinese woman being interviewed is extremely suave in her explanation of marriage, divorce, and concubinage in China and Taiwan. She’s speaking on behalf of a dating agency, so she paints these “left over” women in the best light possible, describing them as educated, sophisticated, and wealthy. But actually,

  • Her concept of urbane women is better described as materialistic.
  • Some women are “left over” because no (Asian) man wants them.
  • Some women are “left over” because they’re “retired” from concubinage (described below).
  • Not all “left over” women are wealthy.

She makes Chinese men out to be “cheaters” and “deadbeats”, which is a gross mischaracterization. From the hypergamous Asian female’s perspective, men are categorized into the “have’s” and the “have not’s”. In this view, the former are “cheaters” and the latter are “deadbeats”. When she says, “nice guys don’t exist in China”, she means the “have’s” (the men who pass their hypergamous filters) are not compliant with the Asian version of the Feminine Imperative. (This is somewhat comparable to how Western women are attracted to cheaters / players / etc. and so they think all men are that way, but they’re only referring to apex alphas. Other men are invisible.)

She claims the men “cheated” in order to justify the women leaving the arrangement, but the picture she paints is not accurate. First, the word “cheating” plays on the Western penchant for monogamy. Second, in informal concubinage, polygyny is generally assumed. Third, most concubines willingly sign up for the easy bread and butter. (A small number are arranged or set up by friends or parents.) Fourth, they knew the lifestyle and the eventual outcome when they signed up for the deal. But her account of the situation implies that concubines up and leave because their harem baron was a “cheater” or otherwise morally corrupt. In reality, most concubines stay with their tycoons until they’re too old to “entertain”, and their “employment” is then terminated. If given the choice, many of them would prefer NOT to depart from Mr. Moneybags.

In sum, she is loquaciously stacking several cards that are popular in the West…

  • The false primacy of monogamy.
  • “Men and women are equal.”
  • “Men are cheaters.”
  • “The woman is the victim.”

…thereby reframing the whole situation in order to conceal the true context and present past-prime concubines as women worthy of monogamous marriage. Very svelte!

She also fails to express the male perspective and either the enticing or the uglier aspects of Concubinage. In the remainder of this post, I’ll fill in the blanks.

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The Feminine Hierarchy

First, I need to explain the social structure in East Asian culture (i.e. China, Taiwan, Japan, and maybe others).

In the East, there is considerable pressure for women to marry. A woman who is not under the Patriarchal domain of a husband or her father is considered shameful and she becomes the subject of gossip and rumors. (This expectation has eased somewhat in recent years because of growing Western influence.)

Moreover, in East Asia, there is an informal and unspoken, yet rigorously observed hierarchy among women, primarily based on their personal attributes (given in parentheses).

  1. Wife (beautiful, good mannered, intelligent, and responsible)
  2. Concubine (beautiful, good mannered)
  3. Single, educated and well employed (intelligent and responsible)
  4. Single, working class (N/A)

Being a wife offers the highest status. If a woman cannot be a wife, then the next best choice is to be a concubine. (Hypergamy applies here as elsewhere.) If she lacks the traits and skills necessary to be a wife or concubine, and/or she’s unwilling to “settle” for what she can get, then it is important for her to get an education and secure a good job in order to support herself. (This is part of the reason why 57% of Taiwanese women have a bachelors or higher.) Women who cannot do any of the above are at the bottom of the barrel and usually remain single throughout their lives.  These are the true “left over women”. They’ll live with their parents for decades, or perhaps get a small apartment if it is amenable to their families’ finances and living situation.

Then, there’s always the alternative of marrying a foreigner. In fact, 25% of women in Taiwan marry out.

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Concubinage

Concubinage is a social construct which allows and supports wealthy men having soft harems and cohabitation. The difference between Eastern concubinage and Western soft harems / sugar babies is that concubines will stick with one man, have his children, and depend on him financially for the duration of her fertility or longer. Compare this to Western women who are “strong“, financially independent, educated, employed, do the serial monogamy thing and rely on abortion / birth control until they’re “ready to settle (down)”.

A significant percentage of Chinese / Taiwanese women spend their later teens and twenties in some form of concubinage (to be described in more detail below). In Taiwan, I’ll guess it’s somewhere between 10-15% for each of the 2 demographics of women described in the following 2 sections, resulting in about 20-30% of women in total. (Not sure about the frequency in China.) Thus, they have a significant but hidden presence in society.

I’ve known women in Taiwan who were a concubine from as early as 15 up to 30. According to the information I’ve been privy to, concubines have monogamous sex between 3 to 5 times a week, on average. If a pregnancy results, then they may be expected to have and raise the child. If children are not wanted, they will have an abortion.

Informal Concubinage

Concubines are informally “owned” by one man, and because no man of status wants a second-hand concubine, these women will do whatever it takes to submit to and get along with their male benefactor.

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However, not all concubines cohabitate. Depending on the financial status of the man, many of them are given their own house, although small, in order to reduce tensions between her and the wife and/or other concubines. In this case, the man comes around whenever he wants some “entertainment and relaxation”, which may be frequently if his wife is contentious, or jealous, or it’s that time of the month.

Like clockwork, as soon as they hit 30 the man will “retire” them and/or dismiss them from service. If she is especially beautiful and retains her beauty past 30, and she is remarkably good natured, intelligent, and responsible, such that she gets along well with her MacDaddy and contributes something valuable to the household, then she may stick around until 40 or so.

Formal Concubinage

Another significant percentage of Taiwanese women get married, climb the ladder of success with their husband, and then have an amiable divorce later in life. This is done in full mutual agreement, sometimes planned in advance, as it allows the man to take a younger wife, and it allows the “ex-wife” to pursue her own interests without having to give an account of herself to the “ex-husband”. The downside to this scheme is the social stigma of divorce.

Successes

The benefits of concubinage are that she gets a top grade man, regular attention, a leisurely and pampered lifestyle, spending cash, all expenses paid, and possibly a house and children. All said, her hypergamy is satiated.

If she produced children, especially a son, it is customary for him to set her up in a house of her own to raise the children and give her a modest allowance or other source of income to cover the expenses, usually for life.

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Even if she had no children, but she aroused a particularly intense affection from the man, or if the man is uncommonly generous, then she may receive a very comfortable “retirement pension”, often times for the rest of her life.

I know of one extremely wealthy tycoon who had a wife and three concubines. He owned a huge 4-story apartment building in which each woman, her maid, and her children had one floor all to themselves. After work, he would stay over with the one who happened to be in the best mood that day, which often coincided with certain times of the month.

Failures

I have known a couple ex-concubines who faced an unhappy ending.

One was particularly clueless and overly trusting. She got caught up in the fairytale lifestyle the man provided and never gave a thought about the future.  Thus, neither she nor her family ventured to secure any bond from the man.  Being so vapid, she didn’t contribute much to the man’s life either. Fortunately for her, she was dismissed when she was only 25 (after 10 years of service) and was still stunning enough to draw less-qualified suitors.

The other was beautiful, intelligent, responsible, and well-mannered — almost enough to be a wife, except she was self-conscious and could never get aroused during sex. So when she hit 30, the man kicked her out on the street without any severance, and she had to return to her parents’ home in utter shame. Fortunately for her, she had an engineering degree and was able to secure a job in the public sector.

Every concubine’s story is a little different, but in general, if the woman did not produce any children and she brought absolutely no benefit to the household other than a flesh decoration, or if she spent an excruciating amount of money, or was belligerent, disrespectful, or unfaithful, or caused a lot of trouble and/or embarassment to the man, then the men are less likely to grant them a “pension”.

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Retirement

Many “retired” concubines have very leisurely lives. Children or not, it is typical for the man to set her up financially so that she is not living on the streets for the rest of her life.

Those playboys who are less wealthy and can’t afford to award their arm candy a lifelong “pension” will $upport her earning a college degree on the side so that she’ll have a job to fall back on after she reaches the next phase of her life.

Moreover, most ex-concubines are rather comfortable and happy about their lot in life. Their primary grievance is about their suffering from a lack of attention and the sheer loneliness they experience after their early “retirement”, especially those who didn’t have children. Hence the complaints from “unwanted / left over women”, as highlighted in the video above.

After these women age out of their genteel h0e phase, they want to settle down with a man who will “take care” of them.  In this case, the “care” that is implied is social, not financial, as described in the video.  IOW, she wants a regular companion because she doesn’t want to be a social pariah / recluse, alone and/or lonely for the rest of her life, similar to the archetypical Western spinster with cats and wine.

Here is where the above video interview picks up and the chivalrous western nice guy comes into the picture. He thinks he’s got a prize, because compared to the fat, arrogant, multiple N, contentious, foul tempered, western women coming off the carousel looking for a sucker they can divorce r@pe 5 years after they pop out their 2 kids, their Asian counterparts are thin, feminine and well-schooled and well-practiced in feminine graces as a result of spending 10-15 years “working” as a concubine in a rich man’s house. They’re also rather well off financially having some form of a retirement pension from their service as a concubine. They are wise to keep all this information tucked neatly into the past.

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A small number of these women truly find love with their “second” foreign husband, although it is an “equal partnership” (at best) and authentic Headship is nearly non-existent except as a formality. Nevertheless, these unions tend to be better than average because the woman is emotionally mature, financially secure, and socially sophisticated. Thus, she knows very well how to get along with a man, and that her respect and submission is required to make the best of her family life and social standing. As such, a chivalrous Blue Pilled man may be seen as naive but quite tolerable, maybe even preferable if he’s easy to control with smooth words, honeycraft, and p00ntang.

Concluding Statements

In Asia, asking a suspected concubine about her status is rude and taboo. If her sugar daddy should ever be identified, she will deflect the topic, or if they are on extremely good terms, she might refer to him as her “friend” or sometimes “boyfriend”.

So how would you know?

If you’re in East Asia, and you see a beautiful, emotionally mature, socially smooth young woman who is well dressed and well cared for, and she isn’t married, never been married, and she isn’t looking for a husband or lover, there’s a very good chance that she’s a concubine. If said woman appears to be living on her own and/or has children but with no man to speak of, she’s definitely a concubine. With rare exception, Asian women will NOT have a child out of wedlock unless she’s receiving a man’s $upport.

“Retired” concubines resemble and talk like the women in the video above — very well put together and elegantly spoken, but with a touch of fakery and a bit of a hard edge.

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