Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2005. This was quintessential Mattie. Mattie had built a vehicle out of Legos and he decided to be a human bridge. Naturally I guided the vehicle under the Mattie bridge, and Mattie loved watching the entire process.
Quote of the day: Strategic planning is worthless – unless there is first a strategic vision. ~ John Naisbitt
This exhibition is the first to explore the role of empresses in shaping China’s last dynasty- the Qing (pronounced ching) dynasty - from 1644 to 1912. Nearly 200 spectacular objects from the Palace Museum tell the little-known stories of how imperial women influenced court politics, art and religion.
All Qing empresses entered the palace through marriage, Every three years, the imperial court required conquering elite families to present their daughters as candidates for the imperial harem inside the Forbidden City. The girls, around 13 years old, were mostly Manchu or Mongol in ethnicity. Girls from Han Chinese families, China's largest population group, were largely excluded. The emperor and his mother, the empress dowager, selected multiple consorts during the recruitment, but only one empress at a time could be his primary wife. While physical beauty, health, and family background influenced a girl's chances of joining the harem, several emperors and empresses dowager chose empresses strategically in order to consolidate or contain the power of the monarch. The marriage ceremony marked the bride's allegiance to and membership in the imperial family, as well as the severing of her ties to her birth family.
The Qing imperial harem consisted of 8 ranks of consorts with the empress as the very top. She held the important role of manager of the imperial family affairs and mother of the state. The splendor of what she wore and used, and where she lived signified her supreme status. The imperial court closely regulated the life of each empress to ensure she stood as an exemplar for all women, and yet the male officials who wrote Qing court history recorded very little of her activities. They perceived family matters and women's roles as less important than the state affairs the emperor managed.
Keep in mind that the empresses did not own any of their items. Everything belonged to the empire.
Qianlong (the emperor) wrote this beautiful poem when his wife died. He was married to her for 22 years and apparently they were so devoted to each other that he never married again. Despite of course having a whole consort of women living in the Forbidden City. 
I personally think reading Qianlong's poem about his deceased wife and then reading about how he preserved his mother's hair indicates to me his devotion to these women in his life. Though it was clear that women were not given high political positions and in many cases were undervalued and used to purposely propagate the society..... women did influence their husbands and in Qianlong's case most likely influenced his decisions which impacted the entire dynasty.
No comments:
Post a Comment