In this lively and well-written social history, Melissa Dale takes us into the world of the Qing eunuch. Her interest is not in the famous or even infamous Qing eunuchs such as Li Lianying and An Dehai, but in the ordinary eunuchs who worked in and around the Forbidden City. A crucial theme in this social history is these men's struggle for, and attainment of, a degree of agency in their lives – frequently in a palace world that could be cruel and unforgiving. This they accomplished, as Dale notes, “by creating a parallel realm alongside that of the emperor” (p. 5).
Bringing us inside the world of the eunuch, as Dale notes, is a difficult enterprise. Eunuchs themselves tended to be illiterate, and they were seldom the subjects of biographical essays and other published works that are the stock-in-trade of the Qing historian. Dale relies, instead, on archival sources (particularly those related to the Imperial Household Department [neiwufu]), housed in Beijing and Taipei. She complements them with a wide variety of fascinating sources, including European accounts and recollections of late-Qing eunuchs collected after the dynasty's fall.
The book begins with a chapter on the institutional history of the eunuch system, which devotes attention to its origins in early Chinese history. Dale notes that eunuchs were seen as essential to the running of the palace because, in theory, emasculation made them into social outcasts who were wholly dependent on the emperor. From this dependence would come a strong sense of loyalty, one further strengthened by their lack of family ties. At various points in history, however, eunuchs overstepped what were considered their proper bounds, and entered into the realm of politics. As Dale notes, those within the palace world who sought informal access to authority, such as women and imperial relatives, frequently abetted eunuchs’ transgressions. In the Qing, the advent of the bondservant system was meant to check eunuch excess, and prevent a return of late-Ming eunuch power. In a chapter entitled “Routes to the palace,” Dale explores the reasons men and boys became eunuchs, citing poverty, family coercion and rumours that a life in the palace would lead to prosperity. As the author quite correctly notes, while becoming a eunuch was considered “voluntary,” often the young boys who became eunuchs had little say in the matter, and coercion was not unheard of.
In a chapter entitled “Unrobing the emasculated body,” Dale enters the difficult terrain of trying to comprehend what emasculation meant to eunuchs themselves, and to those around them. Following on the work of Jennifer Jay, she notes that eunuchs identified as male, even though many around them associated eunuchs as more sexually ambiguous and possessing yin qualities. Their physical difference provoked the anxiety of others in the palace world, including emperors themselves, who frequently saw eunuchs as neither fully male nor female.
In “Entering the emperor's realm,” Dale describes the process by which eunuch recruits were trained, and the variety of duties they performed in the palace. The system relied heavily on a master–apprentice model, with eunuchs often assigned to learn highly specialized skills by serving under masters who were their supervisory eunuchs (shouling taijian). As Dale notes, eunuchs were much more than keepers of the imperial harem, and occupied sub-professions such as physician, clergy and actor, among many others. This chapter pairs nicely with the subsequent chapter, “The parallel world of the eunuch,” which describes the world eunuchs were able to create in the face of exacting palace restrictions. Eunuchs retained contact with their natal families, built informal families of their own both inside and outside the palace, and sought community through native place associations, and forbidden entertainments such as gambling, drinking and opium smoking. These two chapters would make an excellent assignment for classroom use.
Subsequent chapters narrow the focus, and examine the three ways eunuchs left the system: absconding, suicide, and authorized exits including retirement, sick leave, discharge and death. Beyond providing fascinating details of eunuch life and death, these chapters, and the book generally, offer important insights into what Dale calls the eunuch's “unfree status.” After entering the system “their terms of servitude were essentially for life, with discharge authorized only for illness, old age, or death” (p. 120). Thus eunuch status did “not fit neatly into the binary of free or unfree.” Instead, “eunuchs occupied a position on the continuum close to unfree but not equivalent to slavery” (p. 195). The final chapter offers a brief portrait of the eunuch system post-1911, when, in a series of events, eunuchs progressively found themselves out of a job and expelled from the palace.
Readers of this work will find many points of convergence with my Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule (University of California Press, 2018). Areas in which we diverge can often be explained by the different scopes of our studies: whereas Dale's terrain is the entire Qing, I focus exclusively on the first four reigns (Shunzhi to Qianlong). These earlier reigns were much more heavily influenced by the legacy of both Ming eunuch management styles and Ming eunuch power than were subsequent reigns. My book examines the sometimes very different ways in which those four emperors came to terms with the Ming legacy. Dale and I are in complete agreement on the significant gap that existed between the formal rules for eunuch management and the underlying reality, though I place more emphasis than does Dale on the role of the supervisory eunuch in making that reality possible. One other difference is that whereas Dale sees a growth in eunuch freedoms occurring in the late Qing (p. 27), I locate that growth and its origins in the last decade or so of the Qianlong reign.
A welcome addition to the literature, Inside the World of the Eunuch will be of great interest to those seeking a better understanding of the social history of Qing eunuchs, and to those interested in the history of eunuchs generally.
