The harem was a fundamental part of Imperial China.The main duty of the emperor was to procreate a male heir to ensure the continuity of the dynasty.The harem served to facilitate the leader's access to as many women as he wished.It is said that during the reigns of Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD), there were more than 20,000 women and 120,000 eunuchs living in the Forbidden City.The empress was the highest ranking woman in the empire, after the mother of the emperor.She was a revered figure, considered "the mother of the world".She was the official "wife" of the emperor although she was not necessarily his favorite.Her selection was based on political convenience and not on personal preferences, much less on amorous considerations.The beauty of the empress was not relevant.She was much more important that she was capable and virtuous.She was the head of the harem.Physical appearance was important for the rest of the women of the empire, especially the poorest, who ensured a life without hunger if they managed to enter the harem.There they were to bid farewell to the world they had known.They never saw their family and friends again.All the women who served the emperor remained sequestered in the imperial apartments, which were located in the farthest part of the palace.The only task of the concubines was to give sexual pleasure to the emperor in order to father the greatest number of sons.Concubines who managed to give birth to a boy were promoted to imperial consorts.No household in the empire was exempt from the selection process for young women, which included all unmarried girls.Only married girls with physical disabilities or deformities were excluded.The selection occurred within the Forbidden City every three years.Adolescent candidates between 14 and 16 years old were groomed and accompanied by their servants or by their parents to the palace.There they were subjected to a series of tests to demonstrate their virtues, behavior, character, appearance and body condition.Social status was not an impediment to being part of the harem.The empress was the only one who was chosen among the daughters of high-ranking officials.The 100 most beautiful girls stayed several nights with women who specialized in training virgins.They were thoroughly inspected for disease, infection, hair, and body odor.Those who passed the test were trained to function in the imperial court.The protocol imposed specific ways of speaking, gesturing, walking and behaving.They also learned to paint, read, write, play chess and dance.The last test was to serve for several days as servants of the emperor's mother.They made them sleep next to her, to rule out those who snored, sleepwalkers or those who emitted flatulence during sleep.The organization of the harem was strict, although it varied according to the preferences of each emperor.There the empress ruled, followed by the consorts, who were the mothers of male heirs.And finally, the concubines.The younger girls were arriving in this group, and the women who did not become pregnant or those who gave birth to girls remained.Qin Dynasty, King 王): 1 Queen (后) 3 Ladies (夫人) 9 Imperial Concubines (嬪) 27 Hereditary Women (世婦) 81 Imperial Women (御妻) 121 women.This system was installed to prevent two empresses together during the same period of time.pic.twitter.com/LcurKs8AXvBut the harem was not only made up of women.There were also eunuchs, who were castrated men who maintained security and order within the harem.The amputation of the penis and testicles was a requirement to enter the chambers of the concubines, because it was the only way to ensure that all the children of the women of the harem were children of the emperor.From the earliest times, and especially after the arrival of Confucianism, Chinese men demanded strict moral purity from their women.And within the palace hordes of sexually impotent men were needed to protect the chastity of the imperial ladies.The presence of numerous eunuchs ensured that every child born there was fathered by the monarch.Men who were not eunuchs, even relatives of the ruler or his consorts, were forbidden to approach the women's quarters on pain of death.The eunuchs came to court by different routes.An eighth of them were young children who were handed over by their parents to receive the cash reward, and in the hope that their children would have a life without deprivation.Some were poor adults who chose emasculation to avoid a life of crime and begging.Others were criminals sentenced to death, whose sentences were commuted to castration.And the minority were men who chose to be eunuchs, attracted by the seemingly quiet lifestyle they lived in the palace.The presence of eunuchs in the Forbidden City had another, even more unusual motivation.The imperial court avoided at all costs that the subjects observed human failures of the emperors.So only eunuchs were considered cowardly enough to silently look at the faults and foibles of rulers.Historical records show that eunuchs were underestimated and that cutting off their genitals only prevented them from having children but did not always rid them of greed and ambitions for power.Some eunuchs came to have a lot of influence over the emperors, to the point of controlling some affairs of state.Others caused the fall of some dynasties.That power was maintained by the economic and political interests of the consort families and by the strict lifestyle that the role of emperor demanded.The eunuch system lasted until the 10th century. 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