There have been many misunderstandings of the marriage system of the early Manchus.An example is the practice of polygamy, a long-standing custom among ethnic groups inNorth and Northeastern Asia.In Confucian society, people observed a system of monogamy, whereby secondary wives had the status of concubines. It was assumed thatwives in poygamous Manchu households were the same as Chinese "concubines."originally, polygamy only existed among the nobility and rich families. With the riseof Nurhaci, males took many wives not just as custom but also as a political necessity. Beginning in the Chongde reign of Hong Taiji, polygamy in noble families began to be practiced in accord with the orthodox Chinese concept of monogamy, though it took a longertime for the lineal wife (diqi) to affirm her status and for the secondary wives to drop to thestatus of concubine. This only occurred in the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns. Only in noble families was the secondary wife’s name maintained (ce fujin); otherwise it disappeared.These changes developed more slowly among ordinary Manchus, so that the remnants ofcolygamy could still be found up to the fall of the Qing.
