Pickpocket the harem of King Wuding
First of all, let's talk about Wu Ding, the Shang King. From the perspective of modern man, little is known about the political, economic, military, social, and so on during the reign of the kings of the Yin Shang dynasty three thousand years ago. I know "Wu Ding" because he has a spouse who is much more well-known than him, which we call "good woman".
Mr. Zhang Zhengxiu believes that "woman good" is the world woman, and "world woman" is the female official who presides over the ceremony, that is to say, "woman good" is the title of the position. Therefore, during each generation of Shang kings, there were "women's good", not only Wu Ding. In fact, "women" themselves are a very mysterious group. The "women" behind Wu Ding are a huge group, in addition to "women are good", there are also "women's concubines", "women's profits", "women's pets", "women's weeks", "women's rats", "women's dragons"... To be called "woman" is to indicate her status, and only a noble woman of high status can be called a "woman", which does not mean a housewife. Mr. Hu Houxuan counted sixty-four "women" mentioned in the oracle bone bu ci of the Shang Wang Wuding period, and there were more people, and the most statistics said that there were one hundred and eight "women" in Wuding. "Woman good" is not a name, "woman" is a title related to status, and "good" should refer to the surname of the Fang country or clan from which she is born. "Good", pronounced zǐ, with "son". Therefore, according to Mr. Zhang Zhengxiu, if in addition to Wu Ding, there were also women who were called "women good" in other Shang Dynasty periods. It is as if the wife of Duke Zheng Zhuang and the wife of King Wu of Chu were both called "Deng Man" in the Later Spring and Autumn Period, not because of the same name, but because they both came from the "Deng" surname of "Man".
What did the "women" group behind Wu Ding do? The great one presides over the sacrifice and foreign conquest, which is a very important national event, and the one who can participate in it is equivalent to ruling the country together with the Shang King, according to the oracle bone bu ci, the "woman" who can do such a thing has a good woman, and a woman. Women and concubines also had their own fiefs, and paid tribute to the Shang kings, such as the turtle that was recorded to have paid tribute to divination, and the women's concubines paid tribute to female slaves. In addition, in addition to these major events, the "women" can also be responsible for other affairs, such as participating in agricultural management, responsible for collecting and sorting oracle bones for divination, and receiving nobles on behalf of the Shang King. So are these sixty or more women all the spouses of King Wuding of the Shang Dynasty? Not necessarily, but there are many opinions. Hu Houxuan, Guo Moruo, and others believed that "women" were the spouses of the Shang king; Li Xueqin believed that the "women" were sons and daughters of the Shang kings, on the grounds that the number of sons of the Yin Shang kings and the number of "women" were roughly equal. Others believe that "women" are witches of high status. Some people also believe that "women" are female officials who preside over sacrifices, that is, "worldly women" that Zhang Zhengxiu believes. So is it possible for these wives to become the spouses of the Shang kings? Of course. If there is a male and female relationship with the Shang King, and there is a fact, it will naturally become the spouse of the Shang King. There is also a view that the "woman" is the wife of the clan patriarch, which is equivalent to the clan wife of the Western Zhou Dynasty. If the "women" are both Wu Ding's spouses, then is the status the same? Is there a distinction between concubines? This depends on the genealogy of the Weekly Festival. Mr. Chen Mengjia said that the Weekly Festival is a regular rotational sacrifice. That is to say, only those who appear in the genealogy of this weekly sacrifice are those who once had the status of queens, or "women" whose mothers are noble and noble. That is, one view is that before she was born, she was made queen, so she had the status of being sacrificed, which is the law of marriage and wife worship; the other is that if a son born is made king, he has the right to be sacrificed, which is the law of birth mother. Among the "women" of Wu Ding, the ones who are sacrificed are called the three pairs of Wu Ding: 妣戊, 妣辛, 妣癸, ranking in order, when you are sacrificed, you are in front, and you are the female concubine, and after death, you are called "Concubine". Yu Xin is a good woman. Before his death, he called it "female concubine shì".