The institution of the Inner Palace remains poorly understood in Anglophone scholarship. [48], An examination of concubinage features in one of the Four Great Classical Novels, Dream of the Red Chamber (believed to be a semi-autobiographical account of author Cao Xueqin's family life). Concubine of Siam is a collection of poems. As a fifteen-year-old, Chulalongkorn ascended the Siamese throne, but becau… These representational practices reflect a visual turn towards the process of “self-civilization” Siam had begun in the 1850s, when King Mongkut signed a series of unequal treaties with Western nations guaranteeing them economically advantageous trade in Siam. [59] As for Dara Rasami, she continued to live in her Dusit palace residence until 1915, when she retired to Chiang Mai. For example, Jang Nok-su was a concubine-born daughter of a mayor, who was initially married to a slave-servant, and later became a high-ranking concubine of Yeonsangun. Second formal portrait of Dara Rasami taken in Chiang Mai in 1909. For example, the Books of Kings say that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.[66]. Upon the completion of the first royal pavilion at Dusit Park in March of 1899, Erb and the Oh Clique were some of the first royal women to stay there. This story provides the additional context necessary for reading Dara Rasami’s performance of this “foot-washing” gesture. The Provincial Administration of Siam, 1892–1915: The Ministry of the Interior Under Prince Damrong Rajanubhab, “Foreign” Princess in the Siamese Court: Princess Dara Rasami, the Politics of Gender and Ethnic Difference in Nineteenth-Century Siam. But few know that photography was practiced by a number of the king’s concubines and female children as well. Yet we also find a number of contemporary Western elements (such as the chair, table with brocade tablecloth, lace blouse, etc.) In addition, Dara Rasami also served as a senior member of the four-person “Wash and Print” committee headed by one of Chulalongkorn’s daughters, Princess Malini Noppadara, and staffed by two other younger princesses. Five years later (1891), their sister Erb joined Ohn’s entourage at the age of twelve; the next sister Aab arrived in 1894, joining her elder sisters and young nieces in Ohn’s residence. Like other royal consorts, the Oh Clique lived in the Grand Palace in Bangkok, within the double-walled area called the “Inner Palace,” the section of the palace reserved for the King’s consorts, their ladies-in-waiting, and their children—which was forbidden to outsiders.[8]. This photograph was taken during the period often referred to as Siam’s “Fifth Reign,” which lasted from 1868–1910. The primogenitor of the Bunnag line, Sheikh Ahmad Qomi, traveled from Persia to Siam in the late sixteenth century, arriving in the capital city of Ayutthaya sometime between 1595 and 1605. Due to the political necessity of keeping her in Bangkok to ensure her relatives’ loyalties to Siam, she had not returned home for a visit to her family since she entered the palace as a consort in 1886. In the story, the Levite appears to be an ordinary member of the tribe, whose concubine was a woman from Bethlehem in Judah. In addition, his harem numbered 9,000. HarperCollins. [4] Erb’s uncle, Chuang Bunnag had been one of King Mongkut’s highest-ranking ministers, serving after the king’s death in 1868 as regent for Prince Chulalongkorn until he came of age in 1872—effectively ruling the kingdom for four years. Anthony Hope: I think there's been some mistake. Concubine of Siam is a collection of poems. Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012. In parallel though, the late imperial Roman law improved the rights of the classical Roman concubinatus, reaching the point, with the Corpus Iuris Civilis by Justinian, of extending inheritance laws to these unions. The Joseon dynasty established in 1392 debated whether the children of a free parent and a slave parent should be considered free or slave. The Israelites gather to learn why they were sent such grisly gifts, and are told by the Levite of the sadistic rape of his concubine. When her half-brother, then governor of Chiang Mai, visited Bangkok in January of 1909, the princess requested permission to make her first-ever return visit to her hometown. The prime example was the Lao (people and regions). The Process of Development and Modernization. A History of the Female Underclass in Dutch Asia. The Geisha's of Japan, the concubines of Siam, the catamites of Greece, the harlots of India. Anna and the King. [100] Does the Qur'an permit sex outside marriage with female slaves? All Hello, Sign in. Note the multiple facial images reflected in the two mirrors. Monday, August 26, about sixty shots of Sineenat were taken in the local media. In some cases, men had long-term relationships with enslaved women, giving them and their mixed-race children freedom and providing their children with apprenticeships, education and transfer of capital. Lady Khanomdom Amatyakul using sewing machine at Vimanmek Mansion. Thanet Charoenmuang [ธเนศวร์ เจริญเมือง]. Despite the availability of the accessory items and opportunity, this setting was never replicated for any other of King Chulalongkorn’s Siamese consorts. Concubine of Siam (Amazon) by Jerome Brooke Concubine of Siam is a collection of poems. [26] The intimacy of the image affords the viewer a vicarious closeness to a much-revered monarch, while simultaneously rendering him all the more human and accessible via the quotidian quality of his dress and activity. In the Book of Rites chapter on "The Pattern of the Family" (Chinese: 內則) it says, "If there were betrothal rites, she became a wife; and if she went without these, a concubine. Tej Bunnag. The dressing-table imparts an impression of intimacy, implying that we are within the private chambers of a royal consort, in a space devoted to personal grooming and dress—an ‘off-limits’ space even within the ‘off-limits’ space of the royal palace. However, images like Erb’s also functioned to free the activities of royal women from the constraints of their walled-off quarters, rendering them newly accessible to eyes outside the palace. In this article, I will discuss how this photograph provides historical insights on several levels. [สัมภาษณ์ ม.จ. 162–163. In terms of reflecting back to European imperial agents a desired level of “civilization,” this setting is practically a Siamese recitation of what material items constitute a “modern” elite woman’s personal accessories and cosmetics. Every two years he would get rid of a couple hundred concubines and replace them with a fresh supply. 310–311. Condition: New. From this point of view, mut'ah is neither concubinage nor prostitution. [28] For this contest, Erb intensified her photographic activity around the palace, a fact reflected by the sheer volume of her photographs which remain in the archive. As members of this photography group, Dara Rasami and Erb demonstrated their alignment with the siwilai aims of the palace’s younger generation. This is because when personal ownership of slaves was enshrined in the law an enslaved person had no legal power over their own legal personhood, the legal control to which was held by another entity, therefore a slave could never give real and legal consent in any aspect of their life. Since you left [for Chiang Mai], ... the men who did not see [Sao Khrua Fa] are very frustrated. He was the son of King Mongkut and Queen Debsirindra. I have them all here, drawings of them. During the 1800s, King Mongkut of Siam housed his nine thousand women 5 in a totally contained city with its own government, recreational facilities, and a theater. By the first decade of the twentieth century, however, Dara Rasami’s role as a representative of local ethnic difference gained an entirely new significance as the Siamese envisioned a crypto-colonial hierarchy of civilizations. Traces of the Colonial in Thailand, Rachel Harrison and Peter Jackson, editors. As crypto-colonial discourses go, the message of this drama could hardly be less cryptic: to make plausible the need for the Siamese to exercise their colonial-style authority over the Lao territories in the interests of paternalistically “protecting” the culturally “backwards” people there. I have not yet found data to indicate whether Chao Chom Manda (Consort-Mother) Thipkesorn reverted to her native dress on receiving her own household in 1884 (when her son was born). Mingdai Yanjiu 明代研究 (Ming Studies) 11.2008:58. Kings and Cameras. In the interstices between the move away from marital alliance towards the complete implementation of local, bureaucratic administration, the shift taking place within the Inner Palace becomes visible through the photography of the era—especially that of royal consorts themselves. Though this play was produced by Dara Rasami herself for performances within the palace, it never garnered the same attention as did Sao Khrua Fa, and consequently it was never performed in public. See http://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/สาวเครือฟ้า, last accessed Feb. 12, 2012. You gandered at her. Krung Thep: Samnakphim Miusiam Phret, 2008. In contrast, their younger half-siblings by concubine Zhao, Jia Tanchun and Jia Huan, develop distorted personalities because they are the children of a concubine. ศิวรักษ์]. Evidence indicates that the king saw this adoption as his own personal experiment in civilizing a savage: “That year [1906], King Chulalongkorn had the desire to raise the [tribal] child that had lived in the jungle, in order to try and see whether this training could make a [jungle person] progress into a [regular person] or not.”[38] Chulalongkorn himself wrote a play about the boy’s imagined tribal life, describing the Semang’s physical appearance, way of life, religious beliefs, eating habits, merry-making, dressing, hunting, and courting. Another part of the discourse which proved very powerful in locating Lao-ness—and especially Lao femininity—is that of Sao Khrua Fa (“Miss Butterfly”), the Siamese adaptation of the operetta Madame Butterfly. Second-youngest Bunnag sister Aab’s culinary talents in the kitchens at the king’s Ruen Ton residence were documented in a number of photographs. A band of wicked townsmen attack the house and demand the host send out the Levite man so they can rape him. See Khanthathip (2006), p. 289. Princess Dara Rasami letting down her hair; note the way it becomes visible from behind in the full-length mirror. Dara Rasami begins unwinding her hair before the full-length mirror. 29, she directs her gaze away from the camera and out of the frame, suggesting greater remove from the viewer. [7] In slave-owning societies, most concubines were slaves, but not all. She quotes the Oxford encyclopedia of modern Islamic world to differentiate between marriage (nikah) and Mut'ah, and states that while nikah is for procreation, mut'ah is just for sexual gratification. [44] After the death of a concubine, her sons would make an offering to her, but these offerings were not continued by the concubine's grandsons, who only made offerings to their grandfather's wife. [1] When there is an inability or social discouragement for the couple to marry, it may be due to multiple factors such as differences in social rank status, an existing marriage, religious or professional prohibitions, or a lack of recognition by appropriate authorities. Please contact mpub-help@umich.edu to use this work in a way not covered by the license. Qiu Zhonglin(Chung-lin Ch'iu)邱仲麟:"Mingdai linxuan Houfei jiqi guizhi" 明代遴選後妃及其規制 (The Imperial Concubine Selection System during the Ming Dynasty). In contrast to her fellow Siamese consorts, Dara Rasami continued to wear the textiles, style of clothing and hair of her homeland from the time of her entry into the Bangkok palace as a consort in 1886 until she left Bangkok in 1915. Interview With Mom Chao Jongjitrathanom Diskul, by S. Sivarak. Her Majesty, Jira. [36], The ideology established by Patristic writers largely promoted marriage as the only form of union between men and women. 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