Shared by one of my friends at Facebook, I found this topic very
interesting and no doubt it has grabbed my attention to know more about it. Nowadays,
keeping a woman in an
apartment is common among wealthy Chinese men. A study by the Crisis Management
Centre at Renmin University in Beijing, published this January, showed that 95 %
of corrupt officials had illicit affairs, usually paid for, and 60% of them had
kept a mistress. Before this, I believe husbands have affairs mainly because
broken relationship with the wife, sexual attraction, companionship,
excitement, and curiosity. My mum even reminded me not be a vigorous and
inconsiderate wife who always nit-pick and speak resentfully towards the
husband in the future.
It surprised me when the trend now is just to show-off their
wealth and financial capabilities as keeping a woman will cost men up to
millions, just like the hobby of playing golf. In their mind, the man is not a
“real man” if he as an officer or chief doesn’t have a mistress or girlfriend
as in the past dynasties, masculine and manly kings have thousands of
concubines. There are gay guys who even hired girls just to pretend as their
mistress while in business socializing, shared by James Palmers in his blog. In
addition, I couldn’t believe that Shenzhen (one of the district of mainland
China) is also expanded as a 'Second Wife Village' for the number of mistresses
living there.
However, from the perspectives of mistress, it is somehow
different from prostitutes. Mistress in China is similar to a girlfriend or
“xiao-san” (third party of a relationship). They do not aim for money as they
themselves are young, slender and pretty girls who normally come from rich
family. For certain reasons they are voluntary being kept, such as fame
recognition, business politics, whistle-blowing, and perhaps true love? Up to
now, there are no clear definitions, absolute set of moral or policies in
restricting the act of keeping mistress. Plus, since the country does not ban
people from getting girlfriends, why should mistress?
Added by James Palmers again, he
quoted Zheng Tiantian’s informal comments: “I’d rather be a mistress than a
wife, because you can make much more as a mistress,” Zheng Tiantian is a social anthropologist at the State
University of New York, worked as a karaoke bar hostess for two years in Dalian
to research her PhD. Despite the good pay and blur boundaries of banning the
act, is it a right or wrong thing to do?
For me, I would say keeping a mistress or being a mistress is
both not ethical. Generally accepted as “different”
and have “higher social status” than prostitute, there are still no way to
investigate mistresses’ motivation thoroughly. If it is really for the sake of true love, I am
agreed with the right to love whoever we want and no matter who he is. However
if it is for the purpose of getting sexual satisfaction, monetary and luxurious
items, I think that it makes mistress no difference from prostitutes. In fact,
a mistress can get a so-called “living allowance” up to $ 1,630 per DAY! , emphasized
by James. There are a lot of job opportunities and ways to make our life more
meaningful, why depend on a man who betrayed his wife and soon be the next
victim?
In addition, cheating, love affairs and adultery are naturally
taboos in a marriage especially in Asian countries, just like drug dealers,
human trafficker, and loan shark who make out of good fortune but not in an
ethical way. Historically,
adultery has been considered to be a serious offense by many cultures and
countries. Mistress who involve in adultery is treated as committing a crime
and she can be fined or sentenced to death by Honor Killings and/or Stoning (an
act of throwing stone till the criminal dies). It has been practicing in some countries
like North Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia up to now, regardless
of the voice of women rights.
Furthermore, keeping or being mistress is an unethical and wrong-doing
due to the involvement of politics and damage of public image. In fact, there
are many sex scandals that sacked government officials at one sweep. It is
common to see a news headline with “A police chief in China accused of
keeping twin sisters as mistresses has been removed from his post” and all. No
doubt, the scandal affects their reputation and capabilities in handling
government matters. For example, who will still believe and trust a public
servant who financially aiding a mistress with his unidentified source of
income? On the other hand, some might argue that mistress plays a major role in
anti-corruption as they have close relationship and be able to whistle-blow the
immoral conduct of officer.
Last but not least, I would say both
the mistress and master have no respect to marriage. Marriage is a promise
between husband and wife who agree to love, cherish, worship and obey each
other. Whoever who fail to fulfill the promise and try to break the promise, is
considered unethical and unlawful, especially when the reason behind is to show
off the wealth status and masculinity. Plus, love affairs trigger a person continuous
and demanding behavior, it is as difficult as to get rid of smoking and taking
drugs because of the fascination towards it. Since so, what is the point of
getting married? I believe the consequence is different if the pre-condition is
no marriage involve and just keeping a girl-friend like mistress.
In short, keeping a mistress is
unethical for me due to unidentified motivation, inherited culture values, consequence
of ill-reputable scandal as well as broken marriage vows. However, even it is a
wrong-doing, I believe mistress as a human and might have true love affection
to her master, will eventually complicate the matter and it is not as easy as being
told to stop the relationship. For those who are in love right now, don’t you
think so?
References: James Palmers (2013).
AEON Magazine Ltd, “Mistresses are big business in China, where no official is
a real man without his own ernai. What’s in it for the girls?”, viewed 18 Oct
2013, < http://www.aeonmagazine.com/living-together/why-young-women-in-rural-china-become-the-mistresses-of-wealthy-older-men/
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