Ernai (China)

Ernai 🇨🇳
Location: China
Definition: Lit. 'second wives', nowadays refers to mistresses in relationship with married men in exchange for material support
Keywords: China – East Asia – Marriage – Wedding – Informal welfare – Mutual Help – Family – Sexuality – Gender
Author: Ouxiang Ji
Affiliation: Alumnus, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK

By Ouxiang Ji, Alumnus, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK

Ernai is a term that denotes “second wives” in Chinese. Nowadays, it refers to economically dependent mistresses who keep long-term stable extramarital relations with married men in exchange for material support. This practice is rooted in historical traditions of concubinage in imperial China. Decriminalisation of non-marital sex and of extramarital relationships in 1997, coupled with the economic boom, led to the proliferation of ernai - a de-facto revival of polygamy in modern China.

Ernai is not simply a revival of an old practice but reflects the social-economic patterns in modern China. During the post-Maoist transition, China shifted its national focus from class struggle to economic development. As a result, consumerism replaced the communist ideology (Onnis, 2012). Everyone, from the party cadres to businessmen, “men’s behaviour is determined and measured by the accumulation of wealth and the status that affluence generates” (Zurndorfer, 2016). Married rich men thus enjoy the privilege of having ernai, which is often allowed by their first wives as a reward for economic success.

This informal polygamy also stems from the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor. China’s Gini Coefficient rapidly rose from 0.343 in 1978 to 0.491 in 2008, identifying it as one of the most unequal major economies in the world. The rich can keep many ernai whilst the poor men might be reduced to a nearly celibate life due to financial difficulties. Likewise, since the post-Maoist transition, women from humble backgrounds move to large cities to seek opportunities. When they find themselves irrelevant and excluded from the city’s prosperity, these females tend to trade their beauty and youth for luxuries, cars, and real estate that would never be affordable if they were relying only on their economic success.

In addition to satisfying their lovers’ desires, ernai could bolster men’s fragile masculinity (Xiao, 2011). Nowadays, for a Chinese man acquiring a mistress or ernai demonstrates his wealth and manliness. Masculinity is a cultural construct, that requires constant maintenance through communication and social displays (Osburg, 2016; Zurndorfer, 2016). In networks, ernai could help harmonise her man’s relationships with others by flattering his companions and catering to men’s psychological needs by mirroring their social status (Zurndorfer, 2016). The relationship of mutual trust is established among those with “sufficient masculinity” via this male psychological bonding.

Apart from the social role, ernai boosts her man’s masculinity in the private aspects of life. As described by Xiao in his article (2011),Ernai Run’s story is a case point: she is continuously engaged in domestic activities like a de facto wife, providing emotional comfort and support for Cai (Xiao, 2011). Her partner craves recognition by others of his value and self-dignity, as many middle-class men do. While Cai must do housework at home with his first wife, Run enables him, when they are together, to play the traditional family role of a husband devotedly taken care of by his woman.

More than just bolstering her man’s masculinity, ernai may also provide mental health support for her partner. A Chinese journalist in an interview emphasised that ernai are spiritual confidants of over-stressed entrepreneurs. He explained that foreigners may go to church, but irreligious Chinese rich men only open their hearts to ernai (Osburg, 2016). While legally recognised first wives understand only domestic issues and know little about the brutal competition in the market economy, ernai, as a part of the outside world, can easily comprehend their distress. Businessmen would communicate their painstaking maintenance of networking and trade deals with ernai as their soulmates, capable of consoling them.

The prevalence of ernai in modern China might be incredibly high. Renmin University’s study in 2013 estimates that 60 percent of corrupt officials keep ernai or mistresses (Song, 2013). Another report estimates that 300,000 babies were born by ernai by the end of the 20th century in Shenzhen only (Shih, 2007), and specific areas are known as “ernai villages” in the city. Hongkongers’ and their ernai’s children in Shenzhen accounted for five percent of Hong Kong’s population then.

Ernai is similar to but distinctive from other terms such as mistresses, concubines, or prostitutes. Men having affairs with mistresses seek sex or love, and wives disdain their unfaithful husbands for cheating. In extramarital relationships, men and mistresses find each other desirable based on mutual attraction. However, first wives generally do not object to ernai, because their wealthy husbands have given them and their children financial dominance to get permission to enjoy themselves in the outside world. Consequently, affairs with mistresses usually result in divorces while ernai do not. Furthermore, ernai are happy to have children with their “husbands” if payoffs are sufficient, but mistresses will hardly do the same.

Ernai seem to be modern concubines in China, though their legitimacy remains questionable: it is an informal but not illegal practice in China nowadays. They differ from prostitutes who only “solve the problem” - i.e., satisfy men’s basic physical needs (Osburg, 2016). Social elites despise overt commercial sex with prostitutes, which is the solution for charmless men who are unable to attract mistresses or ernai with their appearances, fortunes, or power. When the relationship ends, ernai typically would receive “buyout” compensations from her man. These compensations include stipends and properties that could support the rest of ernai’s life and her children.

In the global context, informal polygamy or other similar extramarital relations are rather common. Toqal, a second or “unofficial” wife (Suleimenov, 2020) in post-communist Kazakhstan, is very similar to the ernai in its neighbour country, China. Toqal derives from Islamic traditions; some other religions also endorse polygamous doctrines and practices. For instance, Fundamentalist Mormonism in Utah State in the USA practices polygamy, which was decriminalised in 2020.

Aside from polygamy based on centuries-old customs or religions, a variety of extramarital relationships similar to ernai exist worldwide. In Russian, soderzhanka stands for a kept woman, one who is living on the money of her partner. She plays the role between mistress and wife, as an ernai does in Chinese society. In the West, a similar phenomenon ernai is the “sugar baby” – typically a young person kept by a wealthier senior (Pardiwalla, 2017).

As for the first wives, not all of them would tolerate ernai. This has become a major cause of family breaks (Onnis, 2012). Wives’ disgust about polygamy leads to numerous divorces that hurt their children and destabilise society. According to some, polygamy exacerbates gender inequality. Most interviewed Chinese informants considered the ernai phenomenon disdainful (Osburg, 2016). In their opinion, keeping ernai is a “feudal” lifestyle of the nouveau riche peasants, which should not have place in modern society. As for the impoverished men, they are stuck in chronic celibacy because financially successful men take a second or a third wife. For the government, the ernai problem is usually associated with corruption due to its extreme prevalence among public servants. The most extravagant statistic is that more than 90 percent of party cadres convicted of corruption have an ernai (Watts, 2007). As a result, excessive expenses on ernai are viewed as a drain of national wealth.

At present, utilitarianism dominates Chinese society as shown by the saying, “people mock poverty more than prostitution” (xiao pin bu xiao chang). Like the ironic opening sentence in Pride and Prejudice: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife” (Austen, 2003), in China nowadays it is an unspoken understanding that “a man of promise will contract a second wife” (Onnis, 2012). Whether the ernai phenomenon will continue to prevail would depend on social values. When material conditions are no longer considered significant factors in a marriage, people might choose their authentic love based on mutual affection and build more equal relationships that afford dignity.

References

Austen, J. (2003). Pride and Prejudice (V. Jones, Ed.). Penguin Classics

Onnis, B. (2012). "The Scourge of Prostitution in Contemporary China: The 'Bao Ernai' Phenomenon". Asian Culture and History 4(2):91-98

Osburg, J. (2016). "Pleasure, Patronage, and Responsibility: Sexuality and Status among New Rich Men in Contemporary China". In T. Zheng (Ed.), Cultural Politics of Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Asia (pp. 108–123). University of Hawaii Press

Pardiwalla, A. (2017). "Sugaring: A New Kind of Irresistible". HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/post_10274_b_9683356. Accessed 10 Jan. 2022

Shih, S.-M. (2007). The Geopolitics of Desire. In Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations Across the Pacific (1st ed., pp. 86–116). University of California Press

Song, S. (2013). "Chinese Mistress Culture 101: The Difference Between An Ernai And A Xiaosan". International Business Times. https://www.ibtimes.com/chinese-mistress-culture-101-difference-between-ernai-xiaosan-1422930. Accessed 10 Jan. 2022

Watts, J. (2007). "Concubine culture brings trouble for China’s bosses". The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/08/china.jonathanwatts. Accessed 10 Jan. 2022

Xiao, S. (2011). "The ‘Second-Wife’ Phenomenon and the Relational Construction of Class-Coded Masculinities in Contemporary China". Men and Masculinities 14(5):607-627

Zurndorfer, H. (2016). "Polygamy and Masculinity in China: Past and Present". In K. Louie (Ed.), Changing Chinese Masculinities: From Imperial Pillars of State to Global Real Men (1st ed., Vol. 1, pp. 13-33). Hong Kong University Press