The ABCs of Monogamy in Republican China: Adultery, Bigamy, and Conjugal Fidelity

Since the Guomindang (GMD) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) adopted it as the basis of the marriage system in the early twentieth century, yifu yiqi zhi—which literally means a system of one husband, one wife—has been translated as monogamy. Yet the conflation of the Chinese characters yifu yiqi zhi with the English word monogamy resulted from contests over meaning that can be traced to Republican discussions on marriage and sex in general and on concubinage in particular, which attached the new notion of conjugal fidelity to yifu yiqi zhi. The criminalization of concubinage as adultery under GMD law and as bigamy under CCP law signaled the different meanings yifu yiqi zhi held in the early twentieth century, meanings that continue to influence contemporary usages of the term.