Eunuch Power in Imperial China

Tsai, Shih-shan Henry

doi:10.2307/j.ctv1n35846.16

Cited by 4 publications

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“…The reason I have not refused to bear these ills and have continued to live, dwelling in vileness and disgrace without taking my leave, is that I grieve that I have things in my heart which I have not been able to express fully, and I am ashamed to think that after I am gone my writings will not be known to posterity. (Hucker, 1985;Tsai, 1996Tsai, , 2002. Like a number of social insects, emperors prolifically reproduced, with help from a sterile caste (Betzig, 2014(Betzig, , 2020.…”

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confidence: 99%

The future is the past.

Betzig¹

2020

Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences

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Evolutionary theories have been tested in the laboratory-evaluating, among other things, a person's willingness to help. They've been tested in field studies, adding greater depth-foragers and herders and farmers have been looked at on every inhabited continent. They've been tested across cultures, adding the dimension of space-to get at, among other things, similarities and differences in mate choice. And occasionally they've been tested across history-adding the dimension of time. Some evolutionary historians have focused on historical demography; others have used a broad spectrum of sources to illuminate big history. Public Significance StatementStudies of human psychology and history help us understand how and why our behaviors vary with context. They should help us behave in more responsible ways.

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confidence: 99%

The future is the past.

Betzig¹

2020

Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences

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Eusociality in History

Betzig¹

2014

Hum Nat

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For more than 100,000 years, H. sapiens lived as foragers, in small family groups with low reproductive variance. A minority of men were able to father children by two or three women; and a majority of men and women were able to breed. But after the origin of farming around 10,000 years ago, reproductive variance increased. In civilizations which began in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China, and then moved on to Greece and Rome, kings collected thousands of women, whose children were supported and guarded by thousands of eunuchs. Just a few hundred years ago, that trend reversed. Obligate sterility ended, and reproductive variance declined. For H. sapiens, as for other organisms, eusociality seems to be an effect of ecological constraints. Civilizations rose up in lake and river valleys, hemmed in by mountains and deserts. Egalitarianism became an option after empty habitats opened up.

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Eusociality in Humans

Betzig¹

2020

The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior

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Eunuch Power in Imperial China

Cited by 4 publications

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The future is the past.

The future is the past.

Eusociality in History

Eusociality in Humans

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