Commentary to French, Smith, and Stanbury

Commentary to French, Smith, and Stanbury S. E. KILE University of Michigan [email protected] In “An Honest Bed: The Scene of Life and Death in Late Medieval England,”1 authors Katherine L. French, Kathryn A. Smith, and Sarah Stanbury examine the significance of the bed in fourteenth- to sixteenth- century England from a multidisciplinary perspective, drawing on an array of historical, literary, and visual sources to demonstrate the “moral, ethical, economic, and spiritual expectations that beds carried” (84).They link these concerns through the notion of an “honest” bed, which was common parlance at the time, to demonstrate how a mundane household object accrued a range of symbolic associations that are distinctive to this particular historical context. In response to this collaborative study of beds in late medieval England, I will briefly examine the symbolic significance of the bed in China during the overlapping, but slightly later period of the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries. I draw examples from four sources: the fifteenth-century carpenter’s manual The Classic of Lu Ban (Lu Ban jing 魯班經, attr. Lu Ban, ca. 5th c. BCE); the sixteenth-century erotic novel The Plum in the Golden Vase (Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅, anon., first print edition 1610); the early seventeenth-century manual of taste, Treatise on Superfluous Things (Zhangwu zhi 長物志, comp. Wen Zhenheng, first print edition ca. 1615–1620); and the seventeenth-century guide to living, Lei- sure Notes (Xianqing ouji 閒情偶寄, Li Yu 李漁, first print edition 1671).2 A comparative look at the “economic and symbolic values that accrue to the bed, bedding, and the bedroom” (61) in these two geographically far- removed, but roughly synchronous contexts reveals intriguing similarities alongside the expected differences. Needless to say, given limitations of space, this study is by no means intended to offer a comprehensive picture of the significance of beds in China during this period. Whereas the authors note that, in England, beds were the “most important item of furniture in the premodern household” (61), in China’s late imperial period the most important piece of furniture was likely the family altar or the furniture that was used in reception halls. In general, furniture was not highly valued by the literati elite, who tended to dis- miss expensive or elaborate furniture as the preoccupation of uncultured merchants. Nevertheless, the bed was certainly the most expensive, and often the largest, piece of household furniture. There was considerable variation in sleeping arrangements by class in this period, ranging from that of a servant—a thin mat and bedding on the floor—to the babu Fragments Volume 7 (2018) 64 KILE: Commentary to French, Smith, and Stanbury chuang 拔步牀, “canopy bed with alcove,” enjoyed by the very rich.3 Babu chuang were canopy beds mounted on a platform that enclosed an entrance area separate from the bed itself. This entrance area could con- tain chairs, tables, shelves, or chests. They were elaborately constructed using the finest materials, often covered in black or colored lacquer and inlaid with marble, gold, or mother-of-pearl. More common than these unwieldy and expensive pieces of furniture was the type of bed called the ta 榻, or “daybed.” This type of bed was more portable and lower to the ground. Usually a simple platform on four legs, it often had a raised back and raised sides and could serve as a couch for seating during the day. In northern China, a heated platform called a kang 炕 was used for much of the year. The kang was heated using a tray of coals underneath the platform, and it served as a family gathering place, a place for tak- ing meals, and a place for sleeping during cold winters. Some wealthier homes installed both a kang and a bed.4 All of these beds were spaces in which daily activities, such as eating, playing games, or sewing could take place. In addition, there was a range of low tables, desks, and even cupboards designed for use on all types of beds. In traditional carpentry, beds were distinguished from all other furniture in that their construction was subject to geomantic calculation that was otherwise reserved for architecture and landscape design.5 The Classic of Lu Ban thus includes a list of the days on which it would be appropri- ate to install a bed and hang up bed curtains (ranging from four to eight auspicious days in the sexagenary cycle per month).6 In close comparison to the concern with the relationship between “nativities, and the influence of the movements and positions of the planets and stars on the character and destiny of the newborn” (74) identified by the authors of “Honest Bed,” an example from a somewhat later period reflects a shared concern with the ability of the bed to harm children born in it: There was (another) carpenter from Jiangnan, called Xie. In the year geng shen of the Jiaqing period (1800) he found his son a wife, and gave him a wooden bed to sleep on. In the years thereafter, the little children who were born did not stay alive; there were two grandsons who died one after another. But I didn’t have any suspicion about the bed yet. Xie was a very poor man, and had to look after the children each time. One day, the bed cracked suddenly, and inside the crack he found two straw dolls, lying topsy turvy, head facing toes. Then he understood that the dying of his little children was caused by magic. He burned the dolls, and thereafter his children stayed alive. (trans. in Ruitenbeek, 88) As the place where life begins and often ends, the bed also functioned as a portal to the world beyond: dreams might transport one to the un- derworld or treasures might be delivered to the ground beneath the bed. People also often buried their savings in the ground beneath their beds Fragments Volume 7 (2018) 65 KILE: Commentary to French, Smith, and Stanbury or sewed precious metals into their pillows, in order to keep watch over these valuables throughout the night. As luxury objects, beds were associated primarily with women. For those families of the period who were wealthy enough to afford its inclu- sion, the bed would be the most prized item in a daughter’s dowry. The novel The Plum in the Golden Vase describes the luxurious lifestyle of a wealthy merchant, and the bed is the first in a formulaic list of items in- cluded in a dowry: “Bed(s), dressing cases, chests, and cupboards (chuang lian xiang chu 牀奩箱廚).”7 In the association of the bed with the dowry, we see a significant gendering of the bed that persists after marriage. Beds, especially the larger, enclosed beds that functioned as a personal space, served for women as a material form of continuity from their natal home to their husband’s in usual virilocal marriage arrangements. The association of women with the inner chambers in the ideal Confucian division of male and female spheres further identified women with beds, where they would often spend time during the day, whether sewing, eating, or chatting. A proportion of well-to-do families in late imperial China were polygynous, and in such living situations the association between beds and women is particularly evident. In these larger households, each wife or concubine would have her own bedroom with her own bed, whereas the master of the household would usually consider his study, furnished with a daybed, to be his personal space. This consistent association of beds with women provides a useful counterpoint to the article’s English context, wherein the authors expected, but did not find, such extensive gendered associations (“Honest Bed” 62). The fictional representation of a wealthy merchant household in The Plum in the Golden Vase offers a chance to understand the symbolic po- tential of luxurious beds as indicators of excess. The detailed description of elaborate beds highlights the sumptuousness of their embellishments. The riches of the wealthiest woman (Meng Yulou) to marry into Ximen Qing’s household are illustrated by her possession of two of the canopy beds with alcoves (babu chuang) discussed earlier. Her beds are described as being lacquered in many colors with gold tracery, and their place of production, Nanjing, is also indicated (Ch. 8, 1a; Roy 1.147). When another wife (Pan Jinlian), who lacks the means to purchase her own bed, enters the household in the following chapter, Ximen Qing spends sixteen taels of silver to buy her a black lacquer bedstead, elaborately adorned with gold tracery, bed curtains of scarlet silk and gold roundels, a dressing case ornamented with floral rosettes, and a complete complement of tables, chairs, and porcelain taborets embossed with patterns of ornamental brocade. (Roy 1.171) 西門慶旋用十六兩銀子，買了一張黑漆歡門描金床，大紅羅圈金帳幔，寶象花揀庒，卓椅錦杌，擺設齊整。(Ch. 9, 1b) Fragments Volume 7 (2018) 66 KILE: Commentary to French, Smith, and Stanbury Jinlian’s resourcefulness in competing for status with the other women in the household is indicated not only by her ability to secure a marriage proposal without any dowry whatsoever, but also in her ability to convince her husband to provide her with all that she needs to establish herself as on par with the other wives. After Ximen’s marriage to yet another woman (Li Ping’er), Jinlian seeks an upgrade to a bed that is nearly four times as expensive as her first bed. This bed is first described through Ximen Qing’s eyes: When he lifted aside the portiere and went in, he saw that directly in front of him the woman was lying asleep on her newly purchased bedstead of inlaid mother- of-pearl.

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