Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. CONTENTS v
3. Preface ix
4. Notes on Romanization xii
5. 1. Potent Polygamists and Chaste Monogamists 1
6. 2. Polygamy According to Fiction and Prescriptive Models 28
7. 3. Shrews and Jealousy in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Vernacular Fiction 55
8. 4. The Self-Containing Man: The Miser and the Ascetic 82
9. 5. The Chaste "Beauty-Scholar" Romance and the Superiority of the Talented Woman 99
10. 6. The Erotic Scholar-Beauty Romance 126
11. 7. A Case for Confucian Sexuality: Chaste Polygamy in Yesou Puyan 150
12. 8. Polygyny, Crossing of Gender, and the Superiority of Women in Honglou Meng 176
13. 9. The Overly Virtuous Wife and the Wastrel Polygamist in Lin Lan Xiang 205
14. 10. The Spoiled Son and the Doting Mother in Qilu Deng 221
15. 11. The Other Scholar and Beauty: The Wastrel and the Prostitute in Luye Xianzong 234
16. 12. The Benevolent Polygamist and the Domestication of Sexual Pleasure in Shenlou Zhi 251
17. 13. Emu Yingxiong Zhuan as Antidote to Honglou Meng 265
18. 14. Promiscuous Polygyny and Male Self-Critique 283
19. Notes 293
20. Bibliography 327
21. Glossary of Chinese Characters 341
22. Index 365