By Yi-Li Wu Throughout imperial China, a family’s well-being and longevity required the birth of sons. [Fig. 1] Sons performed the ancestral rites, inherited land, and were responsible for supporting aged parents. And only men could take the examinations for government office which conferred elite socio-economic status. But at age 40, Liu Xiaoting was still sonless (wu zi). He appealed to the physician Gong Tingxian (15`38-1635), promising him rich recompense if he could help. As Gong recorded in his influential treatise, Curing the Myriad … Continue reading Cold Wombs and Cold Semen: Explaining Sonlessness in Sixteenth-century China
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