The Role of Etiquette in Chinese culture (4)- Number of wives 

Chinese society is very hierarchical and one of the aspects that evidences this is the number of wives allowed between different social classes. The lowest class or commoners tend to practice monogamy while the wealthy have a wife and various concubines. And depending on the dynasty, sometimes merchants are considered to be a cheap social class and forbidden to take on concubines even though they can afford it, at least technically. I’m also not sure how you can enforce stuff like this when a rich merchant can just sleep with a bunch of maids and not take them on as formal concubines. 

According to the Zhou Etiquette, an Emperor should have:

• 1 Queen
• 3 Fu Ren (or Fei). Depending on the dynasty, they might be granted the title of Kui (high status) Fei, Shuo Fei, De Fei and Xian Fei that all translate to the Virtuous Royal Concubine, Hui (kind) Fei, Li (beautiful) Fei, Hua (flowery) Fei, Rou (gentle) Fei, Wen (literature) Fei, Yuan (first) Fei, Zhen (true) Fei or Chen (Imperial) Fei. By far, the most common combination is a three or four Fei being made up of Kui Fei, Shuo Fei, De Fei and Xian Fei. They are in charge of female virtue and etiquettes
• 9 Pins, with two-character titles made up from the 3 prefixes of Zhao (bright), Xiu (cultivate) and Chong (fill) and the 3 suffixes of Yi (manners), Rong (looks) and Yuan (beauty). They are in charge of the areas that comprise female virtue- virtue, speech, looks and achievements. 
• 27 Shi (generational) Fu (married women) separated into three stratas: nine Jie Yu, nine Mei Ren (Beauties) and nine Cai Ren (person of talent). They are mainly in charge of funerals and foreign dignatory visits. 
• 81 Yu Qi (Imperial Wife), again forming 3 equal sub-stratas including Bao (Treasure) Lin (Forest), Nu Yu (Maiden under Control? Yu can also mean Imperial but here probably referring to control in the context of riding a horse) and Cai Nu (Colourful Maiden). They are responsible for sleeping with the Emperor and internal affairs

In total, this is only 121 females that a Chinese Emperor can have at the Imperial Palace. But in reality, many far exceed this number. But mostly, each dynasty adheres to the Zhou Etiquette tiers at least if not in number.