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Q: When did it become illegal to have 'consorts' in China?
Not that men don't informally do this nowadays (lulz), but at what point was it actually written down on paper?
12 years 24 weeks ago in Visa & Legalities - China
After Mao's take over around 1949, polygamy was prohibited in China. In 2007 or 08, a regulation was issued prohibiting government officials to have the so called second wives.
But that does not mean a thing in China. With so many newly rich (at last count, more that 8500 families had assets over 100 million Rmb in Shanghai only), the second wives (or sugar daddy) continues to exist for the affluent ones.
In the early times before Mao, a man could have as many wives as they could afford up to six or seven. After Mao, it was declared that monogamy would strengthen China and would was put into order. It was made official in 2004 that no one could hold more than one wife including the rich and government officials, mostly because of the many scandals that were even more wide-spread than what we see today. Doesn't matter though, mistresses are abundant in China
My wife tells me that her grandfather had to divorce his second wife in 1949. She never remarried and still lives in the same village as him (they are amazingly still alive).
