Power=castration, slavery & fratricide

[Jim Beaux]

There was a programme last night on world buildings associated with power. One building was the harem of the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, in Istanbul.

As you enter the building, you pass through a courtyard that was guarded by eunuchs to keep out undesirables.

The eunuchs were usually slaves taken from Africa as boys (not men) and castrated on the voyage north to Istanbul.

Once through the intial courtyard you entered the residence of the women of the harem. Estimates of the number of women in the harem vary from 1,000 to 4,000. Some of these women were Moslems given as presents to the sultan. Islam does not allow you to enslave Moslems, so the bulk of the women were enslaved Christians and Jews, then made to convert to Islam.

The sultan's mother wielded considerable power, typically choosing which woman would spend the night with her son.

After spending a night with the sultan, the chosen woman might be carrying the sultan's child. So her status was elevated and she was moved to an inner residence area, where she had her own private living quarters. And a eunuch of her own.

Those producing male offspring would then jockey for power, trying to get their son selected as the next heir, (and themselves as the next sultan's mother). One sultan produced 50 male offspring. Pause for a moment and think what its like when 50 women are trying constantly to manipulate you. :p

In time the old sultan would die and the heir would be appointed as the new sultan. And the question arose as to what to do with all those brothers who might plot to depose the new sultan. At one stage in the empire this was solved by fratricide. The unsuccessful brothers would be executed. Later on, the brothers were allowed to live, but spent their entire lives in a 'gilded cage', another separate area of the harem built specifically to enprison them.

So there you have the wheel of power at one point in the Ottoman empire - castration, slavery and fratricide.

Final note. Since most of the wives were of Christian or Jewish origins, that meant most of the sultans had this input. Now if father had, and son had, then that would mean son was way less 'Turkish' or 'Ottomanish' than those he ruled over.:confused:

[yodajazz]

I think I want to learn more about the roles of Eunuchs in historical societies. I have found a couple of references. I just happened by one today in the book of Acts. The dicsciple Philip met one who was trying read the Old Testament. Philip helped to him understand that the meaning of the passage was really about Christ.
The interesting thing was that this Eunuch had a very powerful position. He was head of the treasury under Queen Candace of Eithiopia.

I think that some those who became Eunuchs at a younger age may have had a little feminine development. I vauguely recall reading that somewhere. Let me know what else you know about them. There was certainly some kind of sexual component as Jesus's disciples brought it up to him, when he was talking about males and females and marriage.

[Jim Beaux]

http://www.allaboutturkey.com/harem.htm This goes into more depth about the hierarchy on the female side, but it's also got a lot of interesting info on the role of eunuchs in the Empire.

Moslem religion forbids castration of slaves. This was got around by getting Christian and Jewish slavers to do the castration before passing the slave on to the moslems.

There were white and black eunuchs, with different roles. White eunuchs were used in government positions, black eunuchs were used in the harem, and for a long time white eunuchs had a higher standing than black.

Black eunuchs were taken as boys, and were actually emasculated rather than castrated. The link describes how emasculation was carried out and how it is more survivable pre-puberty. The article also implies part of this was to get someone as non-male as possible, to fit in with religious requirement that a male could not attend to wives, whether the Sultan's or otherwise.

White eunuchs seem mainly to have come from war, were thus already through puberty, and were either castrated or had their penis sliced off but not both. Quite why you'd want a slave with no penis but leave his balls is beyond me. Anyway, these 'masculine' slaves couldn't serve in the harem, thus went into government.

At some point the white eunuchs got up to some sort of (unspecified) hanky panky with the women. The sultan of the time removed some powers from the white eunuchs, gave them to the black eunuchs and from that point on black eunuchs had higher standing than white. The most powerful positions in the Empire were then the sultan @ 1, the Grand Vizier @ 2, and the chief of the black eunuchs @ 3.

[yodajazz]

Thanks for the link. It was helpful, but I did not find exactly what I wanted. The article does state that the harem eunuch were made ‘less male’ because ‘men’ where not allowed to attend the women of the harem. The time frame of the article was the 1500’s through the 1800’s.

What I am looking for is history about gender variant classes people. The eunuchs of India are more clearly what one would transsexuals. One name their class is called Hijra’s or something like that. I know that in several places the stage was a place where a male could make a career playing female roles. I know that this took place in Japan and Europe.

One goal of my research is to try and document the roles of eunuchs that Jesus referred to. It would seem that his statement was about gender variant people, but more documentation about how they lived at that time would help.

Where I see this information being valuable is that the rights of transgender people are going to be fought out in our court systems. A historical perspective would help in the legal arguments. An example of this, is that some HMO deny GRS with the argument that it is an experimental procedure. However in the case of eunuchs’, part of the GRS procedure has been performed for at least 2000 years!

With the prevalence of transgender people today ( I last heard 1 in 2000), it would seem that they would have existed throughout history. They seem to exist in every documented culture, so more knowledge would always help.

[ConradG]

There is a good study on Eunuchs and the role they play in negotiating 'sacred space', in Islam; their role in mediating relations between men and women in Makka and Madina was not fullly dispensed with until well into the Saudi era which is a surprise. Also, not all Eunuchs were completely castrated, some 'merely' had their testicles removed, ie their reproductive function was disabled.

Highly recommended:
Eunuchs and Sacred Bondaries in Islamic Society
Shaun Elizabeth Marmon, OUP 1995

I read this book when it came out and was fascinated by its application to gender, space and time. In so many varied societies relations between men and women are shaped by fluids and smells, of which semen and blood are the key (Herdt is important on this aspect of gender relations); by removing a man's abiility to ejaculate and reproduce his 'masculinity' is removed as a threat and 'he' can negotiate the route through sacred spaces without impinging on the more clearly defined roles of men and women, etc. The same principle used in sacred spaces can be applied to courts, note that veiling women historically was more common among royalty than it was among the plebs and peasants.

There are some other books in the Bodleian but I don't know them; if you are in the USA try any Ivy League university or the New York Public Library.

Mail me if you want any more references on this.

[yodajazz]

Thanks for the response. Your description reminds me of the role of different gendered persons in Native American tribes, called berdaches. My understanding is that they had an honored roll, and were considered wise, because they were thought to be able to better understand both the male and female principles.

In looking up the spelling of ‘berdaches’, I discovered that the term comes from Persian/European origins and is not like my Navtive Amercans because it had negative meanings attached to it. The term “two spirited” is a preferred term.

I’m beginning to see that some of the history of eunuchs that I am looking for may be in articles about gay history.

Also part of my interest in eunuchs comes from the passage were Jesus talks about the category of eunuchs in the book of Matthew. I wonder how many people here are familiar or not familiar with the verses?

[ConradG]

I think the problem you will have to resolve when looking at 'Eunuchs' is deciding how the word is being used -the King James version has 'Eunuchs' (Matthew 19:12) but is this Tyndale glossing a word for which he had no other English version? I don't know what the multiple other versions of Matthew have, but if the concept is of someone who is neither solely male nor female could 'transgendered' be acceptable?
You can Google Jesus + Matthew + Eunuchs for a discussion. Don't know much about Berdache but there was a fascinating (and controversial) article in the anthropology journal 'Man' (I think 1977) by Unni Wikan on the 'Xanith' of Oman -men who fail to consummate marriages who in some cases become 'transgendered' prostitutes etc. Reproduced with a photo in her book Women in Oman. I think we are talking about issues of sexual boundaries and how for some men and women the transgendered are seen as a threat, in some societies a blessing. I believe there is also a group of transgendered mystics in Mexico...transgendered is equivalent to being in an exalted state...

[Jordan]

Interesting,..Any more info on these trans gendered mystics?

[yodajazz]

I think the problem you will have to resolve when looking at 'Eunuchs' is deciding how the word is being used -the King James version has 'Eunuchs' (Matthew 19:12) but is this Tyndale glossing a word for which he had no other English version? I don't know what the multiple other versions of Matthew have, but if the concept is of someone who is neither solely male nor female could 'transgendered' be acceptable?
You can Google Jesus + Matthew + Eunuchs for a discussion. Don't know much about Berdache but there was a fascinating (and controversial) article in the anthropology journal 'Man' (I think 1977) by Unni Wikan on the 'Xanith' of Oman -men who fail to consummate marriages who in some cases become 'transgendered' prostitutes etc. Reproduced with a photo in her book Women in Oman. I think we are talking about issues of sexual boundaries and how for some men and women the transgendered are seen as a threat, in some societies a blessing. I believe there is also a group of transgendered mystics in Mexico...transgendered is equivalent to being in an exalted state...


I found an article by a queer scholar of the Koran. He uses the word eunuch much the same as you use the word “Xanith”. He says that people of the time used a phrase like “natural born eunuch” to describe those that did not have sex with women. This is a different concept than the western meaning where ‘eunuchs’ are only males who have had surgical procedures. The article is strong evidence that when Jesus said; “some are born that way” he was referring to the “natural born eunuchs" referred to in the article. This seems more logical to me than those born with sexual birth defects. I think that birth defects would have been very rare where gay or effeminate males would have been much more common.

It makes sense then, that the second class of eunuchs, which Jesus referred to as; “being made by men”, would be those who were made eunuchs physically because they were captured on battle or where the family sold them into servitude. This class would be closer to the widely accepted concept of eunuch.

With this in interpretation the third category of eunuchs those that became it “for the kingdom of heaven” would cover spiritual orders and others, who voluntarily refrained from sex. So maybe he was referring to more that those with surgical procedures.

I have regularly read a column in a spiritual magazine, from a scholar who speaks Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke. He often interprets sayings according idiomatic expressions of Middle Eastern cultures. He also says that Aramaic is close to Arabic as a language. He shows often that the Aramaic meaning has some different meanings than the English translation. So the interpretation of the word eunuch as being like the meaning of Xanith is a very real possibility.

The author of the article uses the term eunuch to include gays. I think that transsexuals should certainly include themselves in the meaning of the term. Of course many would vehemently deny any sexual meaning at all, I have read some of those views myself. But the fact that the dicussion of the term is in a chapter about marriage is a strong argument that Jesus was talking about people of certain sexual behaviors as well.

The article I referred to is long but there are many interesting facts and interpretations in it.

http://www.well.com/user/aquarius/Qurannotes.htm

[alysiasela]

There's a good movie out called "One Night with the King", about Babylon and some enslavement of the Jews. (I believe its based on the book of Ester, as she is one of the stars, the bad guy is played by one of the main actors from the show Battlestar Galactica) *anyways, I saw this movie and it was really pretty-

AND

a Eunich played a HUGE part in this movie as an adviser and friend to the pending Queen. Pretty cool watch if you get the chance. Minus some religious connotation from what I remember. :/

[ConradG]

I dont know what more to say, the word 'interpetation' contains your problems -the words we use today, Gay, Homosexual, Transgendered, would be meaningless to someone from the 18th century; you are assuming the word Eunuch has the same meaning across time, but it doesnt. Wikan's analysis of the Xanith in Oman was controversial, when I tried to talk to an Omani once about the Xanith he was horrified and refused to discuss it. I recently read in The Guardian or the Independent a story where local policemen in Afghanistan were allowed time off during their training by British and American forces to indulge in sex with the 9-10 year old boys who are retained to make tea, do the laundry, look after the guys, etc -are they gay?
In any case, at some point sexuality and gender cease to have any meaning. If you fall in love with someone for example, their gender status loses its importance.

On Mexico - I was told by word of mouth of a kind of commune there which transgendered people go to, I think it has something which came out of a strange mixture of Carlos Castaneda, Inca civilisation, and 'god' knows what else. Sorry I can't be of any help Alyssa.