Eunuch
A eunuch is a boy or man who has been castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2nd millennium BC. Over the millennia since, they performed a wide variety of functions in many different cultures: courtiers or equivalent domestics, for espionage or clandestine operations, castrato singers, concubines or sexual partners, religious specialists, soldiers, royal guards, government officials, and guardians of women or harem servants.
Eunuchs were usually servants or slaves who were castrated to make them less threatening servants of a royal court where physical access to the ruler could wield great influence. Seemingly lowly domestic functions—such as making the ruler's bed, bathing him, cutting his hair, carrying him in his litter, or even relaying messages—could, in theory, give a eunuch "the ruler's ear" and impart de facto power to the formally humble but trusted servant.
Eunuchs supposedly did not generally have loyalties to the military, the aristocracy, or a family of their own. They were thus seen as more trustworthy and less interested in establishing a private dynasty. Because their condition usually lowered their social status, they could also be easily replaced or killed without repercussion.
Eunuchs have been documented in several ancient and medieval societies, including the Byzantine Empire, Imperial China, the Ottoman Empire, and various Middle Eastern cultures. They often held significant power and influence in these societies, particularly in royal courts and harems.
Etymology
Eunuch comes from the Ancient Greek word εὐνοῦχος, first attested in a fragment of Hipponax, the 6th century BCE comic poet and prolific inventor of compound words. The acerbic poet describes a particular lover of fine food having "consumed his estate dining lavishly and at leisure every day on tuna and garlic-honey cheese paté like a Lampsacene "The earliest surviving etymology of the word is from late antiquity. The 5th century Etymologicon by Orion of Thebes offers two alternative origins for the word eunuch: first,, "guarding the bed", a derivation inferred from eunuchs' established role at the time as "bedchamber attendants" in the imperial palace, and second,, "being good with respect to the mind", which Orion explains based on their "being deprived of intercourse, the things that the ancients used to call irrational ". Orion's second option reflects well-established idioms in Ancient Greek, as shown by entries for, and in Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon, while the first option is not listed as an idiom under in that standard reference work. However, the first option was cited by the late 9th century Byzantine emperor Leo VI in his New Constitution 98 banning the marriage of eunuchs, in which he noted eunuchs' reputation as trustworthy guardians of the marriage bed and claimed that the very word eunuch attested to this kind of employment. The emperor also goes further than Orion by attributing eunuchs' lack of male–female intercourse specifically to castration, which he said was performed with the intention "that they will no longer do the things that males do, or at least to extinguish whatever has to do with desire for the female sex". The 11th century Byzantine monk Nikon of the Black Mountain, opting instead for Orion's second alternative, stated that the word came from , thus meaning "to be well-minded, well-inclined, well-disposed or favorable", but unlike Orion he argued that this was due to the trust that certain jealous and suspicious foreign rulers placed in the loyalty of their eunuchized servants. Theophylact of Ohrid in a dialogue In Defence of Eunuchs also stated that the origin of the word was from eupnoeic and ekhein, "to have, hold", since they were always "well-disposed" toward the master who "held" or owned them. The 12th century Etymologicum Magnum essentially repeats the entry from Orion, but stands by the first option, while attributing the second option to what "some say". In the late 12th century, Eustathius of Thessalonica offered an original derivation of the word from eunis + okheuein, "deprived of mating".
In translations of the Bible into modern European languages, such as the Luther Bible or the King James Bible, the word eunuchs as found in the Latin Vulgate is usually rendered as an officer, official or chamberlain, consistent with the idea that the original meaning of eunuch was bed-keeper. Modern religious scholars have been disinclined to assume that the courts of Israel and Judah included castrated men, even though the original translation of the Bible into Greek used the word eunoukhos
The early 17th-century scholar and theologian Gerardus Vossius therefore explains that the word originally designated an office, and he affirms the view that it was derived from eunē and ekhein. He says the word came to be applied to castrated men in general because such men were the usual holders of that office. Still, Vossius notes the alternative etymologies offered by Eustathius and others, calling these analyses "quite subtle". Then, after having previously declared that eunuch designated an office, Vossius ultimately sums up his argument in a different way, saying that the word "originally signified continent men" to whom the care of women was entrusted, and later came to refer to castration because "among foreigners" that role was performed "by those with mutilated bodies".
Modern etymologists have followed Orion's first option. In an influential 1925 essay on the word eunuch and related terms, Ernst Maass suggested that Eustathius's derivation "can or must be laid to rest", and he affirmed the derivation from eunē and ekhein, without mentioning the other derivation from eunoos and ekhein.
In Latin, the words eunuchus, spado, and castratus were used to denote eunuchs.
Non-castrated eunuchs
The term eunuch has sometimes figuratively been used for a wide range of men who were seen to be physically unable to procreate. Hippocrates describes the Scythians as being afflicted with high rates of erectile dysfunction and thus "the most eunuchoid of all nations". In the Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, the term literally used for impotent males is spado but may also be used for eunuchs.Some men have falsified the status of their castration to gain entrance into the palace. Chinese eunuch Lao Ai, for instance, became the lover of the mother of Qin Shi Huang, who bore him two sons, before Lao Ai and his sons were executed after participating in a rebellion against Qin Shi Huang.
Asia and Africa
In Siam, Indian Muslims from the Coromandel Coast served as eunuchs in the Thai palace and court. The Thai at times asked eunuchs from China to visit the court in Thailand and advise them on court ritual since they held them in high regard.In Imperial China, eunuchs managed the imperial household and were involved in state affairs, often wielding significant political power.
Sir Henry Yule saw many Muslims serving as eunuchs during the Konbaung dynasty period of Burma while on a diplomatic mission.
China
In China, castration included removal of the penis as well as the testicles. Both organs were cut off with a knife at the same time.Eunuchs existed in China from about 4,000 years ago, were imperial servants by 3,000 years ago, and were common as civil servants by the time of the Qin dynasty. From those ancient times until the Sui dynasty, castration was both a traditional punishment and a means of gaining employment in the imperial service. Certain eunuchs, such as the Ming dynasty official Zheng He, gained immense power that occasionally superseded that of even the Grand Secretaries. Self-castration was a common practice, although it was not always performed completely, which led to it being made illegal.
It is said that the justification for the employment of eunuchs as high-ranking civil servants was that, since they were incapable of having children, they would not be tempted to seize power and start a dynasty. In many cases, eunuchs were considered more reliable than the scholar-officials. As a symbolic assignment of heavenly authority to the palace system, a constellation of stars was designated as the Emperor's, and, to the west of it, four stars were identified as his "eunuchs".
The tension between eunuchs in the service of the emperor and virtuous Confucian officials is a familiar theme in Chinese history. In his History of Government, Samuel Finer points out that reality was not always that clear-cut. There were instances of very capable eunuchs who were valuable advisers to their emperor, and the resistance of the "virtuous" officials often stemmed from jealousy on their part. Ray Huang argues that in reality, eunuchs represented the personal will of the Emperor, while the officials represented the alternative political will of the bureaucracy. The clash between them would thus have been a clash of ideologies or political agenda.
The number of eunuchs in imperial employ fell to 470 by 1912, when the practice of using them ceased. The last imperial eunuch, Sun Yaoting, died in December 1996.