Discussion ?!?!?why are harem novels so...

I havent been able to sleep tonight= overthinking the existence of everything this time including Harem novels, now for anyone who doesn't know what a harem novel is,its basically one man and multiple females. and yes i mean one man (not including reverse harems here!)

TBH im actually pretty interested in this concept because it's existed in many different cultures and religions and honestly the novels I've seen up till now is just out there to ruin it. I mean speaking as a 21st century human obviously this kind of thing is what we would look down on in real life but it doesn't mean it was an extremely terrible for those who have experienced it or even for those who still keep the polygamy going.(not judging or hating on anyone's choices/way of life)

i for one know that polygamy/polygyny was popular in African culture, Islam and obviously the Asians(specifically the Chinese )

so coming to my main question/topic of discussion is that why can't i find a nice decent historical read with the MC being male and having a harem(main wife+concubines and all that)...

i mean idk about you people but im so sick of seeing the harem novels here cuz its full of smut and bullshit where the MC has no sense of loyalty and has superficial care. Even when finding the next love interest its never done openly but behind backs and later everyone just has to deal with the existence of multiple women....sometimes its just the MC sleeping around and never actually forming bonds/deep connections and ironically the harem is always in modern times never in historical/ancient eras where it actually occurred

im not saying that people should not read these or that they are horrible but i mean why not write about a successful harem novel with united characters. im not saying that i dont expect in-house friction but c'mon not all polygamous and one man-multiple wives has a bad ending.

opinions people? or if you have recommendations of a harem novel out there that is not smut and has a decent plot...pls

we can even discuss the differences in the cultures/requirements of the 'harems' among different races/ethnic groups/cultures or whatever

id like to thank anyone and everyone who participated in the discussion, it was great learning a bit of something new and getting to understand diverse thoughts on the matter. Thank you for recommending some great novels-bye xoxo stay safe!

the discussion is open if anyone wants to give their 2 cents on the matter or generally point out new/interesting facts on harems or even just vent their frustrations about it!

 

There's some I've heard of from book synopsis but it won't be found from webnovels.

 

I think harem in ancient time is more like politics
Where the main wife have more authority to deal with the harem

 

Most harems novels are for horny teens who think "it'll be nice to have all the hottest girls in the school suck up to me". Aka wish fulfillment.

Real harems were mostly political or like personal brothels.

If someone wants to imagine how being in a harem would be like where MC travels with multiple girls, its like imagine for a second your mother/sister X the amount of harem members nagging you everywhere.

Most of those horny teens would want to commit suicide.

Even for single relationships, once you get past the honeymoon phase, living with someone is a big undertaking most people aren't prepared for.

 

If we're talking about history when war is everywhere, polygamy was being allowed because it could help some widows who lost their husbands from the warfare. Married is not always only about love, it can be political, needs, etc.

 

i agree with what you say but its because politics is only part of what we are shown. i mean just think about it, fights would not occur for life. At that time harems were the norm...wives were used to having their husbandshave more than one wife/woman, so why couldnt they all co-exist. obviously there was a ranking system, there would be intelligent and wise pwoplw who follow it. after all why those vicious wife killing concubine and dod-eat-dog dramas that we are shown of the in-fighting exist its not only THAT. its just one side of the story

 

no im not saying there was any love involved, at least not in the beginning. you could be marrying someone you have never met or even heard about but next thing ou know they are part of your family. i'd like to think the harems were mostly in the noble households, so yes, political marriages whether the main wife or even concubines could be results of that. But my point is it doesnt mean that these women had to constantly scheme against and poison one another. I think they ha dthe ability to get along and possibly maintain a balance. and its not a must for the Male to be a jerk who only uses them, there could be mutual respect and support is no affections.

 

I think the problem with having a good harem novel is the difficulty in doing so. To make a harem believable and make it work requires a whole lot of effort that most writers aren't willing to put in. The author would have to create realistic female characters that differ from one another, show the interactions between them and the MC, have that relationship develop, and deal with the things that happen afterward like how they deal with new women joining in or how they are relevant later on, etc. To do all that takes a lot of time and commitment and most web novel authors are not willing to put that in for what is essentially wish fulfillment. Doing so for one woman is hard enough let alone multiple.

 

The real is that historical novels don't get translated and people don't read them. Just look here on NU - there are a bunch of books under the Historical genre, but only some 10-20% them are actually historical. Most of the rest don't even take place on Earth.

There are some great historical harem novels out there though, and many of these are very popular in China. I can give you recommendations but you'd have to read them in Chinese. I wouldn't even bother with MTL because it can't handle this kind of book.

Nah. There are harem novels out there with great characters and that aren't anything like what you're describing.

 

It's not a problem with the genre but with the crappy authors who write them. What did you expect from a genre catered to the lowest common denominator?

 

I think one of the requirements for harems than some people overlook is that there will be men with no wives to balance things out. It wasn't like girls were born 4-5 times more likely than boys. Nature has always kept it around 50-50, and humans have lowered the survival rate of baby girls in certain places... And in the past, people still weren't so overpopulated, and there was quite a distance between them. So you'd end up choosing from the vicinity or the same social circle, mostly arranged marriages. So you'll have eunuchs, shadow guards, expendable soldiers, servants, and common villagers who'll never have a wife. Continuing on, some families would sell their girls to brothels, which further lowers the female pool, though providing comfort to the plenty of unmarried men.

 

I've alway found the Japanese harems rather offputting and the CN harems almost offensive. For the former it is little better then a gaggle of backstabbing vultures circling around a brainless zombie to oblivious to the desires of the women around him. The later is just a rape happy meathead that collects every "skin like jade, beauty". Which is the only type of women that exist in the novels.

In either case they have little personality or character development. They mostly exist to create drama or as plot devices. It's why I'm near completely burned out on CN novels and well I have very few JP novels that are little more then filler as I wait for their betters to be translated.

 

you can recommend a few...i can at least try to mtl...if not i can just give up.
that would be super helpful, thanks!

 

Not just in those, you see polygamy/polygyny was something practiced almost in each and every country, because you see, leaders, kings, some prophets and messengers and those with power through history in general did practice polygamy/polygyny, if you look you can find some examples like this, even today around the world and of different religions, those who can afford it do have it (there are women who got multiple husbands too even in modern societies)
And while being looked down on, but in future, polygamy might become a normal thing as no religion deny it (only law) and alot of women's "tastes in men" are getting hard to satisfy, so harems might become a normal usual thing in future and no longer looked down on
As for recommendations then maybe these:
Sono Mono Nochi Ni…
Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou
Risou no Himo Seikatsu
Otherworld Nation Founding Chronicles

 

In most cases the gender disparity is a result of "men are expected to fight, and women raise the children" type of mentality. In some respects it is accurate, though usually the widows were discarded by society in one way or the other due to a stigma of being another man's woman. Things have changed over the year, but we still for the most part suffer from the patriarchal mindset.

 

in my opinion Japanese novels either have too much smut or none at all and with the latter sometimes even romance ceases to exist. and with c-novels its always the women tearing at each other and males with personalities worse than beasts

agreed there were many conditions set for poygamy since not everyone could afford/have the right to one......many times like in islam there are a set of rules which need to be followed for the 'polygamy'......and TBH i do understand the monarchs/people in power having to ahve multiple wives for children, maybe not totally agreeable as to our thinking but if you go to back then i can really see why

 

Because in the first place... harems with deep bonds aren't real. Deep bonds require work, and not just a little bit of effort but a lot of effort. It takes an extreme amount of time and effort to bond on that intimate level. With a 2 person bond, there's already a level of uncertainty between the two, add in another woman and that doesn't only increase the uncertainty but also add in possible misunderstandings, questions of self worth, competition for time and many other issues. If you add in more women, then the male also has much less time with each woman. Is that time enough to develop meaningful bonds with the woman in question? I'd be willing to say.... no.

 

so for me i believe that writing a story with this concept could be so beautiful and controversial that lots of people could either love it or hate it. i would love to read something around this at least.

 

again bonds are not necessarily the so called 'love' but acceptance and reliance and trust. Mutual respect and in a way showing us the whole idea of women to raise the child and rule the backyard while the men go out and work. i would like to read a whole story on how this worked in the ancient times...not a documentary but a novel...im not asking it to be realistic or 100% authentic but i want the other side of harems to be explored-not just the ugly ones

 

To be fair only the wealthiest men were able to afford concubines, so that would only be a few percent of the whole population. Other than that, it was very common for aristocrats to have numerous mistresses in societies that practiced monogamy so things aren't all that different in places like Europe.

Sure thing but I still wouldn't recommend MTL. Also note that it takes quite a long time for the harems in these books to fill out.

回到明朝当王爷
步步生莲
Night Emperor
- There was an attempt made at translating this book but it's a crazy amount of work. Just the first chapter has a ton of footnotes, and they're sort of necessary for the rest of the book. It'd be easier to look for it as 夜天子.

Also as a bonus, The Deer and the Cauldron. I think this book is amazing, and it's not only famous for having a harem, but it's probably the role model for Chinese harem novels in general. Still, I think that the harem really isn't its main selling point so I put it in a different category.

Note that the female casts of all these books are fantastic; with varied personalities and who differ in the way they relate to the protagonist and each other. Best of all, these writers understand what the point of having a harem is so these books are way better than the crappy harem novels you've encountered so far.