Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, that disables the function of testes in males: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy (excision of both testicles), while chemical castration uses pharmaceutical drugs to deactivate the testes. Some forms of castration cause sterilization (permanently preventing the castrated person or animal from reproducing); it also greatly reduces the production of sex hormones, such as testosterone and estrogen. Surgical castration in animals is often called neutering.
Castration has been used by humans for various types of slavery, such as in the eunuchs of the Ottoman Empire, as well as a terror tactic in warfare. It was incorporated into Chinese law during the Zhou dynasty. In the United States, Thomas Jefferson wrote and proposed a bill in Virginia reducing the punishment for rape, polygamy, or sodomy from death to castration. Although it ultimately failed to pass for free citizens, by Virginia law a slave attempting to rape a White woman could be castrated.
Castration of animals is intended to favor a desired physical development of the animal or of its behavior, or to prevent overpopulation. The parallel of castration for female animals is spaying.
The term castration may also be sometimes used to refer to emasculation where both the testicles and the penis are removed together. In some cultures, and in some translations, no distinction is made between the two.
History
Castration may have arisen in the Neolithic period in response to animal husbandry, rising populations, and population specialisation.
Either surgical removal of both testicles or chemical castration may be carried out in the case of prostate cancer. Testosterone-depletion treatment (either surgical removal of both testicles or chemical castration) is used to slow down the cancer. Surgical removal of one or both testicles, known as orchidectomy, is the most common treatment for testicular cancer.
Castration has also been used in the United States on sex offenders as a way of averting their incarceration.
Involuntary castration appears in the history of warfare, sometimes used by one side to torture or demoralize their enemies.
Africa and the Middle East
During The Caliphate in Baghdad at the beginning of the 10th Century had 7,000 black eunuchs and 4,000 white eunuchs in his palace." The Arab slave trade typically dealt in the sale of castrated male slaves. Black boys at the age of eight to twelve had their penises and scrota completely amputated. Reportedly, about two out of three boys died, but those who survived drew high prices.
Europe Slavery The employment or enslavement of eunuchs (castrated men) was practiced in classical and Roman antiquity and continued into the Middle Ages. In the 10th century, slave traders in Verdun in France and in Becâne (Pechina), Spain, castrated captives who were then enslaved as harem attendants in Al-Andalus.
Punishment Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire reports castration of defeated Byzantine Greeks at the hands of the Frankish marquis Theobald of Camerino and Spoleto in the course of 10th-century wars in Italy. By contrast the Byzantines themselves frequently castrated their rivals believing this would strip them of status, since a perfect emperor was expected to reflect heavenly authority. Mutilation, including castration legally disqualified a rival from ever achieving ascension to the throne forever, because a "blemished" man could not rule. Gibbon also alludes to a 12th-century incident set out in William Fitzstephen's Vita Sancti Thomae (Life of St. Thomas) in which Geoffrey of Anjou castrated the members of the cathedral chapter of Sens as a punishment for disobedience. In the medieval kingdom of Georgia, the 12th-century pretender Demna was castrated by his uncle George III of Georgia to ensure the supremacy of George's branch of the family. Another victim of castration was the 12th-century medieval French philosopher, scholar, teacher, and (later) monk Pierre Abélard. He was castrated by relatives of his lover, Héloïse. Bishop Wimund, a 12th-century English adventurer and invader of the Scottish coast, was blinded and castrated after losing a power struggle. In medieval England, men found guilty of high treason were hanged, drawn and quartered, which often included emasculation (removal of the genitalia).
Modern era Wim Deetman was criticized by the Dutch parliament for excluding evidence of castration in his report on sexual abuse by the Roman Catholic Church, where ten children were allegedly "punished" by castration in the 1950s for reporting sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests. The Deetman Commission had rejected it as the person who reported the incident admitted it was speculative.
In Spain, a law against castration was used to deny sex-reassignment surgery to transgender people until the Penal Code was reformed in 1983.
China According to legend, during the reign of the legendary Emperor Shun and Yu in China, in 2281 BC, castration was passed into law as a punishment, remaining so until the reign of Gaozu of Tang (618–626 AD). However, it was still practiced after his reign. According to historians, it was incorporated into Chinese law during the Zhou dynasty. It was one of the five physical punishments that could be legally inflicted on criminals in China.
Records of castrations in China date to the Shang dynasty (–1050 BC), when the Shang kings castrated prisoners of war.
During the reign of Mu of the Zhou dynasty (10th c. BC) the Minister of Crime, Marquis Lu, reformed the law in 950 BC to make it easier for people to be sentenced to castration instead of death. This practice included not only the removal of the testicles but also the penis: both organs were cut off with a knife at the same time.
Men were castrated and made into state slaves during the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) to perform forced labor for projects such as the Terracotta Army. The Qin government confiscated the property and enslaved the families of rapists who received castration as a punishment. Men punished with castration during the Han dynasty were also used as slave labor.
In the Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), castration continued to be used as a punishment for various offences. Chinese historian Sima Qian was castrated by order of the Han Emperor of China for dissent. In another incident multiple people, including a chief scribe and his underlings, were subjected to castration.
During the early part of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 AD), China demanded eunuchs to be sent as tribute from Korea. Some of them oversaw the Korean concubines in the harem of the Chinese Emperor.
When the Chinese overthrew Mongol rule, many Mongol captives were castrated and turned into eunuchs. When the Ming army finally captured Yunnan from Mongols in 1382, thousands of prisoners were killed and, according to the custom in times of war, their young sons—including Zheng He—were castrated.
During the Miao Rebellions (Ming dynasty), Chinese commanders castrated thousands of Miao boys when their tribes revolted, and then distributed them as eunuch slaves as gifts to various officials.
At the end of the Ming dynasty, there were about 70,000 eunuchs (宦官 huànguān, or 太監 tàijiàn) employed by the emperor, with some serving inside the Forbidden City.
The last imperial eunuch in China was Sun Yaoting who died in 1996.
Non-Han peoples in China The Khitan people adopted the practice of using eunuchs from the Chinese and the eunuchs used were non-Khitan prisoners of war. The Khitan were a nomadic Mongolic people and originally did not have eunuchs as part of their culture.祝建龙 (Zhu Jianlong), 二〇〇九年四月 (April 2009), 12.(Page 18 on online document viewer, Page 12 on actual document) When the Khitan founded the Liao dynasty they developed a harem system with concubines and wives and adopted eunuchs as part of it. All of the eunuchs captured were ethnic Chinese from the Central Plains that came from two sources. The Khitan captured Chinese people who were already eunuchs at the Jin court when they invaded the Later Jin. Another source was during their war with the Chinese Song dynasty: the Khitan would raid China, capture Han Chinese boys as prisoners of war and emasculate them to become eunuchs. The emasculation of captured Chinese boys guaranteed a continuous supply of eunuchs to serve in the Liao dynasty harem. The Empress Dowager Xiao Chuo (Chengtian) played a large role in the raids to capture and emasculate the boys.祝建龙 (Zhu Jianlong), 二〇〇九年四月 (April 2009), 13. (Page 19 on online document viewer, Page 13 on actual document)
Chengtian took power at age 30 in 982 as a regent for her son. Some reports suggest that she personally led her own army against the Song Chinese in 986. Her army defeated them in battle, fighting the retreating Chinese army. She then ordered the castration of around 100 ethnic Chinese boys she had captured in China, supplementing the Khitan's supply of eunuchs to serve at her court, among them was Wang Ji'en. The boys were all under ten years old and were selected for their good looks.
The History of Liao described and praised Empress Chengtian's capture and mass castration of the Chinese boys in a biography on Wang Ji'en.
Some legends say that the Mongol Genghis Khan was castrated by a Tangut princess using a knife, who wanted revenge against his treatment of the Tanguts and to stop him from raping her.
During the Qing dynasty (1644–1911 AD), the sons and grandsons of the rebel Yaqub Beg in China were all sentenced to castration. Surviving members of Yaqub Beg's family included his four sons, four grandchildren (two grandsons and two granddaughters), and four wives. They either died in prison in Lanzhou, Gansu, or were killed by the Chinese. His sons Yima Kuli, K'ati Kuli, Maiti Kuli, and grandson Aisan Ahung were the only survivors in 1879. They were all underage children, and put on trial, sentenced to an agonizing death if they were complicit in their father's rebellious "sedition", or if they were innocent of their fathers crimes, were to be sentenced to castration and serving as eunuch slaves to Chinese troops, when they reached 11 years old, and handed over to the Imperial Household to be executed or castrated. Although some sources assert that the sentence of castration was carried out, official sources from the US State Department and activists involved in the incident state that Yaqub Beg's son and grandsons had their sentence commuted to life imprisonment with a fund provided for their support.
Korea The eunuchs of Korea, called (), were officials to the king and other royalty in traditional Korean society. The first recorded appearance of a Korean eunuch was in Goryeosa ("History of Goryeo"), a compilation about the Goryeo period. In 1392, with the founding of the Joseon dynasty, the system was revised, and the department was renamed the "Department of " ().
The system included two ranks, those of (, "Chief of "), who held the official title of senior second rank, and (, "Common official "), both of which held rank as officers. 140 in total served the palace in Joseon dynasty period. They also took the exam on Confucianism every month. The system was repealed in 1894 following Gabo reform.
According to legend, castration consisted of daubing a boy's genitals with human feces and having a dog bite them off. During the Yuan dynasty, eunuchs became a desirable commodity for tributes, and dog bites were replaced by more sophisticated surgical techniques.
Vietnam