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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: Manchus that no prince can marry a princess of their own people,
but like the Emperor himself, must seek their wives from among
the untitled. These ladies after their marriage are raised to the
rank of their husbands. It is the same with the daughters of a
prince. Their husbands must come from among the people, but
unlike the princes they cannot raise them to their own rank, and
so their children have no place in the imperial clan. Many of the
princesses therefore prefer to marry Mongolian princes, by which
they retain their rank as well as that of their children.
Naturally a marriage of this kind brings changes into the life of
the princess. She has been brought up in a palace in the capital,
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