Those women who had borne children to the late emperor went into honourable retirement in a secluded part of the imperial residence. Those other wives and concubines who had not given him a child presented more of a problem, since they could not be permitted to return to public life, to know the touch of another man. Instead, the women of the late emperor were bundled off to a nunnery, there to shave their heads and live out their days in prayer.
