Courtesans having relationships with scholars and writers were often highly educated as well and had access in an environment of knowledge and creation that enhanced their own talent. In the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), "literati naturally developed relationships with women that reflected, if not true equality, at least compatibility and mutual respect.” Chang explained.
"Literati and courtesans exchanged poems, traveled together, shared political and moral commitments, and formed true friendship. Thus, although the courtesans often ended up becoming merely the concubines of the literati, their function and position resembled those of the modern wife. Such relationships evolved because the scholar's legal wives, acquired through arranged marriages, usually had limited access to the emotional and intellectual lives of their husbands, thus preventing men of that age from associating romantic love with their formal wives.”
