Talk:Daughter of Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei/Archive 1

Article title
Could I suggest a change of name to Empress Yuan of Northern Wei? Deb (talk) 13:34, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * My personal opinion is, she was argubly an "emperor", and was an imposter because only males were allowed to succeed the throne. Moreover, the term "Empress" usually refers to an empress consort. I didn't categorise it in either Category:Northern Wei emperors or Category:Northern Wei empresses because the former was a term for male monarchs and the latter is solely for the wives of Emperors (see Wu Zetian, "empress" in Chinese context is to be used for empress consort). Nonetheless, let's hear from other Wikipedians for their opinion. HYH.124 (talk) 05:23, 11 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Also, Empress Yuan Humo was also Empress Yuan, and she was the legitimate empress consort of Northern Wei, unlike Emperor Xiaoming's daughter whose status remains controversial. The redirect is just for the convenience when searching. -- Huang (user page | talk | contribs | info) 08:49, 15 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I think the current title is fine. The alternatives, Empress Yuan and Emperor Yuan, are both problematic. -Zanhe (talk) 03:54, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Use of 'emperor' and 'empress regnant'
Now I am puzzled because no matter what she was an empress regnant despite her holding the title as 皇帝 Huangdi. Wu Zetian was also Huangdi and she was also empress regnant and I don't see why the lead section shouldn't indicate empress regnant since "not widely recognised..." was mentioned. It was for factual reasons and quite a number of historians do said that she was the so-called "first" 女皇帝 which translates to Empress regnant instead of "female emperor" (contradicting because a male - Emperor could be a female). Even though most historians only recognise Wu Zetian, this Xiaoming's daughter was still empress regnant, regardless of the case.

The lead section should indicate empress regnant and those with emperors should be quoted with quotation marks. I really don't see what's wrong in using Empress. --Huang (talk) 04:56, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * A major difference is that Wu Zetian was universally known to be a woman, whereas Yuan was presented as a boy, and therefore, emperor. -Zanhe (talk) 05:16, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * So we can categorise her to Category:Northern Wei emperors? And for the entire article we can replace everything from "Empress" to "Emperor"? --Huang (talk) 05:19, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Moreover, she was presented as a boy but at the time she was dethroned, the imperial edict was issued to declare that she was a girl, which was why we all knew she was a girl, otherwise, "he" would be a "boy". Thus she was also universally known as a woman because her gender was known to be male only from the time of birth to the time the edict was issued, which was only 50 days. --Huang (talk) 05:22, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * 1. During here entire (though short) reign, she was believed to be a boy and the emperor.
 * 2. The English word emperor does not exclusively mean male monarch. For example, Wu Zetian is often called a female emperor instead of an empress (see the title of her biography). So it's not grammatically wrong to call the girl an emperor. -Zanhe (talk) 06:06, 5 December 2013 (UTC)