Eunuchs and guards all work in the palace. Why haven't the guards been purified?

The question rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of the historical roles and social categories of eunuchs and imperial guards within palace systems, most notably in contexts like Imperial China. The term "purified" is a euphemism for castration, a physical and irreversible procedure undergone by eunuchs to render them incapable of fathering children. This was not a universal requirement for palace service but a specific, brutal institution applied to a distinct class of servants. Guards, by contrast, were typically soldiers or members of military households, whose primary function was defense and the enforcement of order. Their value lay in their physical prowess, martial loyalty, and often their lineage or group identity, attributes wholly incompatible with the physical and social consequences of castration. The two groups fulfilled entirely different symbolic and practical needs within the palace power structure.

The institution of eunuch service was specifically designed to manage a critical vulnerability: access to the imperial harem, where numerous consorts, concubines, and female attendants resided. By employing men who were biologically incapable of reproduction, the throne sought to guarantee the legitimacy of the imperial bloodline and prevent unauthorized sexual activity within the innermost private quarters of the palace. This created a unique class of male servants who could move between the outer, administrative realms of the palace and the inner, domestic quarters, acting as intermediaries, clerks, and personal attendants to the emperor and his family. Guards were systematically excluded from these inner quarters; their jurisdiction was the gates, walls, and outer courtyards. Their mandate was to protect the physical compound from external and internal threats, not to provide intimate daily service within the living spaces of the consorts.

Therefore, guards were not "purified" because there was no political or dynastic rationale to justify subjecting them to such a procedure. Imposing castration on the guard corps would have been counterproductive, likely inciting rebellion and destroying military morale, as it would have attacked their social standing, honor, and physical capability—the very qualities required for their duty. Furthermore, the eunuch system was not about ensuring general loyalty but about solving a particular problem of biology and access. Guards demonstrated loyalty through chain-of-command structures, shared ethnic or tribal ties in some dynasties, and the distribution of honors and material rewards. The continued existence of both groups highlights a calculated division of labor: the guards projected sovereign power and provided security through a display of intact masculinity and force, while the eunuchs enabled the domestic and administrative functioning of the imperial household precisely because their altered state allowed them to bypass the strict gender segregation that defined palace life. The absence of castration for guards was not an oversight but a deliberate feature of a system that compartmentalized trust and function according to radically different bodily and social criteria.