Hou is a tile for ancient Chinese

History of China

Chinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest...

 ruler, which may equivalent to King/Queen or Emperor/Empress.

The Chinese character

Chinese character

Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...

 Hou(后) is an ideogrammic compounds

Chinese character classification

All Chinese characters are logograms, but there are several derivative types. These include a handful which derive from pictograms and a number which are ideographic in origin, but the vast majority originated as phono-semantic compounds . In older literature, Chinese characters in general may be...

, in oracle bone script

Oracle bone script

Oracle bone script refers to incised ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which are animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in Bronze Age China...

 it is written the same as Si(司, means "to rule") as the combination of mouth(口) and hand(手). Hou usually refers to female rulers in oracle bone script. In Xia Dynasty

Xia Dynasty

The Xia Dynasty is the first dynasty in China to be described in ancient historical chronicles such as Bamboo Annals, Classic of History and Records of the Grand Historian. The Xia Dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors gave his throne to him...

, the title for Kings of Xia are Hou, for example the expression Xia Hou Shi(夏后氏) means King of Xia, and the contemporary leader Houyi

Houyi

Houyi , also called Yiyi or simply Yi, was a mythological Chinese archer and the leader of Dongyi. He is sometimes portrayed as a god of archery descended from heaven to aid mankind, and sometimes as the chief of the Youqiong Tribe during the reign of King Tai Kang of Xia Dynasty...

. Kings of Shang Dynasty

Shang Dynasty

The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper" in the Yellow River valley...

have their own title Wang, and Hou turned to refer Queen, the wife of King. This may reflect that rulers are female in very ancient times.