Widow chastity

Chastity or moral integrity memorial

Widow chastity was an ideal in traditional Chinese cultural practices and beliefs that honored widowed women and discouraged their remarriage, encouraging them to instead live a life of "virtuous chastity".[1] The cult is believed to have its origin among Song dynasty Neo-Confucians,[2] and reached a culmination and eventual end in the Qing era.[1]

History

Song dynasty

During the Song dynasty, Confucianism became the dominant belief system, and neo-Confucians such as Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi placed strong emphasis on chastity, with Cheng Yi believed to be responsible for the rise of the cult of widow chastity.[2][3] Cheng Yi thought it improper for a man to marry a widow because "a marriage is a match and if one takes someone who has already lost her integrity, he would also lose his". On the question of widows who had become impoverished due to the death of their husbands, Cheng stated: "To starve to death is a small matter, but to lose one's chastity is a great matter."[2][3] While it was normal for widows to remarry in the early Song period, remarriage would become a social stigma in later eras due to the influence of Confucians, which led to hardship and loneliness for many widows.[4] The Song poetess Li Qingzhao, after her first husband Zhao Mingcheng died, remarried briefly when she was aged 49, for which she was strongly criticised in her lifetime.[5]

Ming dynasty

During the Ming dynasty, chaste widows were elevated to the role of cultural heroes.[4] Chaste widows were commemorated by the construction of chastity memorial arches (貞節坊) and shrines, and honoured with commemorative writings.[6][7] The state awarded 'testimonial of merit' (旌表, jingbiao) to chaste women, giving approval of local chastity cults whereby commemorative arches and shrines were erected to honour the women by members of their families or communities.[8] Widow chastity became increasingly common, and chastity also became associated with suicide, with suicide by widows increasing dramatically during the Ming era.[9][6]

Qing dynasty

A chastity memorial arch

During the Qing period, the prevalence of child marriage along with a high rate of premature death among men left a substantial number of young women as widowers.[10] Typically, a widowed woman would have been taken into her husband's familial household before his death and as a result would be unable to fulfill her intended purpose; birthing a male child to continue the husband's patriline.[10] However, due to Qing-era China's higher proportion of men (mostly due to female infanticide) a fertile woman, despite her previous marriage, could be sold and wed to another family for a substantial price.[10]

The Qing court disapproved of this practice and instead regarded widow chastity as the epitome of filial piety and also as a statement of loyalty to the imperial court and the government officials.[10][11] To promote this viewpoint the Qing court arranged to confer honors upon a family housing a chaste widow along with other measures such as the construction of a large and ornate ceremonial arch—"Chastity Paifang" or "Chastity and Filial Paifang" (節孝牌坊) —in the family's community.[10] Widows were also encouraged to adhere to chastity by way of legal impetuses, as according to Qing era law a widow could only inherit or act as a custodian of her husbands property if she preserved her sexuality as a statement of "loyalty" to her late husband.[11][10] In culturally dissident regions of the Chinese empire,[10] government officials started "Widow Chastity" crusades to enforce orthodox Chinese culture and eliminate unconventional marriage customs, particularly the Levirate, a practice in which a man marries his dead brother's widow in order to continue his patriline. [10]

Decline

The "widow chastity" agenda began to receive controversy from the Qing court when elite families in central regions of China started using the imperial commendation of widow chastity to gain an edge in the social competition within their communities.[10] Authorities were particularly concerned with dubious cases in which honors had been given to families where the widow had committed suicide following her husband's death.[10]Despite suicide being regarded as an honorable and virtuous course of action for a widow to take,[1] the circumstances surrounding these suicides were often very suspicious and suggested foul play on the part of the husband's family.[10] Eventually this issue led the imperial court to promote "Widow Chastity" with much less zeal and offer honors with more careful discretion.[10]New cultural and intellectual developments in Qing China, in particular, the "Evidential Research Movement" (Kaozheng), also began to open up new conversations on the fundamental morality of "Widow Chastity".[10] Skeptics of neo-Confucian status quo of the time, notably Wang Zhong, condemned "Widow Chastity" as a collection of outdated rituals lacking in logic and basic human compassion.[10]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Theiss, Janet. “Female Suicide, Subjectivity and the State in Eighteenth-Century China.” Gender History, vol. 16, no. 3, 2004, pp. 513–537., doi:10.1111/j.0953-5233.2004.00354.x.
  2. 1 2 3 Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee (2007). Confucianism and Women: A Philosophical Interpretation. State University of New York Press. pp. 132–133. ISBN 978-0791467503.
  3. 1 2 Patricia Buckley Ebrey (19 September 2002). Women and the Family in Chinese History. Routledge. pp. 10&ndash, 12. ISBN 978-0415288224.
  4. 1 2 Adler, Joseph A. (Winter 2006). "Daughter/Wife/Mother or Sage/Immortal/Bodhisattva? Women in the Teaching of Chinese Religions". ASIANetwork Exchange, vol. XIV, no. 2. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
  5. ↑ Eva Shan Chou (February 20, 2014). "The Burden of Female Talent: The Poet Li Qingzhao and her History in China, by Ronald C. Egan".
  6. 1 2 Ropp, Paul S. "Women in late imperial China: a review of recent english-language scholarship". Women's History Review. 3 (3): 347–383.
  7. ↑ Lu, Weijing (2010). "The Chaste and the Licentious: Female Sexuality and Moral Discourse in Ming and Early Qing China". Early Modern Women. 5: 183–187.
  8. ↑ Bailey, Paul J. Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century China. p. 18.
  9. ↑ T'ien, Ju-k'ang (1988). Male Anxiety and Female Chastity: a comparative study of Chinese ethical values in Ming-Ch'ing time. Brill. pp. xii, 39&ndash, 69. ISBN 978-9004083615.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Rowe, William T. Chinas last empire: the great Qing. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012.
  11. 1 2 Ropp, Paul Stanley; Zamperini, Paola; Zurndorfer, Harriet Thelma (2001). Passionate Women: Female Suicide in Late Imperial China. BRILL. ISBN 9004120181.
  • Mann, Susan. Precious records: women in Chinas long eighteenth century. Stanford University Press, 1997.
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