Ideal Moral Valued for Chinese Women
...m zhen ("chastity") certainly included this meaning, but it also included any behavior that might lead to improper sexual intercourse or that might appear, in the eyes of others, to lead to improper sexual intercourse. 2 Thus the Chinese "chastity" implied a particularly high level of virtue that precluded nearly any non-ritualized contact between woman and men to whom they were not married. 3 Notice also the several terms associated with chastity in this tale: duty, honor, loyalty, righteousness, and trustworthiness. "Chaste Jiang” is an excellent example of chastity functioning as the root from which other virtues grow. The next biography is that of “Gaoxing of Liang.” Gaoxing was a widow, "glorious in her beauty and praiseworthy in her conduct." 4 Her husband died when she was still young, but she refused to remarry despite many offers from distinguished noblemen of the region. Eventually the king himself heard of Gaoxing and sent a minister bearing betrothal gifts. Gaoxing replied: My husband unfortunately died young; I live in widowhood to raise his orphans, and [I am afraid that] I have not given them enough attention. Many honorable men have sought me, but I have fortunately succeeded in evading them. Today the king is seeking my hand. I have learned that 'the principle for a wife is that once having gone forth to marry, she will not change over, and that she may keep all the rules of chastity and faithfulness.' To forget the dead and run to the living is not faithfulness; to be honored and forget the lowly is not chastity; and to avoid righteousness and follow gain is not worthy of a woman. 5 Suspecting the main reason why the king and others pursued her was because of her physical beauty, Gaoxing took a mirror and knife and cut off her nose, disfiguring herself to get away from the pressure to remarry. The king praised her conduct and honored her with the title "Gaoxing" (roughly, "Lofty Conduct"). Here we see "chastity" take on the added dimension of absolute loyalty and faithfulness to a husband, living or dead. The concrete manifestation of this loyalty was the wife's devoting all her time and energy to the care of their children and refusing to remarry. Here, improper sexual relations--at least in the usual sense of the term--was not even an issue for Gaoxing should she have remarried, so "chastity" has taken on an even broader meaning. Notice in both tales that both women show no fear regarding physical harm. Whether one's nose or one's life, no price was too high when upholding moral standards. We should not assume from this tale that it was necessarily the norm among elite Chinese women not to remarry in the case of early widowhood. Bear in mind that tales in Biographies of Exemplary Women were high ideals during the Han dynasty, and it is unlikely that all or even most elite Chinese subscribed to them literally. Certainly remarriage took place among elite Chinese in Han times, and among ordinary people there seems to have been no hesitancy for a widowed woman to remarry. As time went on, however, the idea that widows should not remarry became steadily stronger and was incorporated into law and social practice. By the early Qing dynasty, the idea that a woman should never remarry regardless of any adverse consequences was a well-entrenched moral precept among elite Chinese. In such a case, if her husband's death left a woman impoverished and she had children to support, she should work doubly hard at making a living by weaving cloth. If she did not have any dependents, an ideal course of action would be suicide. 6 Didactic books from Ming times through the early Qing dynasty commonly held up the suicide of a widow as a glorious act of chastity and loyalty. By Qing times, the government officially encouraged widows not to remarry and tended to look the other way regarding the occasional practice of following one's husband into death by suicide (Xunsi). During the late Qing dynasty the cult of chaste widowhood reached new heights and received extensive support from the state. Essentially the Qing court continued the policies of the previous Ming dynasty, but it did so with greater vigor and was successful in imposing its ideals of womanly behavior on the common people as well as the wealthy and powerful. Local communities were instructed to forward the names and biographical sketches of chaste widows to the county government, which sent those that met the official criteria on up the chain of government. Ultimately, the Board of Rites examined the files from around the empire and selected those deserving of official imperial honors. To be eligible, a woman must have been widowed before the age of 30 and must have remained celibate past the age of 50. 7 Possible rewards included a certificate of commendation written in the emperor's own hand, or, even better, money for the construction of a memorial archway to honor the chaste widow. Such archways were highly prestigious and included the name of the widow along with stock expressions such as "chaste and filial." Many Qing emperors were determined to seek out ordinary commoner women for such honors and were bothered by the tendency of elites to put forth the majority of candidates. On the other hand, the Qing court, during the late 1800’s, vigorously opposed and criticized the practice of widows committing suicide, calling it barbaric and cowardly. During this time, the Qing court pushed for the construction of orphanages in every major city and special homes for needy chaste widows. 8 To summarize, chastity, defined very broadly and strictly, was the root virtue for women in Chinese moral thought from the Han dynasty onward. In later dynasties, one important manifestation or aspect of chastity was to celebrate widowhood. It should be emphasized that although morality books were usually (though not always) written by men, both men and women accepted the values described as ...