Promoters of Morality, Moral Mainstays, and Guardians of Cultural Superiority: The Gentry Women's Praise of Female Chastity and Expectations of Women's Social Roles and Responsibilities in Qing China

Abstract

This article examines gentry women's writings on female chastity and views on relevant topics such as women's learning, education and identity in Qing China. As can be shown, their enthusiastic praise for chaste women in effect reflected their expectations of women's social roles and responsibilities. The erudite mid-Qing female scholar Wang Zhenyi established chaste women as virtuous exemplars that promoted social morals. In this way, she illustrated the meaning of “correct beginnings”, that women's upright behaviors in the inner quarters would positively influence the outer world. Also, she advocated that women should engage in learning for the cultivation of their virtue and undertake the responsibility of upholding morality. During the late Qing, when more and more “new women” transgressed the inner-outer boundary and neglected the traditional concept of womanhood, the guixiu reformers Zeng Yi, Xue Shaohui, and Shan Shili extolled chaste women as moral mainstays, whom they expected would resist the decay of female norms and save the social and ethical order. These moderate reformers recognized women's education as a foundation for strengthening the nation. Simultaneously, they defined the role of women as that of competent household managers within the “inner” family. Furthermore, based on the fact that these gentry women regarded the traditional womanly virtues, the principle of gender segregation, and the restriction of women's role to the inner sphere as symbols of China's cultural superiority, which, they insisted, must be preserved in women's education, we should conclude that in their eyes, the virtuous women who defended these cultural morals would indeed become guardians of the perceived superiority and unique nature of Chineseness as well.