S24: Family and Native Place
China to 1800
November 7, 2025
Butterfly Lovers: The Story
- Zhu Yingtai, a wealthy girl, disguises herself as a boy to attend school with her maid.
- At school, she becomes best friends with Liang Shanbo, and they act as foster-brothers.
- After three years, Zhu’s father arranges her marriage to a wealthy suitor.
- Liang learns Zhu is a girl and falls in love, but her family rejects his proposal because of her engagement.
Butterfly Lovers: The Story
- Heartbroken, Liang dies and is buried by the road outside Zhu’s fiancé’s village.
- On her wedding day, a storm stops the bridal procession at Liang’s grave. Zhu, in her bridal dress, mourns him and jumps into his tomb.
- After the storm, two butterflies emerge from the grave, symbolizing their eternal love.
Key Questions
- What is a lineage? Mercantile Gentry Culture
- What is the “widow chastity cult”? What can it tell us about gender and family relations in Ming China?
- Commercialization of Ming Society: Age of Consumption
Emperor Wuzong
- The Zhengde Emperor (Emperor Wuzong of Ming), personal name Zhu Houzhao, had a Confucian education but rejected its rituals and duties, relying on eunuchs and moving to the “Leopard Quarter.”
- From 1506 to 1510, eunuch Liu Jin controlled the government, causing high taxes and weakening authority, which led to major rebellions.
- To raise revenue, Emperor Wuzong lifted the ban on private foreign trade, coinciding with Portuguese sailors arriving in southern China.
A New Neo-Confucianism: Wang Yangming
- Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472-1529) excelled in school but only passed the civil service exams on his third attempt.
- As official, he defended two imprisoned officials, resulting in physical punishment and exile to Guizhou.
Reviving Wang Yangming
Why is Wang Yangming revived in contemporary China?
Xi Jinping: “Unity of thought and action”
Huizhou: The Richest Place in Ming China (That You’ve Never Heard Of)
Huizhou: Capital of Literati Merchants
- Trade in Huizhou expanded rapidly during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and flourished until the Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864).
- Merchants initially left Huizhou for survival but gradually built their fortunes.
- By the mid-Qing dynasty, it was commonly said, “there is no town without a Hui merchant” (无徽不成镇), highlighting their wealth and influence.
Material Life in Ming China
Activity: Everyday Life in Late Imperial China
Pick an object and consider:
- Who made the object and where?
- Where would you find this object?
- Who would use it? When and how is it used?
- What can this object tell us about its makers and users?
Gender Division
Dong Qichang: A Life
- Dong Qichang (1555–1636) was a prominent Chinese painter, calligrapher, and art theorist from the Ming dynasty.
- Known for his unique style that blends traditional Chinese painting techniques with personal expression, emphasizing the importance of spontaneity and individual creativity.
- He established a significant lineage of scholar-amateur painters and sought to elevate their status above that of professional artisans.
Discuss: Dong Qichang’s Preface
- What is a lineage?
- What is the history of the Lu family?
- Why is a genealogy “as important as a national history”?
Mercantile Lineage Culture
- Despite elevated merchant status, a distinct merchant culture did not develop due to the dominance of gentry culture.
- Kinship activities and the focus on both commerce and exam success were key to Huizhou mercantile lineage culture, especially as local merchants sojourned elsewhere.
- Writing biographies of merchants helped create new mercantile ethics and were often included in their home lineages’ genealogies.
- For Huizhou merchants, lineage identity was more important than class; they were mainly educated gentry from established mercantile lineages with aristocratic roots.
Exams: Only Pathway to Gentry Status
- Gentry status was based on reputation and connections rather than just birth, allowing families to sustain their elite standing over generations.
- Families could survive without a degree for a few generations by keeping social ties and participating in elite activities, but examination titles were crucial for status, leading families to invest in their sons’ education.
- The local gentry focused on maintaining elite status through wealth, connections, ties to magistrates, and charitable activities.
Huizhou Merchant Culture
Advocated for social problems to be resolved through voluntary actions by morally upright literati, rather than state intervention, such as:
- Establishing private academies to supplement the failing state education system.
- Creating charitable granaries
- Forming voluntary associations (community compacts, xiangyue 鄉約) to enhance moral supervision, replacing the state-imposed baojia surveillance system.
Cultural Conservatism and Commercialization
- As the economy became more active, merchants and mercantile lineages adopted conservative social and cultural norms.
- Neo-Confucian orthodoxy supported the success of Huizhou merchants financially, culturally, and logistically.
Discuss: A Confucian Heartland of Women
- Huizhou became a center for the female chastity cult during the late Ming dynasty.
- Huizhou merchants sought to strengthen home kinship institutions by building corporate estates, ancestral halls, and memorial archways to honor chaste women.
- Why?
Cult of Female Chastity
- The state encouraged women to remain “chaste widows” by providing incentives for those who stayed unmarried after their husbands’ deaths.
- Women who were widowed before age 29 and remained unmarried until after age 49 could receive an official citation and a banner for their chastity, the only honor conferred on women by the state.
- The husband’s lineage would file claims for this honor, which also reflected positively on the lineage for supporting the widow.
Gender Hierarchy
Marriage imposed several burdens on women:
- Women had to move between families after marriage, while men did not.
- Women could marry only one spouse, while men could have secondary wives.
- Widowed women could not remarry, whereas men could.
Disciplining the Domestic Sphere
- The mid-sixteenth century saw the rise of the chastity cult alongside increased commercialization, which relaxed moral norms and promoted passionate love.
- The late sixteenth-century money economy reshaped social structures and family life, influencing gender relations and supporting the chastity cult.
- Many young men left home for trade soon after marriage, delaying the age of first childbirth and altering family-lineage dynamics.
- Wives of sojourning husbands enjoyed greater sexual freedom, leading lineages to emphasize fidelity.
Discuss: Concubines
- How does one acquire a concubine in Ming China?
- How did Mao Xiang (1611-1693) acquire his concubine Xiaowan? Is he a reliable narrator?
- Who is Golden Lotus? How did she become a favorite of Ximen Qing?
Jinpingmei: The Plum in the Golden Vase
- The story follows Ximen Qing, a corrupt merchant, and his wealthy household, including his six wives, especially Golden Lotus.
- Set during Emperor Huizong of Song’s reign (1101–1126 CE), it serves as an allegory for corruption in Ming governance, highlighting deception, bribery, and murder.
- For four centuries, Jinpingmei has been considered “obscene” in China and has faced bans.
- The novel spans various moods and genres, blending humor, philosophy, social commentary, and satire with puns and wordplay.
- It includes a Buddhist perspective on karma, warning about the consequences of one’s actions.
Gender Imbalances
- The burden of male ritual superiority led families in hardship to sacrifice female children by selling or killing them to maintain the family line.
- Female infanticide continued despite Ming laws against it.
- A significant gender imbalance existed, with approximately 90 females for every 100 males.
Polyandry
- Families prioritized having sons to ensure they could perform ancestral sacrifices, as only male heirs could tend to ancestors’ spirits.
- However, gender imbalance led to imposed celibacy for many men.
- This shortage prompted practices like fraternal polyandry, where brothers marry a single woman.
- Solutions for lineage continuity included transferring a brother’s or cousin’s son to an uncle without a male heir, adopting a daughter’s husband (uxorilocal marriage), or a childless man endowing a Buddhist monastery for perpetual rites for himself and his ancestors.