Abstract:Folklore in Qing and Ming dynasties was filled with two types of women, strong and capable, on one hand, and women prostitutes, on the other, while in official records, chaste women appeared in such a higher number than the total of their counterparts in the previous dynasty. These chaste women celebrated officials often only had their names, or were only known as their fathers' daughters or their husbands' wives. Some of them left a story of their unfortunate and sometimes abusive encounters without an account of their emotions. It is only through biographies of some of these women that one could have a clear understanding of what experiences they went through during the last years of their lives and how their experiences were used as moral images of good wives and mothers. These biographies were written usually by husbands in memory of their wives in order to influence other women to also observe moral rule under the male domination. In between the accounts, however, the real personal reasons of their wives' heroic behaviour and how these women had been bound by their families' prestige were discussed. Researchers, thus, are able to piece together portraits, including self-portraits, of women and gain an understanding of how these portraits helped establish the moral images of women under the male domination in Qing dynasty.
石晓玲. 清代士绅家族对女性的道德形塑——以女性忆传①为中心[J]. 妇女研究论丛, 2015, 0(5): 80-88.
SHI Xiao-ling. Moral Images of Women in Gentry Households in Qing Dynasty: Based on Women's Memorial-Biographies. , 2015, 0(5): 80-88.