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This is to certify that the
dissertation entitled

MANCHU WOMEN IN TRANSITION: GENDER, ETHNICITY,
AND ACCULTURATION IN THE 17-18 CENTURY CHINA

presented by

Shuo Wang

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph.D. History

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6/01 c:/CIRC/DateDue.p65-p. 15

MANCHU WOMEN IN TRANSITION: GENDER, ETHNICITY, AND
ACCULTURATION IN THE 17TH—18T” CENTURY CHINA

By

Shuo Wang

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial for fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of History

2002

ABSTRACT

MANCHU WOMEN IN TRANSITION: GENDER, ETHNICITY, AND
ACCULTURATION IN THE 17TH—18T” CENTURY CHINA

By

Shuo Wang

This dissertation is about gender and ethnicity in Qing dynasty—the last dynasty
in Chinese history, established by the Manchus, a non-Chinese ethnic group in northeast
China. Over the years, scholars of Chinese history dispute against each other about
whether the Manchus became Chinese after they entered China Proper. This study
supports the arguments that the Manchus maintained their ethnic identities until the end
of the dynasty. The Manchu culture was not assimilated by Chinese although it differed
from the traditional culture of Manchuria as the result of acculturation.

This study departs from the existing scholarships by examining the acculturation
from a new perspective—the interaction of gender and ethnicity. It discusses the roles the
Manchu women played in the construction of Manchu ethnicity and the way in which
their participation was different from that of men in the process of acculturation. The
conclusion is that women changed more slowly and more superficially than men. When
Manchu men gradually accepted many Chinese Confucian values, women still lived in an
old Manchu way and thus helped many traditions to pass on.

This dissertation is heavily based on Qing archival materials, housed in the First
Historical Archive Museum in Beijing and in the Academia Sinica in Taipei. These

primary sources provide previously unknown information about Manchu women’s lives

and experience after the conquest. Some primary sources from literature and interviews
are also used as supplementary materials in the dissertation.

This study has five chapters, plus an introduction part and a conclusion. The topic
it discusses including Manchu women’s roles and positions in family, widowhood and
remarriage; intermarriage between the Manchus and Chinese; and gender relations and
sexuality. It also discusses some problems with the definition of the Manchu ethnicity,

and the ethnicity issue in China in general.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This dissertation would not have been possible without the guidance and support
of the advisors of my dissertation committee. My first thanks go to Professor Linda
Cooke Johnson, my academic advisor and the chair of the committee, who provided me
unfailing encouragement and support over the years. I owe the greatest debt to her
because I know how much energy she spent on guiding this dissertation—giving advice
not only on the contents but also on the writing skills and English grammar. Many times,
her insights sparked my faltering imagination. I must also express my sincere gratitude to
Professor Stephen Averill whose critical opinions are always valuable and play a
constructive role in the composition of my dissertation. His conscientious attitude to
students and the rigorous scholarship will be my model. I also want to thank Professors
Michael Lewis and Lisa Fine for their professional guidance. From them I have learned
how to compare cultural phenomenon in Chinese history with that in other parts of the
world, and how to apply the new approach of gender study to the research of Chinese
women. I feel especially grateful for having Professor Wang Qingcheng in my committee
for his broad and profound erudition on Qing history, his help on evaluating primary
sources, and his willingness to answer any questions I might ask.

Since I came to the United States in 1994, Department chairs Gordon Stewart,
Lewis Siegelbaum, and graduate director Leslie Moch have constantly encouraged me
and enabled me to find financial support over the years. Many thanks also go to
Professors David Bailey and Sayuri Shimizu who were on my committee for the

comprehensive examination. I have learned not only the knowledge of American history

iv

and international relations from them, but also how to study history from a broader
perspective.

This dissertation is mainly based on the primary sources found in the Qing
archives, housed in the First Archives Museum in Beijing and Fu Si-nian Library in
Academia Sinica in Taipei. In the year of 2000, I was granted the SCRAM (Special
College Research Abroad Money) by the College of Arts and Letters. The grant made it
possible to consult archives in Beijing and Taiwan, which was crucial to this dissertation
project. Therefore, I want to thank the College of Arts and Letters of MSU for sponsoring
my trip.

In the years of research, I have greatly benefited by knowing Professor Mark
Elliott, one of the pioneers on Manchu study in the United States. He gave valuable
suggestions on the proposal and outline of this dissertation. In Beijing and in Taipei, I
met Professors Ding Yizhuang, of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Lai
Huimin, of the History Institute of Academia Sinica in Taiwan. I will never forget their
unselfish and generous sharing of primary sources with me, including archival materials
and unpublished interviews.

Finally, I want to thank Stacey Bieler, one of my best friends, as the proofreader,

who corrected countless grammar mistakes of the dissertation and made it readable.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... viii

LIST OF MAPS ................................................................................................................. ix

LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... x

INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1

CHAPTER 1

HISTORICAL SETTING AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF MANCHU ETHNICITY.19
Rise of the Manchus and Their Social Organizations ................................................... 19
The Issue of the Manchu Ethnicity ............................................................................... 31
Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 42

CHAPTER 2

MANCHU WOMEN’S ROLES AND POSITIONS IN THE FAMILY ..................... 45
Unmarried Girls ........................................................................................................... 47
Young Wives ............................................................................................................... 56
Elderly Women--Mothers/Mother-in-laws .................................................................. 64
Conclusion: What Did It Matter to Manchu Ethnicity ................................................. 73

CHAPTER 3

REMARRIAGE AND “GUARDING CHASTITY ........................................................... 77
Changing Tradition on Remarriage .............................................................................. 78
Policies on Banner Widows .......................................................................................... 84
Remaining as Widow—a Rational Choice .................................................................. 95
Conclusion: Ethnicity, Gender, Location, Class ......................................................... 110

CHAPTER 4

INTERMARRIAGE BETWEEN THE MANCHUS AND CHINESE ........................... 114
Review of Qing Policies on Intermarriage .................................................................. 117
Review and Analysis of Some Intermarriage Cases ................................................... 129
Interpreting the Pattern of Manchu-Chinese Intermarriage ........................................ 139
Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 148

CHAPTER 5

GENDER RELATIONS AND SEXUALITY ................................................................. 151
Manchu Traditions on Gender Relations and Sexuality ............................................. 153
Changing Traditions alter the Conquest ..................................................................... 162
Gendered Format on the Changing Traditions ............................................................ 174
Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 1 85

CONCLUSION
MANCHU WOMEN’S PLACE IN MANCHU AND CHINESE ACCULTURATION189

APPENDICES (Maps and Figures) ................................................................................. 199

BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 205

vii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Canonization of Chaste Widows in the Eight Banners (1653-1795) ................ 83
Table 2 Regulation of Pensions to Banner Widows (173 5-1783) ........................ 96

Table 3 Intermarriage between bannermen and Chinese Women in the Qianlong Reign
(1736-1795) .......................................................................................................... 130

Table 4 Intermarriage between Chinese men and Banner women in the Qianlong Reign
(1736-1795) ........................................................................................................... 135

viii

LIST OF MAPS

Map 1 Manchuria in the early seventeenth century ........................................................ 199
Map 2 Qing Beijing under Manchu occupation .............................................................. 200
Map 3 The Eight Banner distribution in Manchu city of Qing Beijing .......................... 201
Map 4 Jingzhou garrison ................................................................................................. 202
Map 5 Hangzhou garrison ............................................................................................... 202
Map 6 Guangzhou garrison .............................................................................................. 203
Map 7 Xi’an garrison ...................................................................................................... 203

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Comparison of the bound feet and natural feet ................................................. 204

Introduction

The Manchus are one of China’s principal ethnic groups, living in China’s
northeast. They conquered China in 1644 and established the Qing dynasty (1644-
l912)—the last conquest dynasty in Chinese history. After the conquest of China, most
of the Manchus moved into China proper and became an “occupational caste” to rule the
Chinese who outnumbered them approximately forty-nine to one.1

During the 268 years of rule, the Manchus co-existed with the Chinese in one
polity. In order to successfully control the Chinese land and people, the Manchu rulers
instituted a dyarchical system in the central government and established local military
control.2 The Manchus incorporated many Chinese scholars into offices in the central
government, such as the Six Departments, the Grand Secretariat, and the Hanlin
Academy, who served beside or in addition to the Manchu officials. Manchu soldiers and

their families were stationed in each garrison in local areas. In addition, the Green
Standard Army (luying bing ail-i), made up of Han Chinese soldiers and commanded
by a mixed staff of the Manchus and Chinese, was a second Qing armed force, which was

scattered throughout the provinces. Ruling China through the use of dyarchy was a

strategy of the Manchus—on the one hand, they used Chinese to rule Chinese and made

 

' The term “occupational caste”, meaning those foreigners who occupied China, is from Edward Rhoads,
Manchus and Han: Ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early Republic China, 1861-
1921, pp. 289-290. The ratio of Chinese and Manchus is cited by Evelyn Rawski, “Ch’ing Imperial
Marriage and Problems of Rulership.” p. 171, in Waston and Ebrey ed. Marriage and Inequality in Chinese
Society. pp. 170—203.

2 The term of “dyarchy” means to divide governmental firnctions between two political powers. In India,
the dual form of government established in 1919, which divided governmental functions between the
British governor and the provincial governor. See “dyarchy” in Webster 's Universal Unabridged
Dictionary. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983. 2nd edition. In Chinese history, dyarchical government
divided powers between two ethnic groups. It is called Iiangtou zhengzhi (fiékfiifl, two-head polity), giving
a more explicit and colorful expression to the dual form of government.

the Qing a legitimate Chinese dynasty; on the other hand, the Manchus held positions in
every top office, both in the central government and in local control, in order to maintain
an ethnic balance and secure the Manchu ruling position as an occupational caste. Later
in this dissertation, I will show the way in which the dyarchy was embodied in social
policies. As the Manchu-Chinese cooperation in Qing civil bureaucracy created a multi-
ethnic leadership, dyarchical policies in social lives brought about a hybrid culture, in
which both Manchu and Chinese each maintained their ethnic identities, even as these
identities changed over time.

This dissertation studies Manchu-Chinese acculturation from the perspective of
gender distinction. By examining Manchu women’s lives in China proper during the first
150 years after the conquest, a period of transition, I will explore the interaction of
gender and ethnicity and the ways in which men and women played different roles in
maintaining and constructing Manchu ethnicity. As Mark Elliott argues, in the Qing
period, ethnicity was quite unmistakably a gendered formation.3 This formation was not
only represented in the changing behaviors of Manchu widows—the topic Elliott
discussed—but also in other aspects of women’s lives. The different places and fimctions
of Manchu men and women in Chinese society determined the pattern of the
acculturation between Manchus and Chinese, in which women served as reservoirs of
cultural identity and generally changed more slowly than men. Manchu women’s role in
construction of ethnic identity was not only in childbearing—reproducing Manchu

people, but also in the aspects of reproducing and maintaining Manchu culture.

 

3 Elliott, “Manchu Widows and Ethnicity in Qing China.” p. 37.

When studying women in history, we should understand and view women as a
diverse category and as a historical product. Women’s identities and behaviors were
different according to the diversities of class, ethnicity, politics, religions, etc. and
changed over time along with the changing social conditions in which they lived. When
Joan Scott stresses the significance of recognizing the differentiation among females, she
gives an expressive interpretation, saying that “except for the fact of the similarity of
their sexual organs, it is hard to find a common identity between aristocratic salonieres in
the seventeenth century and nineteenth-century middle-class housewives, or between
those religious women of the Middle Ages who sought transcendence of their bodies in
the service of Christ and twentieth-century sex workers whose bodies serve as a source of
income.”4 This approach is very helpful to the study of women in Chinese history,
especially the women during the Qing period. In the following chapters, one will see that
Manchu women and Chinese women had many differences according to their traditions,
including, but not limited to their respective ideologies, behaviors, and relations with
men. Manchu women’s identities and behaviors changed over time, a fact that is clearly
seen from their lives after the conquest, when Manchus moved into a new political,
social, and cultural environment. Moreover, even within the category of the Manchus and
during a given period, for example, 150 years after the conquest, Manchu women were
still different from each other individually due to the diversities of their class and
economic status.

Study of Manchu women not only introduces new subject matter to Qing history,

but also forces a critical re-examination of all the assumptions and conclusions historians

 

’ Joan Wallach Scott, Feminism & History, p. 5.

made before they integrated women into their scholarly works. Men and women affect
the world differently and reciprocally but not respectively, so they could not be examined
separately. A comprehensive understanding of Qing history must be based on a
perspective that views men and women as two opposite and complementary elements,

which together influenced the Qing society. Afiet QEMEPQEEEIEEQQQCQEHOI of

 

 

 

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began to have a different expectation of Manchu women: Behaviors of womenflsuch as”

 

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maintaining virginity prior to marriage, beinga submissive wife, and notremafrfirying after
being widowed became more‘imp‘ortant to Manchu men. This change of expectation
affected Manchu women’s lives. On the other hand, certain Manchu women’s behaviors
also influenced the life of Manchu men. One of the reasons that Manchu men married
Chinese women was that some Manchu women decided to marry late or to remain
spinsters. The intermarriage families helped to speed up the acculturation process.
Therefore, to study Manchu women in the transition period may deepen our
understanding of Manchu-Chinese acculturation and also shed light on Qing history and
alien regimes in Chinese history in general.

This study consists of five chapters. The first chapter, “Historical Settings and the
Construction of Manchu Ethnicity,” provides necessary context about the Manchus,
including the ethnic origins of the Manchu people, their social organization, and cultural
characteristics. Some distinctive features of Manchu ethnicity, and of Chinese ethnicity in

general, are also discussed in Chapter One, which will provide a context for the

significance of ethnic identity in defining one’s culture in the historical context of the

Qing dynasty.

Chapter two focuses on Manchu women’s roles and positions in the family.

Unlike Chinese women whose status in thefamily was always subordinate to men (father,

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husband, brothers, and sons), Manchu women could dominate theiretmale family

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m_e_nlbers. Manchu women’s higher positions inthe family were especiallynotab‘le‘arrrong
unmarried girls, the “spoiled princesses” intheir natal home, or elderly women who
became the head of household, creating a female—centered household. This tradition of
women’s position in family and the patterns of household, as a significant integral part of
Manchu ethnicity, remained unchanged even after the end of Qing dynasty. Manchu
women’s unique roles and positions in the family helped to pass Manchu traditions from
one generation to another.

Chapter Three analyzes the changing behavior of Manchu widows after the
conquest. According to Manchu tradition, widows usually remarried—mainly through
levirate marriage. However, after the conquest, more and more Manchu widows chose
not to remarry. Many of them were rewarded by government as “chaste widows.” Some
scholars explain this change as the result of sinicization/Confircianization. In the chapter,
I argue that women’s changing behaviors did not necessarily mean that they appreciated
and accepted the Confucian ideal of chaste widowhood. Remaining as a widow to most
Manchu women was, however, a rational choice for the purpose of inheritance, income,
and other pragmatic interests. They might not be concerned about loyalty to their
deceased husbands, which was the key point of “guarding chastity” in the Chinese
concept of chaste widowhood.

Chapter Four examines Qing policies regarding Manchu-Chinese intermarriage in

principle and the practice. While Manchu men were allowed to marry Chinese women,

intermarriage between Manchu women and Chinese men was strictly prohibited. This

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bifurcated policy reflected the court’ 3 attitude of keeping vigilance over women’s

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““P‘ia‘ity and feni‘ifyeethswey t9 $e°B€9_E¥b.ILiS.I?QBE€1¥!?§f The records of
intermarriage in the archives coincide with the policy of bifurcation. I argue that, in
addition to the government policy, the different level of acculturation between Manchu
men and women was also responsible for the imbalanced pattern of intermarriage—while
men felt Chinese women, including their bound feet, acceptable, Manchu women were
reluctant to marry Chinese “strangers.” This pattern, in turn, determined acculturation as
a gendered formation—to Manchu men, a family with a Chinese wife was a place where

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two cultures mingled, while to Manchu women, the farnily was a bastion in which old

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The last chapter concerns the changes of Manchu women’s lives in the aspects of
gender relations and sexuality during the transition period. At first glance, it seems that,
in many ways, Manchu women accepted Confucian rules on sexuality and were
becoming Chinese. But when examining the cases of sexual transgression recorded in
archives, I found that what first appears to be new values in sexuality and gender
relations for women actually reflected the expectations of men, who gradually accepted
Confucian norms of virtuous female behavior and projected these values on to women,
expecting women to follow them as well. Conflicts between husband and wife, (most
notably cases of murder of a wife by a husband) in the archives is actually the evidence
that men and women changed at a different rate of acculturation and, therefore, gave

different definitions to sexual transgression.

 

5 Children from marriage of Chinese men and Manchu women were considered Chinese, while children of
Manchu men and Chinese women were considered Manchu.

This study is based on various primary sources. In addition to the officially—

compiled historical books, such as Qingshi gao (The draft of Qing history), Da Qing

lichao shilu (The veritable records of Qing), Da Qing huidian shili (The collected

institutes and precedents of the Qing dynasty), Baqi zeli (Precedents and regulations of

Eight Banners), and Baqi tongzhi (Comprehensive history of the Eight Banners), three

categories of primary sources are used in the dissertation:

1.

Archives. This research is heavily based on Qing archival materials, housed in the
First Historical Archive Museum in Beijing and at Academia Sinica in Taipei.
Included are court records, records of the imperial genealogy, and legal deeds and
contracts, which contain information on marriage, family structure, property
inheritance, and cases of sexual transgression. These primary sources provide
previously unknown information about Manchu women. For example, the
confessions of men and women who committed sexual transgressions or/and murders
allow us to hear women’s voices, and through these voices, to explicate what the men
and women expected one another 300 years ago. These inscribed conversations help
us understand that the conflicts between men and women within the family stemmed
largely fiom their different understandings of gender roles in a changing social
context. Many cases in archives reveal that Manchu men expected their wives or
daughters to observe the standard of Confircian virtues, while Manchu women still
stuck to the old traditions and lived by the conventions of the pre-dynastic Manchus.
Therefore, the disharmony within family actually reflected the conflict between two
cultures and the different levels on which men and women accepted new Chinese

Confucian values. Of course, there are certain limitations to relying on court cases in

 

the archives, since these materials reflect only the situations where the family
conflicts were intense enough to warrant lawsuits. Such situations do not give a
complete picture of the family life for Manchu-Chinese society as a whole. However,
these records do provide us with a window into which we can study the Manchu
society and culture after the “conquest.”

2. Literature. I have used information embedded in such primary sources as novels,
poems, folk songs, travel notes, reminiscence memoirs, and miscellaneous notes.
These literary works reflect aspects of common people’s daily lives, including the
relations between different genders and different generations within the family, the
financial situation and status of banner widows, the relationships among neighbors,

and the daily language Manchu women used. The novels, poems, and folk songs also

 

provide information on Manchu aesthetic views. The most valuable literary work is

M;

the novel, Honglou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber), by Cao Xueqin (1724?-

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1764). Although this novel has often been consideredby literary scholars to reflect,

 

Han Chinese family life,6 when one examines the life and family background of the

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author, one finds that his family, on which the novel In based, was much more closely

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associated with Manchu society than with that of the Han Chinese.7 Cao family was

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not a typical Chinese family, but rather from Han ancestors who had lived m

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Liaodong (Manchuria) and joined the Manchu Plain White Banner as bondservants to

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the imperial Qing emperors in the early 1620s. Cao’ 5 family retained a unique

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6 See Louise Edwards, “Women in Honglou meng: Prescriptions of Purity in the Femininity of Qing
Dynasty China.” Modern China, 16.4 (October 1990), pp. 407-429; “Representations of Women and Social
Power in Eighteenth Century China: the Case of Wang Xifeng.” Late Imperial China, 14.1 (June 1993), pp.
34-59.

7 The novel is universally considered as an autobiography because the parallels between certain incidents in
the novel and known facts in Cao’s own family background are too many and too striking for any doubt on
this point. (also see Spence, Ts ’ao Yin and the K ’ang—hsi Emperor, Bondservant and Master, page xi).

rehttronshrp to the Imperial family, Caom s greatwqwmiwet-

 

 

 

 

 

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nurse to the Kangxi emperor. His two aunts were chosen as imperial concubines. For

in... ...___._. ___ .

generations Cao family had held a very important position in the South and was

trusted by successive emperors from Shunzhi to Qianlong. In the novel, the ethnic

 

identity of Jia (Cao) family is never made explicit. However, their station in society is

W W __.,._

so elevated that even elite Chinese families could not hope to duplicate it or enjoy

such close connections with the throne. Their clothing, cuisine, and mannerism are

 

 

typical Manchu.8 For this reason, I have interpreted gender relations in the novel as a

 

reflection of Manchu customs rather than those of the Han Chinese. While court
records provided information about the transgressors as exceptions, literary works tell
stories of the broad masses of people. However, I am firlly aware that some literary
sources are biased due to the author’s status of class, ethnicity, and gender, while
others might be written in the late Qing period, or not clearly defined as to the time
period. Therefore, I use these sources with caution, usually as supplementary
materials.

3. Interviews. I also use some interviews as supplementary materials for my
dissertation, including Ding Yizhuang’s pioneering book, The Last Memories—a
collection of 16 elderly Manchu women’s memories, and the tapes and notes based on
the interviews she conducted in the year of 2000. The women she interviewed were
mostly born in 19103 and had detailed memories about their grandmothers who were
living in mid-19th century. The stories they told provided a broad scope of

information about Manchu women’s childhood, Manchu customs in their daily lives,

 

8 For more information about Cao’s family background, see page 38-39 in this dissertation. Also, Jonathan
Spence, Ts 'ao Yin and the K ’ang-hsi Emperor, Bondservant and Master.

relations between husband and wife, relations between the wife and her in-laws, and
the rights and status of unmarried Manchu girls, and the way in which Manchu
women imitated Chinese food-binding in the last years of the dynasty. Using oral
historical materials is a blessing to my project because Qing dynasty was not in a
remote past, like other dynasties in the study of pre-modern Chinese history, so I can
obtain some historical materials from the people I study—the Manchu women. Even
though the memories of those elderly Manchu women only go back as far as the mid-
nineteenth century at the earliest, there are still many similarities between their lives
and the lives of those who lived in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The
cultural consistency suggests that changing old traditions, customs, and values was a
slow process. It also demonstrates how changes occurred more slowly in women’s
lives as compared with those of men.

Besides the primary sources, this study is also based on the understanding of some

secondary sources. The most important ones include, but not limited to, Pamela Crossley,

The Manchus and A Translucent Mirror; Evelyn Rawski, The Last Emperors; Mark

Elliott, The Manchu Way; Ding Yizhuang, Manzu defirnu shenghuo yu hunyin zhidu

yanjiu (Research on life and marriage patterns of Manchu women); and Lai Huimin,

T ianhuang guizhou: Qing huangzu dejiecengjiegou yujingji shenghuo (The Qing

imperial lineage: its hierarchical structure and economic life).

Manchu and Chinese acculturation during the Qing dynasty is one of the most

contentious issues in the field of Chinese studies. The main arguments focus on the extent

to which the Manchus were influenced by Chinese culture and whether or not the

Manchus adopted Chinese culture to such an extent that the Qing became just another

10

Chinese dynasty after the Ming (1638-1644). Scholars are divided into two schools—
“sinicization school” and “Altaic school”—-—based on their different understandings of the
Manchu-Chinese acculturation.9 Scholars in sinicization school believe that the Chinese
have always assimilated their Inner Asian conquerors. The representative of works by
American scholars include: The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: the T ’ung-chih
Restoration, 1862-1874 by Mary Wright, who believe that the Manchus were assimilated
by Chinese by the middle of the 19th century at the latest; the two articles in The Journal
of Asian Studies, “The Significance of the Ch’ing Period in Chinese History,” and “In
Defense of Sinicization: A Rebuttal of Evelyn Rawski’s ‘Re—envisioning the Qing’,” by
Ping-Ti Ho, who argue that the systematic sinicization was the key to Qing’s success in

China.10 Most scholars of Qing history in China fall in the side of the sinicization school.

Based on the belief of that “though the empire can be conquered on horseback, it cannot

be ruled from horseback” (SE'FEEIBILQZ,$EIEJL%Z), Chinese scholars attribute the

Manchu success in China to their thorough sinicization.H In her recent study of Manchu

women, Ding Yizhuang uses the term “completely accepted Confucian values” (dui

ruxue chedi jieshou Rifliifitmfifii) to describe the Manchu experience in China in the

late 18th century. Although the term of “Confucianization” (ruhua fills) is a little more

 

9 The terms of “sinicization school” and “Altaic school” are created by Mark Elliott. See Mark Elliott, The
Manchu Way, pp. 27-28.

'° See The Journal ofAsian Studies, 26.2, 1967, pp. 189-195; and 57.1, 1998, pp. 123-155.

" Meng Sen, Qingdai shi (Qing history), p.7; Dai Yi. Jianming Qingshi (Brief history of Qing), pp. 247-
295, Chapter Five; Li Jingping, “Luelun Manzu hanhua jiqi dui Qingchu de yingxiang” (Discussion on
Manchu sinicization and its impact on early Qing), Shixue yuekan (History monthly), April 1986, pp. 35-
39; Liu Xiaomeng, Baqi zidi (Junior bannermen), p. 207; 57. 1, Feb. 1998. pp. 123-155.

11

cautious than “sinicization” (hanhua DUB) or “assimilation” (tonghua filth), it still

emphasizes that Manchus were becoming Chinese culturally.12

The theory of complete sinicization or assimilation has been criticized and refuted
by anthropologists, sociologists, and historians in the West during the past 50 years.13
Other terms are used when describing the cultural interface between two or more
cultures, such as “cultural amalgamation” or “acculturation”, with emphasis on cultural
borrowing, rather than dominating. In the case of the Manchu experience in China,
scholars in “Altaic school”, representing by Pamela Crossley, Evelyn Rawski, and Mark
Elliott, emphasize that the Manchu ethnicity was maintained over the whole course of the
dynasty and expressed in varying degrees in different aspects of life. This approach
postulates that the Manchu culture was not assimilated by Chinese, although it differed
from the traditional cultures of Manchuria. ‘4

Pamela Crossley, in her book The Manchus, argues that Chinese scholars are
mistaken in either considering the Manchus as an “alien” rule or considering the Qing as

another Chinese dynasty. Although the Manchu rulers sponsored many programs to

 

‘2 See, Ding, Manzu de funu shenghuo yu hunyin zhidu yanjiu (Research on life and marriage patterns of
Manchu women). p. 104, 136.

'3 See, Owen Lattimore, Inner Asia Frontiers of China; Franz Michael, The Origin of Manchu Rule in
China: Frontier and Bureaucracy as Interacting Forces in the Chinese Empire. Karl Wittfogel and Féng
Chia-shéng, History of Chinese Society: Liao, 907-1125; Wolfram Eberhard, Conquerors and rulers: social
forces in medieval China; and China 's Minorities: Yesterday and Today; Robert Oxnam, Ruling fi'orn
Horseback: Manchu Politics in the Oboi Regency, 1661-1669.

" The Manchus was one of the ethnic groups of Altaic-speaking people who originally lived in North Asia.
“Altaic School” refers to those who emphasize the continuity of Manchu ethnicity and the maintenance of
“Manchuness” as an important characteristic of Qing when the Manchus established the dynasty in China.
For the discussions of how the Manchus maintained their ethnic identities after they encountered Chinese
culture, see Pamela Crossley, “Thinking about Ethnicity in Early Modern China.” Late Imperial China,
11.1 (June 1990), pp. 1-34; The Manchus (1997); and A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing
Imperial Ideology (1999); Evelyn Rawski, “Presidential Address: Re-envisioning the Qing: The
Significance of the Qing Period in Chinese History.” Journal of Asian Studies, 55.4, Nov. 1996, pp. 829-
850; and The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (1998); Mark Elliott, The
Manchu Way: the Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (2001).

12

introduce Chinese culture and encourage the Manchus to appreciate Chinese culture, they
were very concerned about the maintenance of their ethnic identity, for example, the
Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-1795) always stressed the significance of riding and shooting
in bannermen’s lives. He established schools for bannermen and emphasized that “every
single man has a responsibility to study written Manchu.”l5

In A Translucent Mirror, Crossley emphasizes the significance of Qing imperial
ideology. She does not consider the monolithic identities of “Manchu,” “Mongol,” and
“Chinese” as fundamentals, sources, or building blocks of the emergent order during the
first 150 years of the Qing conquest. Rather, she views these as identities that were
constructed as ideological productions of the process of imperial centralization. She
believes that the Manchus did not define themselves as an ethnic group in the early years
of the dynasty although they became one after the state felt that it was necessary to stress
Manchu ethnic identities. Manchu ethnicity changed over time, depending on the official
ideology that determined a series of policies, but never vanished.

In The Last Emperors, Evelyn Rawski explores the issue of ethnicity and
historical interpretation within Qing history by studying the Manchu rulers. She points
out that the Manchus accepted Chinese culture very selectively, as a strategy for ruling.
They adopted Chinese culture when it was politically expedient for them to do so and
rejected it when it did not help them achieve their political goals. Until the end of Qing
dynasty, the Manchus still maintained many cultural and ethnic traditions while being

influenced by Confucian culture only in selected venues and adjusting their lives

accordingly. She concludes that the Qing was neither a replica of the Chinese dynasties

 

'5 Pamela Crossley, The Manchus, pp. 128- 129.

13

nor a simple duplicate of its non-Han predecessors——the conquest dynasties in Chinese

history, such as Liao 61907-1125), Xi Xia (£1,990-1227), Jin (3,1115-1234), and

Yuan (773,1234/1260-1368). Rather than citing sinicization as the primary cause of Qing

success, as Ping-ti Ho argues,l6 Rawski believes that the key to Qing achievement lay in
its ability to implement flexible culturally specific policies aimed at the major non-Han
peoples inhabiting the Inner Asian peripheries in the empires.l7

Mark Elliott’s book, The Manchu Way, provides a comprehensive discussion of
the issue of Manchu-Chinese acculturation. By tracing the development of the Eight
Banners, the Manchu’s trademark system of social and military organization, he believes
that the Qing success in China depended not only on the Manchu ability to adapt to
Chinese political traditions and cultural values, but also on their ability to maintain the
lines of differentiation between the Han Chinese and the Manchu conquest group. The
Eight Banner system was a significant social and military institution that drew the lines
between Chinese and Manchus and thus maintained the ethnic boundaries. Elliott use the
term of “ethnic sovereignty” to emphasize the Manchu domination over China proper and
argues that the Manchus were never as a group assimilated into Chinese society in the
Qing, although they were highly acculturated. Although the content of Manchu identity
varied over time, it never disappeared.

These books provide a less “sino-centric” and less predetermined perspective
from which to examine the process and result of the encounter between Manchu and

Chinese cultures during the seventeen-and eighteenth centuries. Each of the books rejects

 

'6 See page 11 of this dissertation for more detail about Ho’s arguments.
'7 Evelyn Rawski, The Last Emperors, p. 7.

14

the assumption that Manchus were gradually assimilated by Chinese; each emphasizes
the cultural consistence and coherence of the Manchus.

Compared with the books on Manchu and Chinese acculturation, publications on
Manchu women, and on their roles in acculturation in particular, are very few. The reason
why fewer scholars have the study Manchu women is perhaps due to the paucity of
primary sources. Studies of Manchu women started in mid-19905, but have not yet
become popular, either in China or in the Western societies.18

The most comprehensive study of Manchu women to date is Manzu defunu
shenghuo yu hunyin zhidu yanjiu (Study on Manchu women’s lives and marriage system)
by Ding Yizhuang, a research fellow of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in China.
Based on a great quantity of Manchu archives, her book explores the changes that took
place in Manchu women’s lives after the conquest in 1644, modifications in traditional
marriage system, and how these changes related to Manchu-Chinese acculturation. She
argues that during the first 150 years after the conquest, Manchu culture experienced a
process of fission with Chinese culture. Since the acculturation has always had a direction
in which the periphery culture (referring to Manchu culture) goes toward the center
culture (Chinese culture), she argues that Manchus kept up with the Chinese by all the

means at their disposal and became even more Confucian than Chinese. Ding believes

that in the process of acculturation, Manchu women’s lives were greatly influenced by

 

'8 According to Elliott, the only specialized studies of Manchu women’s history are those by Lai Huimin
and Ding Yizhuang. See, Elliott, “Manchu Widows and Ethnicity in Qing China.” Comparative Studies in
Society and History, 41.1 (January 1999). p. 37, note 16.

15

Confucian culture and the overall Confucianization in women’s lives was a significant
integral part of the development of Manchu ethnicity during the Qing dynasty.19

Lai Huimin, a research fellow of Academia Sinica of Taiwan, is a specialist in
Manchu women’s status in the family and their property rights. In an article focusing on
Qing imperial women, Lai argues that after the conquest, the Manchus accepted the
Chinese ritual system and built up a patriarchic hierarchical society within the family, in
which women were in a lower position than men. Under the patriarchic hierarchical
structure, women constituted in a class among themselves. For example, a wife’s position
was higher than a concubine’s, but she was still not as powerfirl as the male family
members; a widow’s situation deteriorated after her husband’s death; unmarried girls had
more freedom and rights than their brothers’ wives—this was a unique Manchu tradition
that remained distinctive even after the Qing conquest.20 Regarding Manchu women’s
property and inheritance rights, Lai shows that Manchu women generally enjoyed more
property rights than their Chinese peers. For example, Manchu widows were allowed to
inherit their deceased husbands’ property, such as houses and land, and could lease,
pawn, or sell them as they wished. A widow also had the right to represent her deceased
husband to take his share in family property division. Moreover, according to Qing laws,
a daughter could inherit the property of her natal family if there was no male heir upon

her parents’ death. In the case that an heir had been adopted, she still had the right to

 

'9 Ding Yizhuang, Manzu defitnu shenghuo yu hunyin zhidu yanjiu (Research on life and marriage patterns
of Manchu women). p. 104.

2° Lai Huimin, “Qingdai huangjia funu de jiating diwei” (Qing imperial women’s status in family), Jindai
Zhongguofimushi yanjiu (Studies on modern Chinese women’s history), 2 (June 1994), pp.3-25.

16

share the property with her adopted brother.”

In an article, “Manchu Widows and Ethnicity in Qing China,” Mark Elliott uses
Manchu widows’ behavior as a lens to examine the role of gender in the construction of
ethnicity during the Qing period. He argues that Manchu rulers practice a bifirrcated
ethnic strategy, which means they vigorously encouraged Manchu women to accept some
Chinese values (for example, the virtuous widow cult) while they enthusiastically
championed a specific ethnic ideal for Manchu men.22 This policy assumed that the
acculturation of women did not pose a threat to Manchu legitimacy in the same way that
male acculturation might. However, Manchu rulers had never slackened their effort to
control women’s nuptiality and fertility as a way to secure ethnic boundaries because
female exogamy, the marriage between Manchu women and Chinese men, threatened
Manchu ethnic identity. Therefore, throughout the whole course of Qing dynasty,
intermarriage between Manchu women and Chinese men was very rare.

Other than these three specialized works, there are several articles by Chinese
historians about Manchu women. However, the discourses are primarily descriptive and
sino-centric, believing that sinicization was the only choice for the Manchus and the

inevitable result when the Manchus encountered Chinese.23 Therefore, the changes in

 

2' Lai Huimin, and Xu Siling, “Qingdai qiren funu caichanquan qianxi” (A brief analysis of banner
women’s property rights in the Qing). Jindai Zhongguo fimushi yanjiu (Studies on modern Chinese
women’s history), 4 (August 1996), pp.3-33. Also see her book, T ianhuang guizhou: Qing huangzu de
jiecengjiegou yujingji shenghuo (The Qing imperial lineage: its hierarchical structure and economic life).
Chapter Five, pp.252-261.

22 Mark Elliott, “Manchu Widows and Ethnicity in Qing China.” Comparative Studies in Society and
History, 41.1 (January 1999). pp. 33-71.

23 Zhang Wei. “Qingdai Manzu funu de shenghuo” (Manchu women’s lives in Qing dynasty), Zhongguo
gudaifitnu zhuanji (Special issue of Chinese women in pre-modern times), issue 3. pp. 76-80; Wang
Dongfang, “Manzu funu chuantong xingge zhi wo jian” (Opinions on Manchu women’s traditional
personalities), Manzu yanjiu (Manchu Studies), 1993. 3, pp. 43-45.

17

Manchu women’s lives could only be used as evidence to support the clichés that the
“military conquerors were conquered culturally.”

My dissertation departs from the existing scholarship by utilizing new sources,
including archives, literature, and interviews. I also examined the pattern of acculturation
from a new perspective—the interaction of gender and ethnicity; I, therefore, draw a new
conclusion that women changed more slowly than men in the process of acculturation.
This study refutes the traditional understanding on Manchu sinicization or
Confucianization, while supporting the findings of Rawski, Elliott, Crossley, and Lai
Huimin, and at the same time, broadens their focuses from the Manchu ruling house, the
court’s policies, and institutions to common banner people’s life (especially banner
women). I hope this dissertation project will contribute to the study of Manchu women

and Manchu-Chinese acculturation, and therefore, to the study of Qing history in general.

18

Chapter One: Historical Setting and the Construction of Manchu Ethnicity

Before examining Manchu women’s roles in the process of acculturation in the
17‘h and 18th centuries, some questions should be addressed: who were the Manchus?
How did their social organization and cultural traditions differ from those of Chinese
before and after the conquest? To what extent could the Manchus be seen as an ethnic
group? How flexible was the ethnic boundary between the Manchus and Chinese, and
how should this distinction be considered in the historical context of Manchu-Han
acculturation?

This chapter opens by sketching the historical background of the Manchus,
including their ethnic origins, the Eight Banner system, and their distinctive social
customs. The second part of the chapter discusses some problems with the Manchu

ethnicity, and ethnicity issues in China in general.

1. Rise of the Manchus and their social organizations

The Manchu was one of the ethnic groups living in the North of Changbai
Mountains, along the rivers of Sungari, Ussuri, and Shira Muren River basin in the
present Chinese provinces of Jilin and Liaoning (see Map 1). According to historical
records and modern Chinese historians, the origin of Manchus could be traced as early as

1100 BC. Predecessors of the Manchus were called by different names, beginning with

Su-shen (an) in pre-Qin period (ca. 1100 B.C.E.), Yi-lou (fifi) in Han (ca. 200 A. D.),

Mo-he (in Sui and Tang (ca. 700 A. D.), and Jurchen after the 10th century.1 Whether

 

' Dai Yi, Jianming Qingshi (Brief history of Qing), vol. 1, pp. 14-20; Li Yanguang and Guan Jie, Manzu
tongshi (A general history of the Manchus), pp.l-5; Guan Jixin, ed. Zhongguo Manzu (China’s Manchus).
Pei Huang, “New Light on the Origins of the Manchus,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 50.1, 1990.

19

these tribes were ethnically related is unknown, although officially compiled histories
recorded them as one people with different names over time. This account may be
questioned because traditional Chinese historiography had a habit of stereotyping all the
non-Chinese ethnic groups into one category of “barbarians” and tended to ignore their
internal cultural distinctions. Therefore, I rather assume that these tribes were marginal
groups who had inhabited Manchuria area successively in certain historical periods and
then moved to another place, otherwise, it can not be explained why the people in this
region did not change culturally even a thousand years of contact with China.

However, historians are on a more solid ground when examining the last one
thousand years. The Manchus were descendants of the J urchen who established the J in
dynasty in China in the twelfth century. In the fifteenth century during the Ming dynasty,
the Jurchens developed into three main tribes, located in the Manchuria areas: the
J ianzhou in the southeast (Changbai Mountains area), the Haixi in the northwest (Sungari
River basin), and the Yeren in the far east (Ussuri River). In 1583, Nurhaci of the
Jianzhou Jurchen started a campaign of annexing other Jurchen tribes and, by the early
17‘h century, he had unified the whole J urchen tribes, incorporated other peoples (the
Mongols, Chinese, Korean, Sibo, and others) who lived in Manchuria area, and brought
all the peoples under one polity—the Latter J in dynasty (1616-1635).2 In 1635, Nurhaci’s
son Huangtaiji replaced the name of “Jurchen” with “Manchu” to represent his people.

This was the birth of the Manchu.

 

2 Zhao Zhan. Manzu wenhua yu zongjiao yanjiu (Studies on Manchu culture and religions), pp. 14-15.

20

From the ethnic perspective, renaming of the Jurchen was sigtificant because the
new name was used as a universal label for all the peoples under Huangtaiji’s rule,
regardless of their ethnic origins. It suggested that fi'om very beginning the Manchu was
actually not a single people, but an ethnic community, composed mainly of the J urchen
people but including of many other ethnic groups as well. This structure determined the
pattern of acculturation when the J urchen/Manchu encountered other societies, either
before or after they conquered China.

On the one hand, the J urchen/Manchus were good at borrowing useful concepts
from other cultures. For example, in the process of acculturation before the Manchus took
form, the J urchen people—the main body of the Manchus—borrowed many things from
Mongols, including their political system and the form of their written language. They
also learned certain advanced agricultural techniques from Chinese that allowed them to
further expand the cultivated land and shift their lives from hunting and fishing to
farming. After the conquest in 1644, the Manchus accepted so many Chinese traditions
that some scholars have argued that the Manchus were already thoroughly sinicized and
becoming Chinese.3

On the other hand, when the Jurchen/Manchus encountered other cultures, they

were extremely concerned about their ethnic identity and always tried to maintain certain

basic traditions that differentiated them from the other peoples. For example, the Manchu

 

3 Ping-Ti Ho, “The Significance of the Ch’ing Period in Chinese History.” The Journal of Asian Studies,
26.2, 1967, pp. 189-195; and “In Defense of Sinicization: A Rebuttal of Evelyn Rawski’s ‘Re-envisioning
the Qing’.” The Journal of Asian Studies, 57.1. Feb. 1998. pp. 123-155; Ding Yizhuang. Manzu de fimu
shenghuo yu hunyin zhidu yanjiu (Research on life and maniage patterns of Manchu women), p.136; Li
Jingping, “Luelun Manzu hanhua jiqi dui Qingchu de yingxiang” (Discussion on Manchu sinicization and
its impact on early Qing), Shixue yuekan (History monthly), April 1986, pp.35-39; Guan Donggui, “Manzu
de ruguan yu hanhua.” (The Manchu conquest and sinicization), Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan
yanjiusuo jikan (Journal of the Institute of History and Linguistics in Academia Sinica), 43. 2 (1971),
pp.445-488.

21

written language was created by two Jurchen linguists in 1599. It was based on the
Mongol writing system. However, these two languages resembled each other only in
form—the Manchus borrowed Mongol scripts to express J urchen pronounciation.4 In
1632, Huangtaiji asked the Manchu linguist Da-hai to reform the Manchu written system.
After that, the Manchu scripts appeared quite different from Mongol.5 Many other
examples demonstrating the ways in which the Manchus maintained their own ethnic
identities can be found after the conquest of China. Although many Manchus gradually
lost their mother tongue as they used Chinese in general conversation, by the end of the
18th century, most of government documents were written in duplicate—one in Chinese
and one in Manchu—until the end of the dynasty. Generals commanding the armies of
the north and west and Manchu officials receiving edicts written in Manchu were obliged
to write their memorials to the throne in Manchu. Throughout the dynasty, Manchu
language was used as a “security language” for the rulers. According to Evelyn Rawski,
Manchu officials were required to communicate in Manchu and documents relating to the
imperial lineage, banner affairs, and Inner Asian military matters were often written only
in Manchu.6 In many other aspects, the Manchus had successfully maintained old
traditions and customs passed on, which will be discussed in detail in the following
chapters, more notably the Manchu women’s roles and positions in maintaining the
Manchu ethnic identity.

The Eight Banner system had the most profound historical significance of all the

 

’ Dai Yi, Jianming Qingshi (Brief history of Qing), vol. 1, p. 50.

5 Ibid., p. 85.

6 Evelyn Rawski, The Last Emperors, pp. 36-37; Also see, Pamela Crossley and Evelyn Rawski, “A Profile
of the Manchu Language in Ch’ing History.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 53. 1 (June 1993), pp. 70-
73; and Mark Elliott, The Manchu Way, p. 291.

22

Manchu institutions. It served as a political, military, and social organization that
included all Khan’s peoples—Manchu, Mongol, and acculturated Chinese men, women,
and their servants—and kept them separated from Chinese population.7 The banner
system was a protected reservoir where the Manchu culture could be maintained and
reproduced. This function was especially notable when examining the Manchu women’s
roles in the process of acculturation, on which this dissertation focuses.

According to Qing Veritable Records, the banner system was derived from
“niru”, the basic unit in which Jurchen hunters were grouped. “Niru” was a Manchu word
for “arrow”. When the J urchen went hunting, they were grouped into ten-person units.
Each person contributed one arrow. Each niru had one captain whom was called “niru
ejen” (means “company captain”). Based on the niru organization, Nurhaci transformed
these hunting units into a military organization in 1601. This was the birth of banner
system. Under the banner system, every 300 people were grouped into one niru, five niru
were grouped into one gala, five gala formed one gusa (banner). Thus, there were
approximately 7500 people in a banner. There were four banners. Each had its assigned
color, yellow, white, red, and blue. In 1615, as the banner population increased, Nurhaci
added four more banners to the original ones with a red border added to the flags (the red
flag was bordered in white). Between 1634 and 1642, the Eight Banner system was
expanded to 24 banners by adding eight Mongol banners and eight Chinese banners. By
the eve of the conquest, Manchu banner forces comprised 319 Manchu niru, 129 Mongol
niru, and 167 Chinese niru. All together were 615 niru and about 184,500 banner

soldiers.8

 

7 The term of “Khan” refers to the rulers of Tartar, Mongol, or Turkic societies in Asia.
8 J in Qizong, Manzu lishi yu wenhuajianbian (Brief introduction of Manchu history and culture), p. 38.

23

The banner system was the most famous of all Manchu institutions. It played a
crucial military role in the battles of the Manchu conquest. After the Manchus moved to
China proper, the banner system was a unique social organization, combining military,
political, and civilian functions together.

After the conquest, the majority of bannermen and their families moved from
Manchuria to Beijing and other Chinese cities. In order to accommodate them and to
reduce the possibility of ethnic conflicts between the Manchus and Chinese, many
“Manchu cities” (the Western missionaries called these “Tartar cities”) were built within
Chinese cities wherever the Manchus set ganison stations.

These cities became the exclusive home of banner officers and soldiers, their
families, and servants, segregated from Chinese population. Regarding the Manchu cities
as “ethnic ghetto,” Elliott emphasizes that study of the “environment” is essential to
understanding the people and their lives in Qing.9 Study of Manchu cities, the symbol of
Manchu apartheid,10 is especially important if we wish to know how the Manchu culture
was reproduced and why banner women played a different role from men in the process
of Manchu-Han acculturation.

The largest Manchu city was in Beijing. In 1645 and 1648, the Shunzhi emperor
issued two decrees respectively regarding residential segregation in Beijing. In the edict
issued in 1648, all Chinese living within the city wall of Beijing were asked to move to
the southern suburbs no later than the end of 1649. The only exceptions were Han

Chinese who served as guards at government offices, Buddhist and Daoist monks, or

 

9 Mark Elliott, The Manchu Way, p. 90.
'° The term of “Manchu apartheid” is from Frederic Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, p. 467.

24

peddlers. The following is the description of Beijing by Matteo Ripa, an Italian Jesuit
who lived in the city during the Kangxi period:

Peking is composed of two district cities, one being called the Tartar city, the

other the Chinese. The Tartar city is so named because it is inhabited by Tartars,

and by those who, though not Tartars, are enrolled in the Eight Banners, or eight

bands which constitute the Tartar troops. The Chinese city is inhabited by Chinese

alone. . .The Tartar city is square, and encircled by a yellow wall.11

When the Chinese were removed to the southern city, about 100,000 banner
soldiers and their families moved into Beijing, living in the northern city (see map 2).
The banners were assigned to live in different quarters within the city, surrounding the
imperial city, according to their colors and the divisions of Manchu, Mongol, and
Chinese. The Manchu banners were situated closer to the imperial city, the Mongol
banners were in the middle, and the Chinese banners were at the periphery of the Manchu
city. This deliberate arrangement reflected the idea of dyarchy in military distribution in
the capital where Manchu bannermen served as “bodyguards” of the central government

for the security concerns, while Chinese bannermen might serve as “mediators” between

the banner population and the Chinese outside the city walls (see map 3).12 In Beijing

suburb, there were garrison stations of huoqi ying (RISE firearm station), jianrui ying

(£61.: valiant fighter station), and a ganison at Yuanming yuan. Like bannermen in

other parts of the city, these bannermen, together with their families, lived within the
walled enclaves, separated from Chinese.
The Chinese city was the commercial center of the capital. The busiest shopping

streets were in the northern part of the city, at a place where the Manchu and Chinese

 

" Matteo Ripa, Memoirs of Father Ripa, trans. Fortunato Prandi, pp.51-52.
‘2 Ortai (Qing). ed. Baqi tongzhi chuji, (Comprehensive history of the Eight Banners, first collection), vol.

25

cities met. The Chinese city was also the entertainment center for bannermen where
teahouses, theaters, and brothels were built. Chinese would be permitted in the city
during the day only, and were officially forbidden to stay overnight in the Manchu city.l3

Movement between and within each quarter was controlled through an extensive system

of barricades, called zhalan (lflllé), which were closed at night. During his stay in Beijing

in 1793, Lord Macartney, the British emissary to the Qianlong court, was strongly
impressed by the constant state of alert:

The police is singularly strict. It is indeed stretched to an extent unknown I
believe in any other cities, and strongly marks the jealousy of the Government,
and their unceasing apprehension of danger. At night all the streets are shut up by
barricades at each end and a guard is constantly patrolling between them so that
no person can pass after a certain hour without assigning satisfactory reasons. . .
A number of watchmen are also stationed at short distances who carry a rattle and
every two or three minutes proclaim their vigilance by the exercise of their
instrument. One or two of these guardians of the peace had their stands so near to
my house that I could not sleep a wink for the first three or four nights, but by
degrees I became used to the noise and grew to mind it as little as the ringing of a
church bell?”

Manchu cities in other places of China had similar distributions and policies as
the Manchu city in capital (see the maps of the layout of Manchu cities in Hangzhou,
J ingzhou, Xi’an, Guangzhou garrisons). For example, the Manchu city at Hangzhou was
located near the West Lake, surrounded by 35 foot-high walls. In the eighth year of
Shunzhi (1651), 3,500 bannermen and their dependents moved into the Manchu city
there. Within the city, was the garrison general’s yamen, the residences of Manchu
officials and soldiers, granaries, schools, temples, parks, and so on. The city provided

banner people with complete facilities for their daily life, which meant that they could

 

'3 Da Qing Shizu shilu (The veritable records of Shunzhi), August in the 5'” year of Shunzhi (1648), 40: 9b.
" J. L. Cranmer-Byng, An Embassy to China: Being the Journal kept by Lord Macartney During His
Embassy to the Emperor Ch ’ien-lung, 1 793-94, p. 158.

26

survive in this closed world.IS Actually both bannermen and women were required to stay
within the Manchu city. If the officials or soldiers had to leave the city for business trip,
they should bring special pass with them, otherwise, they would be considered as
deserters and receive punishment.'6

The initial purpose of the distribution and regulation in Manchu cities was to
provide bannermen and women a quarter in which to live, separated from the people they
ruled, in order to avoid ethnic strife between the two ethnic groups. More significant
benefits resulted from this separation, as Manchu cities became the strongholds spread
over the Chinese land, where the Manchu style of life was maintained and the culture was
reproduced. The segregation is especially important in an examination of the Manchu-
Han acculturation from a gendered perspective. Although the Manchu cities confined
both bannermen and women to a relatively closed community, men still had many
opportunities to become acquainted with the outside world and contact Chinese people.
For example, as the ruling class, some of them took positions in government, working

together with Chinese officials. They also had to deal with Chinese tenants who

cultivated their lands. Banner idlers (xiansan filth)" came out of Manchu city to find

amusement in Chinese city. Even within the Manchu city, bannerrrren still had
opportunity to learn Chinese culture through formal education at schools, which were
only open to male banner students. Banner women, on the contrary, did not have to go

outside of the Manchu city as did men due to their different functions and roles in

 

'5 Qinding zhongshu zhengkao (Investigation on the administration of central government), vol. 13.

‘6 Qinding hubu zeli (Regulations of the Personnel Department), vol. 2.

‘7 “Idlers” referred to those who registered in banners but did not oflicially take the post as soldiers so that
they could not get monthly payment from government.

27

society. Many of them spent their whole lives within this relatively closed community.
Obviously, in the Manchu cities, this “Manchu apartheid” policy was more effective for
women in terms of isolating them from Chinese people and society. As the result, women
within the city walls were able to preserve more old traditions while men accepted more
Chinese values. In the following chapters, I will discuss how this gendered format could
be seen in the process of Manchu-Han acculturation.

The supposition that women changed more slowly than men applied to Chinese
society as well. By the end of the 17th century, most of Chinese men shaved their
foreheads and braided their hair into a queue that hung down their backs, much like
bannermen. Many, especially those who worked in a yamen as Qing officials, also
accepted the style of Manchu clothing. Mastery of Manchu was a plus for Chinese
government officials collaborating with the Manchus. Therefore, at first sight, it was
almost impossible to distinguish a Han Chinese from a Manchu unless his ethnic
background was announced.

However, Chinese women made little effort to compromise with Manchu
customs. As the result, the differences between Manchu women18 and Chinese women

maintained many aspects until the end of Qing dynasty. A famous Chinese historian
stated “men surrendered, women resisted” (nan xiang nu bu xiang Sfiifiifl), in
describing the situation of Chinese men and women after the Manchu conquest, which

meant that women could keep their old traditions while encountering the other culture but

men had to change.‘9 Among other differences between Chinese women and Manchu

 

'8 I use the term of “Manchu women” here and thereafter by its broader meaning, referred to all the women
in banner, regardless of their original ethnic background.
'9 Zheng Tianting, Qingshi tanwei (Inquiry and investigation on some issues in Qing history), p. 56.

28

women, the most remarkable one was their feet—Chinese women had bound feet while
Manchu women had natural feet (see Figure 1). As early as in 1636 when Huangtaiji
changed his dynastic name from “Latter J in” to “Qing”, he issued a decree to Han people
under his control, “all Han people—be they official or commoner, male or female—their
clothes and adomments will have to conform to Manchu styles. Male are not allowed to
fashion wide collars and sleeves; females are not allowed to comb up their hair [shutou]
nor bind their feet.”20 In 1664, the Kangxi emperor issued a prohibition on foot binding.
Young girls born after 1662 were not allowed to bind their feet. Parents who still bound
their daughters’ feet would be punished.21 However, Chinese women ignored the imperial
edicts and continued the old tradition. As the result, the emperor gave up his effort in
1668 after four years because he did not have resources to check the feet of every
Chinese woman hidden in the inner quarters.22 There were many other outward

differences between Manchu women and Chinese women. For example, Manchu

"""h‘ -——— upwa-

 

women’s dress was featured by its narrower sleeves, as was the-_tradition before the

 

conquest. The narrower sleeves made horseback riding and othegehores easier. Another

fivofifln .

difference could be found in the number of earrings—Manchu women wore three

 

 

 

eanings on each ear while Chinese women wore 99131.0“ eachear. All these differences

persisted until the early 20‘h century.
The Manchu views of female beauty differed from those of the Chinese.

According to Chinese standard, aheautiful woman should be pale and willowy with a

M
‘ H-‘“W.--ml-‘vg 1. ’__

 

 

 

 

2° Qing Taizong shilu gaoben, cited in Dorothy Ko, “The Body as Attire: the Shifting Meanings of
Footbinding in Seventeenth-century China.” p. 16, Journal of Women ’3 History, Winter 1997.

2' Zhao Yi, Gaiyu congkao (Mourning period miscellaneous notes), vol. 31, p. 656.

22 Ibid. Susan Mann argues that the insistence of the tradition of foot-binding came from women
themselves, “who refused to comply with [the Manchus]; moreover, since women who had bound feet were
usually cloistered and women who did the binding did it in private, enforcing the proscription was
impossible.” See, Precious Records: Women in China '3 Long Eighteenth Century, p. 27.

29

pair of tiny feet so that a man would feel pity and be induced to take care of her.

.W L_-..—.._..-

However, Manchu folksongs, poems, and literature reveal that attractive Manchu women

. n- ._-—A- w‘wmh m‘rh—x.

 

Mhh‘d‘“ _-

 

wan-Hm“ n.- “

strong personalities, such as bold, straightforward brave, aggressive, and talented, while

W-‘Pmm dot-un- _- -un;

 

 

 

according to the Chinese standard, a good woman must be pliable, quiet, timid, and

weak-willedL’These divergent opinions reflected the different cultural backgrounds of

 

Manchu and Chinese. The following chapters will discuss how the cultural conflicts
existed within households when Manchu men accepted certain Chinese values regarding
female beauty and behavior while Manchu women still maintained the old traditions.

In addition to the differences in appearance and personalities, certain distinctive

features set Manchu women apart from Chinese women. For example, in Manchu

 

“ ___._._._-__..._..‘ ~"—"

‘\_ -—

social activities.24 After the conquest, although Manchu women gradually retired from

 

those activities in order to adjust to a new cultural environment, they still had more
opportunity to join outdoor activities than did their Chinese sisters.

Compared with Han women, Manchu women generally enjoyed more legal rights,

-__, uy— H- -W 5...-

 

for example, inheritance of property. They also enjoyed superior social standing and

finmm—‘s—‘a MWNW

 

educational opportunities. In the aspects of marriage system, many differences could be

__._——~._._— ‘W-m — —- ._._._

 

.. u“

seen between Manchu and Han, including the tradition of directed-marriage, xiunu (it,

elegant female) selection, and widow remarriage. Manchu women differed from Chinese

women in many ways before the conquest and certain of these traditions were maintained

 

23 See, Ji Yonghai and Zhao Zhizhong, “Pao bairna (Ride the white horse)”, in Manzu minjian wenxue
gailun (An introduction of Manchu folk literature), p. 97; Singde, “Tune of huan xi sha”.

For detail, see Wang Dongfang, “Zaoqi Manzu funu lisu de bianqian” (Changes In etiquette and custom
of Manchu women in early time), Manzu wenhua (Manchu culture), 1994, 5. pp. 74-81.

30

until the end of the dynasty. In the following chapters, I will examine Manchu women’s
lives in these aspects after the conquest to see how these traditions were passed on as well

as how Manchu women adjusted to the new cultural environment.

2. The issue of the Manchu ethnicity

In the recent issue of The Journal of Asian Studies, Kent Guy discusses four
books on the Manchus in China--Pamela Crossley, A Translucent Mirror: History and
Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology (1999); Mark Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight
Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (2001); Evelyn Rawski, The Last
Emperors: A social History of the Qing Imperial Institutions (1998); and Edward Rhoads,
Manchus and Han: ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early Republic
China, 1861-1928 (2000).25 Guy raises the question, “Who or ‘What’ were the Manchus,”
which is also one of the main concerns of the four authors discussed in their books.

The term of “Manchu” was first used by Huangtaiji, the second ruler of Latter J in
polity, in a decree of 1635:

“Our gurun originally had the names Manju, Hada, Ula, Yehe, and Hofa.

Formerly, ignorant persons have frequently called [us] jusen. The term jusen

refers to the Sibo and Chaomergan barbarians, and has nothing to do with our

gurun. Our gurun establishes the name Manju. Its rule is long and has been

transmitted over many generations. Henceforth, peozple should call our gurun

Manju, and not use the previous demeaning name.’

Each of the four authors Guy discusses cites this passage in his/her book, but each author

 

2’ Kent Guy, “Who Were the Manchus?” The Journal ofAsian Studies, 61.1 (February 2002), 151-164. The
four books under review are Pamela Crossley, A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial
Ideology (1999); Mark Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial
China (2001); Evelyn Rawski, The Last Emperors: A social History of the Qing Imperial Institutions
(1998); and Edward Rhoads, Manchus and Han: ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and
Early Republic China, 1861—1928 (2000).

26 Da Qing T aizong shilu (Qing veritable records of Taizong), October 13 in the 9'” year of Tiancong
(1635), 25:29b. Cited the translation from Rawski The last Emperors, p. 36.

31

presents a different understanding of what was being created in the year of 1635. The
problem comes from the term of “gurun” (guo E in Chinese), which in Manchu can be

translated as “state”, “tribe”, “people”, or even “court”.27 Rawski suggests that what

Huangtaiji created was “a new identity that could superscribe the identities of the J urchen
and other northeastern tribes, many of whom had been subjugated by force.”28 Rhoads
offers the suggestion that the Manchus were an “occupational caste.”29 The other two
authors argue against each other about whether the Manchu was created as a “state”
(Crossley) or as a “people” (Elliott).30 All the definitions can coincide, if ethnic identity is
understood as a process rather than a fixed object and if the term of “ethnicity" is
discussed in a Chinese historical context. Even the definitions proposed by Crossley and
Elliott can be reconciled if we see Chinese history as a process in which “people” and

“state” are sequential stages in the development of identity.

In Chinese conception, “state” (guo, E) and “people” (min, E) sometimes carry

the same meaning. The concept of “state” in the West refers to a country considered as a
political organization. But in China, guo always represents a culture that unifies all the
people under single polity. The concept of “people” in the West may refer to one’s
culture or ethnicity. In China, however, “people” is usually given political meaning,
referred to the populations attached to certain polity, without too much concern about

ethnic distinctions. Therefore, when Huangtaiji proclaimed the birth of Manchu in 1635,

 

2’ Kent Guy, “Who Were the Manchus?” The Journal ofAsian Studies, 61.1 (February 2002), p. 153.

28 Evelyn Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of the Qing Imperial Institutions, p. 36.

29 Edward Rhoads, Manchus and Han: Ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early
Republic China, 1861-1928, pp. 289-90. Cited in Guy, p. 153.

3° Pamela Crossley, A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology, p. 194; Mark
Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Last Imperial China, p. 71.

32

what was created could be both a state (from a political perspective) and a people (from a
cultural perspective).

According to Emily Honig, ethnicity is a concept that does not exist in China.31 It

is oflen translated as minzu (E8?) or shaoshuminzu (@fiEfik‘), two terms that literally

means “nationalities” or “minorities” respectively, referred only to non-Han people.
However, being a non-Han people does not necessarily mean such as person show any
distinctive physical differences from Han people. Most of ethic groups in China share the
same physical appearance of Han Chinese and differ from Han only by their social
perceptions and culture, which form the basis for their ethnic identities. Since the ethnic
identity in Chinese society can be irrelevant to one’s physical features, it has a very
flexible, bridgeable boundary and is rather a subjective thing—using J enner’s phrase, it is
“who you think you are and who you think that other people are.”32 The Manchus, as one
of ethnic groups of China, is a good example}3 In the following pages, I will discuss in
more details how the Manchus defined their ethnic boundary and how this boundary was
sometimes obscure and frequently malleable.

In Creating Chinese Ethnicity, Emily Honig provides four observations about the
meaning of ethnicity in China. First, ethnicity is not an objective thing, such as blood ties,

but rather a process. It involves the creation and manipulation of notions of cultural

 

3 I See, Emily Honig, Creating Chinese Ethnicity: Subei People in Shanghai, 1850-1980, p. 10.

’2 Jenner, W. J. F. “Race and History in China.” p. 57, in New Life Review, II, Sept/Oct. 2001.

33 There is a debate in China about whether the Manchus have any physical traits that differ from those of
Chinese. Some people insist that the Manchus have flat heads. However, I believe that this feature was not
from biological difference but comes from a cultural tradition—the Manchus usually lay their infant on a
hanging cradle, rest his/her head on a very hard pillow, which, they believed, is good for the baby’s health.
As the result, the baby grows up with a head that is flat at the back.

33

distinctiveness to establish self/other dichotomies among people in a shared political and
economic system. Physical appearance, language, or geographical origins help to define
the ethnic boundaries, but in a very flexible way. Second, no group of peoples is
inherently or immutably ethnic. Ethnicity depends upon context, which means that a
group of people is not a people in their hometown; they only become ethnic group when
they migrate to a foreign place. Third, ethnic identity is articulated by people seeking to
identify as a “collective solidarity group” to demand political and economic rights, as
well as to assert pride in a group’s heritage. Fourth, ethnicity concerns its relationship to
class.34 Although her book focuses on the Subei people in Shanghai, Honig’s
observations about ethnicity can help to clarify the experience of the Manchus in China.
The term of “Manchu” had different meanings in different periods of time,
depending on the social, political, and cultural situations present. When Huangtaiji
proclaimed that “our gurun establishes the name Manju . . . people should call our gurun
Manju, and not use the previous demeaning name” in October 1635, he created a political
force that included people from various ethnic backgrounds, including, but not limited to,
J urchen, Mongol, Chinese, Korean, and Sibo.35 Since these peoples were under the same
political power, lived in the same region, and were enrolled in the same military
organization as banner soldiers, they gradually reduced their cultural differences and
eventually became one people. In a sense, we can compare the creation of Manchus with
the founding of the People’s Republic of China. When Mao Zedong proclaimed the birth

of PRC on October 1, 1949, he created both a state and a people—Chinese (zhanghua

 

3‘ See, Emily Honig, Creating Chinese Ethnicity, p. 9.
3’ Sibo is an ethnic group distributed over Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Liaoning Province.

34

minzu ”PfiEH), including Han people as the majority and other 55 politically recognized

minority nationalities (shaoshu minzu 9&Efifi). Under this polity, one can be a

“Chinese” without being a “Han”, just as under Huangtaiji’s Latter J in, one could be a
Manchu without being Jurchen—the people who made up the main body of Manchus.36
According to Russian anthropologist Yu. V. Bromley, ethnic groups can be
defined as “a firm aggregate people, historically established on a given territory,
possessing in common relatively stable particularities of language and culture, and also
recognizing their unity and difference from other similar formations (self awareness) and
expressing this in a self-appointed name (ethnonyrn).”37 Before the Manchu conquest in
1644, the Manchus were an ethnic group only in a sense of having common territory,
name, language, and culture. But they might not have had a strong ethnic consciousness,
which was usually developed only when one people migrated to a foreign place and was
surrounded by other peoples of the society—using Honig’s words, “the Irish were
obviously not ethnic in Ireland but only became so when they migrated to the United
States.”38
After the conquest in 1644, the greater part of Manchu population moved into

China proper. From the beginning of Qing dynasty, the Manchu emperors were very

concerned about their ethnic identities and emphasized the significance of maintaining

 

3" A new thought about the multi-cultural and multi-ethnic feature of present China suggests that China is
only superficially a poly-ethnic country. It is actually inhabited by a single ethnic group. In other words, all
the nationalities are, beneath their apparent diversity, one. See, W. J. F. Jenner, “Race and History in
China.” p. 57. New Life Review, no. 2, Sept/Oct. 2001.

37 T. Dragadzc, “The Place of ‘Ethnos’ Theory in Soviet Anthropology,” in Yu. V. Bromley et al. (eds),
Contemporary Ethnic Processes in the USSR, Moscow, 1975 (in Russian). Cited translation in Ernest
Gellner, ed., Soviet and Western Anthropology, p.162. Also see Pamela Crossley, “Thinking about
Ethnicity in Early Modern China.” p. 17, note 30, Late Imperial China, 11: 1, (June 1990).

38 Emily Honig, Creating Chinese Ethnicity, p. 9.

35

their Manchu traditions. The Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-1795) was especially concerned
with the maintenance of Manchu ethnicity when he realized that, after one hundred years
of occupation, the Manchus, especially bannermen, were in danger of losing their ethnic
distinctiveness, of softening, and of becoming Chinese. In order to preserve Manchu
ethnicity Manchu cities were built in Beijing and in other major cities, as given
territories, to separate Manchus from Chinese. Manchu language was taught in Manchu
schools and spoken in Manchu households.39 Manchu people, as an occupational caste,
enjoyed political, economic, and social privileges from government.40 From the date of
the conquest to the end of the dynasty, Manchu people, from emperors down to common
bannermen and women, had strong self-conscious sense of belonging to a distinct ethnic
community.

However’ throughou‘ the (339%-??3‘3919‘? Manehu..¢thnig.b9.uadalxvxasyery

h, _ ._._-.—.._-....b,

flexible and sometimes unclear. This lack of clarity was first reflected in the ambiguity of

W.

 

in... ”mmmwaw M'W-w‘ - .—

the terms of “banner people” (qiren RA) and “Manchus” (manzu fifi).

Technically, “banner people” referred to those registered in Eight Banners,
including the soldiers, their families, and servants. However, in all Qing documents and
conversation of people’s daily life, the term of “banner people” was frequently conflated
as “Manchus.” By the twentieth century, qiren formally became an equivalent term for
“Manchus.” For the sake of convenience, in the following chapters of this dissertation,

“Manchu people” or “Manchus” refers to all the people in banners, regardless their

 

39 “The ‘Eating Crabs’ Youth Book” recorded that Manchu people spoke Manchu at home. See, Mark
Elliott trans. “The ‘Eating Crabs’ Youth Book.” p. 272. Susan Mann and Yu-yin Cheng, ed. Under
Confircian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History.

‘0 For detail regarding Manchu bannermen’s political, economic, and social privileges, See, Mark Elliott,
The Manchu Way, Chapter Four “The Iron Rice Bowl of Banner Privilege.” pp. 175-209.

36

originally ethnic identity. In other words, Manchu people include not only those who
enrolled in the Manchu Eight Banners, but also those who enrolled in Mongol and Han

(Chinese) banners. In the Qing period, people were not divided by ethnic descent, but

classified into two groups—bannermen and commoners (minren EA), depending on

their social identities.“ Among the commoners, the overwhelming majority was Han
Chinese while the banner people included those with various ethnic backgrounds.

As noted earlier, the banner system was founded in about 1601, starting with four
Manchu banners. By the eve of the Manchu conquest in 1644, the banner system had
expanded to twenty-four banners, including three ethnic divisions—eight Manchu
banner, eight Mongol banners (mainly from Chakhar, Kharachin, and other eastern
Mongol groups), and eight Chinese banners (made up of Han Chinese in Liaodong areas).
Although there were some slight differences between these ethnic divisions, all the
people in banners were considered to be part of the Manchu population, or in other
words, both Mongols and Chinese were Manchurized and joined the Qing in opposing the
Chinese Ming dynasty. Evidence of Manchurization was that, when the term of “the
Manchu conquest” is used today, people barely think about the ethnic variety within
Manchus but consider Manchus as a single ethnic group.

In fact, the Manchus had never been a single people, and even the Manchu
banners included various ethnic groups, for example, the original banners included the

Chinese in Liaodong frontier, who joined the banners before 16303 when Chinese

 

“ Ding Yizhuang. Manzu defunu shenghuo yu hunyin zhidu yanjiu (Research on life and marriage patterns
of Manchu women), p. 331; Also see, Jin Qizong, Beijing jiaoqu de Manzu (The Manchus in Beijing
Suburb), pp. 40-41.

37

banners had not been set up. These Manchurized Chinese had Manchu surnames, spoke
Manchu, and could not be distinguished from other Manchus. After the Mongol and
Chinese banners were founded in 16303, these “Chinese” were still in Manchu banners.

In China, ethnic identity is primarily determined by one’s culture, not by blood
ties. People in banners shared the same culture, no matter which ethnic groups they
originally came from. For example, all the banner women—including Han women in
Chinese banners—did not bind their feet; they wore three rings on each ear; rode
horseback; and were allowed to participate outdoor activities like men. They also enjoyed
higher social positions and more educational opportunities than Chinese women. A
comparison between a Chinese woman in banners and the ones outside reveals the broad
distinctions between them while there was little difference between women in different
division of banners, in other words, Chinese banner woman shared a common cultural
heritage with the Manchus, rather than with Chinese commoners, although they might
have blood ties with the latter.

The case of Cao Yin (1658-1712) furnished an example of the way in which
originally Han people became part of the Manchu identity. Cao Yin’s ancestors were
originally Chinese living in Liaodong. His great-grandfather Cao Hsi-yuan was captured
in the time of Nurhaci (1559-1626) and became as a booi (bondservant) 42 in the Plain

White Banner.43 Cao Yin’s father served in the Imperial Household under the Shunzhi

 

‘2 “3001'” in Manchu means “of the house,” usually translate as “bondservant”. The first bondservants were
slaves in private households. Most of them were captives in battles with hostile tribes, Mongols, Chinese,
and Korean. When the number of booi increased along with the Manchus conquered more land, they were
formed into niru on the model of the Manchu eight Banner organization, belonging to the emperor, called
the Upper Three Banners, or Manchu princes, which were called the Lower Three Banners. See, Jonathan
Spence, Ts 'ao Yin and the K ’ang-hsi Emperor, Bondservant and Master, pp. 7-9.

‘3 Before the Mongol and Chinese banners were set up during 16303 to 16403, there were banners
composed by various peoples. These banners were given a prefix as “Manchu banners” when Mongol and
Chinese banner were formed so that people could distinguish them from the Mongol and Chinese banners.

38

emperor and, during the Kangxi period, he became the textile commissioner of Nanjing,
the post that was inherited by Cao Yin. The position as booi in the Plain White Banner

was hereditary. Thus,er generations, Cao’s family is listed in the genealogy of the

. ,_ ”—1-
.-‘._—-—-+——-

 

-..M.———-——_.._ L-

Manchu clans as being a bondservant in the Pla’inWhite Banner. The life thatCaqo family

p...— . w-a- - ‘ '-——‘u—- 'v 4‘;- u-r_ ~—
._.. .-

H...-.._- .

_F-r—o-

 

«_—

lived did not ELf£eL®ta£h9£2£a Manchu family “6.5429112iésatitieithe.§egtani.ly

 

will become important when the novel Honglou meng (Dream of the FEQ‘EhETEEIIi-S- _used

.4.

as primary sources frequently in the following chapters of the dissertation.

rut—.1“ ww.~ wig-“‘1‘ arm- n-.

 

a..." -—..u.-.—-.-.— mm... ._._.___,,"..,._...-m.-—

Chinese in banners were treated as Manchu, not as Han. The most remarkable
evidence was in the policies of marriage.44 Qing had a policy that prohibited
intermarriage between Manchu and Chinese. However, the archives show that
intermarriage between Manchu and Chinese within banners was not uncommon, because
the Chinese in banners were not considered as Han but as Manchu. Throughout the Qing
period, Manchu emperors were very concerned about the nuptiality and “ethnic purity” of
Manchu elite. In order to guarantee marriage partners for imperial clan and elite, xiunu
selection took place every three years when all the young girls between the ages of
thirteen and sixteen in banners (Manchu, Mongol, and Chinese) were required to present
themselves as the candidates for wives or concubines of Manchu elite.” Even until as late
as the 27th year of Guangxu (1901) when the court lifted the ban of Manchu-Han
intermarriage, the court still emphasized, “as for xiunu, [they] should be still selected
from the banners, not from Han people.”46 From this edict, we see that in the eyes of

Manchu rulers, all the people in banners belonged to the Manchu ethnicity (no matter

 

4‘ See Chapter Four of this dissertation for full discussion about the policies of intermarriage.

‘5 Da Qing huidian shili (The collected institutes and precedents of the Qing dynasty), vol. 1114, p. 12.
“Da Qing Dezong shilu (Qing veritable records of Dezong), December in the 27'” year of Guangxu (1901),
492: 9b.

39

they were originally Mongol or Chinese) and, therefore, were qualified to be candidates
for xiunu for the sake of ethnic purity. Obviously, this “purity” had nothing to do with

ties of blood, but focused on cultural identity. This identity of Chinese in banners

.._._. ”—4' - J

explains how Cao Xueqin could depict Yuanchun, the granddaughter of Madam J ia, as an .
,3

imperial concubine.47

Mark Elliott examines the question of the extent to which we understand the
banners as an affiliation that determined people’s ethnic identity in the Qing dynasty. He
argues that not everyone registered within the banners was Manchu. Many people in the
banners were Mongols or frontier-dwelling in Chinese.48

It was true that different treatments existed within the banner populations
according to their ethnic divisions. But “discrimination” among banner people could not
be compared with that between bannermen and commoners, most notably between
Chinese bannermen and Chinese commoners. To a great extent, the Manchu rulers
learned from Yuan Mongols in terms of dividing their people into four categories. Under
the Yuan rule, people were divided into Mongols, Semu people (various peoples from
Eurasia), Han (Chinese who acculturated to Yuan), and Southerners (Chinese in the
South), in which the first three categories were superior to and in effect ruled the
Southerners. Under Manchu rule, three divisions Within the banner system were in the
ruling positions while the Chinese outside the banners were the subjects.

In the following chapters of this dissertation, I will use the term of “Manchus” for

all banner populations except where specifically indicated. In addition to the fact that all

 

‘7 Cao Xueqin had two aunts who were selected as imperial concubines. See Hongluomeng [Chinese
version], p. 2.
’8 Mark Elliott, The Manchu Way, pp. 13-14.

40

the banner people were treated as Manchus, I conflated “Manchus” with “banner people”

also because “[people] in banners” (zaiqi an) was the only objective criterion by which

to define the Manchu—an ethnic group with a flexible, obscure, and subjective
boundaries, which I think was one of the unique features of Manchu ethnicity. Historian
and ethnologist Wang Zhonghan has examined the Manchu mutable identities and lists all
the channels by which one might change one’s ethnic identity.49 Chinese commoners
usually joined banners through sale to Manchus, or by investment (brought lands to
banners), for rewards, or through adoption and marriage; bannermen changed their
identities to that of “min” (commoners) by running away from banners or voluntarily
leaving the banner, as a result of punishment, or by marrying a Han Chinese (this case
applies only to women). According to Wang, when people registered in banners, they
were Manchus. Once they were not registered in banners for any reason, they became
Han.50 It was not uncommon for a person change to his ethnic identity more than once
during his/her lifetime. For example, when a Han woman married a bannerrnan, she
became a Manchu; if she remarried a Chinese commoner after her Manchu husband died,
she then would slip back into the category of Chinese. In the early years of the Qing
conquest, many Chinese joined the banners and became Manchu. However, after the mid-
eighteenth century when banner population expanded to the degree that the government
could not afford to support them all financially, some Chinese bannermen left banners

and became Chinese again. Generally speaking, Manchu ethnicity passed on fi'om one

 

‘9 Wang Zhonghan, “Qingdai Baqi zhong de Man Han rninzu chengfen wenti” (The question of Manchu
and Han ethnic identities in Qing Eight Banners), in Qingshi xukao (The sequel of Qing history), pp. 43-79;
Mark Elliott discusses this issue as well in his book, The Manchu Way, pp. 329-344.

5° Wang Zhonghan, “Qingdai Baqi zhong de Man Han rninzu chengfen wenti” (The question of Manchu
and Han ethnic identities in Qing Eight Banners), in Qingshi xukao (The sequel collection of Qing history),
p. 43.

41

generation to another through lineage, but blood heritage was unnecessary. The key point
of being a Manchu was to register in banners. To some extent, ethnicity in Qing China
was more like citizenship—mutable, subjective, and only representing one’s legal and

social identity.51

Conclusion

This chapter briefly discussed the ethnic origins of the Manchus and their unique
social organization—the Eight Banner system, which was the most important institution
of the Qing in terms of defining and maintaining Manchu ethnicity. The chapter also
examined the problems of ethnic identities among Chinese people, and among the
Manchus in particular, which demonstrated that cultural characteristics were the principal
criteria by which one’s ethnic identity was defined.

This chapter concludes, first, the Manchus as an ethnic group in the northeast of
China were composed mainly of J urchen but also included many other peoples with
various ethnic backgrounds. The multi-ethnic formation of the concept of “Manchu”

determined its ambivalence in the process of acculturation when it encountered other

 

5' The feature of subjectivity in defining one’s ethnic identity is especially notable in present day China.
People have options to choose to be members of one particular “minority nationality.” Virtually none of the
anthropological criteria is required by the government for recognition of minority status. The only evidence
the applicant needs to submit is the register record that his/her parents (one parent or both) filed in 1949
when the Cormnunists established the system of household register—the applicant is only allowed to apply
for the minority group for which his/her parent(s) registered. Being a member of a minority, one can enjoy
many privileges, for example, in 19703 and 19803 as a Muslim (huizu), one will enjoy the privilege of
being rationed with three jin beef or mutton monthly per household while Han family can only eat two jin
pork per month; for some minority groups, the government allows the members to have two children per
couple while a Han couple is only allowed one child; all the descendants of minority nationalities enjoyed
the privilege of being given 10 credit points on the entrance examination of colleges. Many Han changed
their ethnic identities after 19803 for these benefits. For example, the census of 1978 showed that there
were 2,650,000 Manchu in China. Surprisedly, four years later in 1982, the number went up to 4,290,000,
increased more than one third, and reached about 7,000,000 in 1987. (cited in Wang Zhonghan’s “Qingdai
Baqi zhong de Man Han rninzu chengfen wenti,” p. 44). These newly registered Manchu people do not
have any differences from Han Chinese, either blood descent or culture. I would like to say that some
ethnic groups in China today are more like “clubs”.

42

peoples and cultures. The Manchus were good at borrowing cultural heritages from other
peoples while always vigilantly guarding their own ethnic identity by keeping the old
traditions alive. During the last few decades, many scholars, especially Chinese scholars,
have emphasized only one side of the coin—that the Manchus learned from Chinese, and
eventually became Chinese.52 Studies on the Manchu accomplishment of maintaining
ethnic identity began in the 19903 in the United States. My dissertation will continue the
study and make a contribution by examining women’s roles in maintaining Manchu
ethnicity. Second, the Eight Banner system in Qing dynasty played a crucial role in
defining and maintaining Manchu ethnicity. In addition to that the banner organization
itself was unique cultural heritage of the Manchus, the way it controlled its people,
especially after moving into China proper, minimized the Chinese cultural influence on
them and therefore helped to maintain Manchu ethnic identity until the end of the
dynasty.

Tartar cities in Beijing and in garrisons in other major provinces were built as a
strategy to confine banner people within a Manchu cultural environment, geographically
distanced from the Chinese population, in which Manchu language was spoken and
taught, Manchu etiquette and customs were practiced, people found marriage partners
within the city, and could obtain almost every service or facilities for their daily needs.
The arrangement of this “ethnic ghetto” was especially responsible for the fact that
Manchu women changed more slowly than men in the process of Manchu-Han
acculturation because the separation of residence affected women more than men due to

their different social positions and functions. Third, “ethnicity” is a concept that actually

 

52 The terms scholars used vary, including “hanhua” (Slit, sinicization), “tonghua” (filth, assimilation),
“ruhua” (Ills, Confucianization).

43

does not exist in China, either in history or in present. I borrow the term for convenience
in the study of the Manchu, a group of people who had different cultural traditions from
Chinese, to see how they adjusted to a new political and cultural environment after they
conquered China, trying to avoid the perils of being assimilated by Chinese who
outnumbered them nearly fifty to one. Ethnicity in the context of Manchu rule in China
was determined by people’s social identity, for example, Whether they registered in
banners or not, which in turn determined the kind of life they would live and what
cultural traditions they should follow. Therefore, ethnicity in the Qing period was defined
primarily by cultural distinctions. We should keep in mind that the term of ethnicity in
Chinese social context might carry a different meaning from the same term of in Western
societies. To understand this distinctive feature will help us to explain many unsolved

puzzles of Qing history, and of Chinese history in general.

 

 

«5' .i r

Chapter Two: Manchu Women’s Roles and Positions in the Family

The discussion in this chapter focuses on the Manchu women’s roles and position
in family life. Compared with other Manchu customs that had changed after the conquest,
family life and the relations of family members in Manchu society were consistently
maintained as tradition. Until the end of the dynasty, the Manchu women’s roles and
position in family were still greatly distinct from those of Chinese women. In Chinese
society, a woman was expected to be constantly subordinate to the male family members
throughout her lifetime, which meant that she should obey her father when she was
young and obey her husband after she married, when her husband died, she should obey
her son (3).1 However, this unconditional life-long obedience was not the case of the
Manchu women whose status in the family varied according to their ages, marital status,
and the structure of the households into which they married. Gwmspeaking, an
unmarried girl would enjoy superigrhstapfldihgipfifamilxand treatment at least equal to (if

not better than) that of her male__sihlings. In most well-to-do famiheslflrmmflamfd girls

... W—-.~..

usually received the same opportunity for education astheir brothers, irrcludingreading,

. MA“;- _7

 

writirig, and ridingLOnce a woman entered into another household through marriage, her
status would deteriorate dramatically. She was usually dominated (sometimes abused) by
her parents-in-law (especially mother-in-law) and her husband’s siblings (especially
sisters). She worked as a maid of the family and had no rights over the property or any
family decisions. However, a Manchu wife would finally “stand up” in the family after

her mother-in-law died and/or her sisters-in-law married out. Then she would become the

 

' In Chinese, it was written as “zaiiia congfit; chujia congfir; fusi cong zr” (Efihkfitfiiwkifihkfllhis
was “’Ihree obedience” among many other Confucian codes for women.

45

dominant figure of the household. Those who became mothers-in-law would often
enslave their daughters-in-law. ThusLarLelderlymagiedManchu woman, including

Widow, was usually the "‘0“ Powerful .flgl‘FSQfll‘Efamibf _andsnjoyed _a$_m99h...power-

..- _ h-
- u-...-.... _e—a—J__-‘..——-— ’—

as the head of the household.

”un-
——______

Very few pioneer works about Manchu women’s family life can be found as
reference. The only specialized study on this topic of which I am aware is Lai Huimin’s
article, “Qingdai huangzufunu deflating diwei (Qing imperial women’s position in
family)”.2 Based on the archives of the imperial lineage, Lai examines the various roles
the imperial women played within the family during their lifetimes. She emphasizes the
different status of an imperial woman before and after marriage. She also analyzes the

unequal treatment between imperial wives and concubines, and the widows’ situation.

Since the materials she uses for the article are mainly from the archives of imperial

lineage (zongrenfu dangan fiklfiififi) between the late 18th and the 20th centuries, her

research is within the limits of the women in the imperial families of late Qing dynasty.
Besides Lai Huimin’s study, Elliott’s article “Manchu Widows and Ethnicity in Qing
China”, briefly mentions the Manchu women’s distinctive position in society and in
family, saying that “in Manchu society, [un]married women enjoyed higher status and
greater freedom than women in Chinese society.”3 However, he did not investigate this

subject further since it was not the main focus of that article.

 

2 Lai Huirnin’s article is in Jindai Zhongguofimushi yanjiu (Studies on modern Chinese women’s history),
2 (June 1994), pp. 3-25.

3 See Mark Elliott’s “Manchu Widows and Chastity in Qing China.” Comparative Studies in Society and
History, 41 .1 (January 1999). p. 66. The editor seems to have missed the word of “rmmarried” because the
quotations Elliott uses to support this argument are about both unmarried and married women. See, p. 66,
note 120.

46

The relatively few scholars who have made effort to examine Manchu women’s
roles and positions in the family does not mean that it is not a worthwhile issue, but it is a
difficult one to work on. The main difficulties come from the sources. Materials from
officially published books are usually uninfonnative because government was not
concerned about the common people’s daily lives. Women’s roles and voices were
especially ignored. Therefore, records of women and women’s issues could only be found
fragmentarily among various sources.

By using Qing archives, mostly court records, the notes of Qing scholars (Qingren

weiji ilAXI), the materials from literary works, including novels, poetry, and folk

songs, and some interviews of elderly Manchu women, this chapter focuses on Manchu
women’s roles and positions in the family at different periods of their lives, according to
their ages, marital status, and the family structure. I will also try to explain why this
distinctive Manchu tradition could be maintained and how this tradition related to the
construction of Manchu ethnicity in terms of affecting marriage patterns and reproducing

banner peoples and culture.

1. Unmarried Girls

Unmarried Manchu women enjoyed superior standing and greater freedom than
their counterparts in Chinese society. Unlike most Chinese women who suffered from
foot-binding, Manchus women did not bind their feet so that they could walk as freely as
men. According to Chinese tradition, at age of four or five, mothers would start to bind
their daughters feet; the girls of ten years above were to be confined in the inner quarters

and were not allowed contact with male strangers, including sometimes even male family

47

members.4 The Manchu girls, however, enjoyed much more freedom. They could go
outside for sports and social activities, such as riding, shooting, and hunting, attending a
fair, or going to the theater for operas.5 The Spanish Dominican Friar Domingo Navarrete
visited Beijing in 1665. He wrote in his travel notes, “The Tartar women wear boots and
ride astride like men, and make a notable figure either afoot or a-horseback.”6 Li
Minhuan, a Korean traveler who had a close contact with the Manchus before they
conquered China proper, pointed out that women could ride horses as well as men, and
they even took part in hunting.7 The Manchu poet Singde (1655-85) commented in a
poem on a winsome young girl riding her horse down the street, who “though shy, still
turned her head back to look” at him.8 A folk song described how after the Manchu
conquest, the appearance of young girls in public space became a common sight in
Beijing—the city where more than half of banner populations resided. The song says,
“roosters do not crow and dogs do not bark [when] the girls of 18 years old run on the

”9

street. Princess Hexiao, the youngest daughter of the Qianlong emperor, “was skilled in

archery. She often dressed up like a boy and went hunting with the emperor.”10
Unmarried Manchu girls had a habit of imitating boys’ behaviors. In addition to dressing

up as boys (possibly for the convenience of sports), girls sometimes learned fi'om men to

 

‘ Sima Guang, Jia fan (Dernistic regulations), 1: 464-468; 6: 591.

5 Xu Ke, Qing bai lei chao (Collection of Qing miscellanies), p. 2212.

6 See The Travel and Controversies of Friar Domingo Navarrete, 1618-1686, ed. J. S. Cummins, 2: 217.
7 Li Minhuan, Jianzhou wenjian Iu (Sightseeing in J ianzhou). p. 56.

8 See Singde, Tune of Huan Sha Xi. The whole poem read like this:

A pavilion bathed in the setting sun,

Vermilion curtain half open with a golden hook,

Leaning on a railing, I am anxious.

Galloping down below,

A young girl was riding a horse,

Light rnake-up highlights her beauty,

Timid and shy, she yet turns around to gaze.

9 See Xu Ke, Qing bai lei chao (Collection of Qing rrriscellanies), p. 2212.
'° Zhao Lian, Xiaoting xu lu (Miscellanies in Xiaoting), vol. 2, p. 1 120.

48

become sworn female “brothers” (baibazi filfli) and addressed each other by male titles,
such as the elder brother (do ge iii-ii), the second brother (er ge Iii), the third brother
(san ge 5%), etc.” In thenovel of Dream of the ReilChamher, by Cao Xueqin, River

Misttshiziansm) always.$165599?111599.99XE313119995ManinfsnsWasraised.

pretending to be a boy (21' you jiachong nanerjiaoyang E fllfifiglflkfi).n

- u¢——.—" __~. .—

Manflgzchu 'tlsllad superior ranging in. the {anilx:.§°99!@iag $29198 scholar Xu
Ker Mambaresplfizaditioaally valuesanstthaqght.highlxafasmerrjsigirls it} their-
households.“ In a Manchu family, unmarried daughters were inferior to no one except

their parents. Their parents, brothers, and sisters-in-law all addressed them as gu-nai-nai

(113103915 an honorable title for unmarried daughters, literary translated as “grand auntie”)

instead of their own names. They also preferred to be addressed in male titles by the

younger generations in the family. For example, rather than being called as “auntie” (gu-

gu 113113) by their brother’s children, they were addressed as “female-uncle” (gu die 11$ 3),

or “female-granduncle” (gu yeye 1133545) by their brother’s grandchildren. At the

dinnertirne, parents were seated in the northern side of the dinning table and the
daughters were seated in both sides of the table, while wives stood by the table and

provided service.13 In Cao’s novel, in family banquet scenes, the Matriarch Madam Jia

4-.....

was seated in the honorable seat and all the unmarried girls (including the daughters of

mow-r... _.—..r..~,-'*""‘ "w~----L"r“ ‘-"‘""“-‘ ""‘-‘W- in...

J ia family and the relatives) were seated inboth sidesof: the table. The wives, such as

\ “Wu-HM‘

 

“ See Jin Qizong, Beijing jiaoqu de Manzu (The Manchus in Beijing suburb), p. 49 and Lai Huimin,
“Qingdai huangzu funu de jiating diwei (Qing imperial women’s position in family).” Jindai Zhongguo
fimushi yanjiu (Studies on modern Chinese women’s history), 2 (June 1994), p. 6.

'2 Cao Xueqing, Honglou meng (Dream of the red chamber), p. 25.

'3 Xu Ke, Qing bai lei chao (Collection of Qing miscellanies), p. 2212.

49

Madam Xing and Madam Wang (daughters-in-law of the Matriarch), Li Wan and
Phoenix (daughters-in-law of Madam Xing and Wang) were in serving positions for the

dinner.14 At the eve of Chinese New Year, the younger ones in the family and wives were

required to perform three kowtows and nine bai (firs to the elders in order to express

their respect and gratitude. But unmarried girls were excused.l6
The superior position and the environment of appeasement in the natal family
made some Manchu girls arrogant and willfirl as seen in a case from the archives:

San-ge-ge was the third daughter of Zhong-bao. One day in the 13th year of
Qianlong (1748), she went to Ba-yan-tai’s home to take some money. When she
got there, someone told her that Ba-yan-tai was at her uncle Shen-bao-zhu’s
home. She went to her uncle’s home then. Shen-bao-zhu’s servant met her at the
door saying that Ba-yan-tai was not there either. When Shen-bao-zhu heard that
San-ge-ge and the servant were arguing outside, he asked the servant to bring her
in. But she said to the servant, “Why do I need to go in. Can’t he hear of me from
where he is? He must be a deaf then!” The servant passed the words to Shen-bao-
zhu. The uncle thought it was impolite of her to say words like that, therefore, he
sent the servant to her as his representative and asked her, “Do you forget who
your father is and who She-bao-zhu is?” San-ge-ge said to the servant, “Why are
you asking me? You should go to ask your master!”l7

The wanton and unbridled personality of the Manchu girl was clearly seen from the case.
San-ge-ge did not think she, as a person in younger generation, should respect someone
senior.

More work might need to be done before we can explain with certainty why
Manchu girls had such a superior position in family and could behave so arrogantly. I

believe, however, it closely related to the xiunu (£1: elegant females) selection—a

 

'4 Cao, Honglou meng, p. 29.

'5 A Chinese way to pay respect—to make a bow with hands folded in front.

'6 Ding Yizhuang, Zuihou dejiyi: shiliu wei qirenfimu de koushu lishi (The last memories: the oral history
of 16 Manchu women). p. 79, 113.

'7 Zongrenfit shuotang gao (Archives of the imperial lineage), #2251, September in the 13'” year of
Qianlong (1648).

50

system that guaranteed the best marriage partners for the imperial clan and other nobles.
According to Qing statutes, all the girls in 24 barmers (including 8 Manchu banners, 8
Mongol banners, and 8 Chinese banners) between 13 and 16 years old were required to
present themselves for the triennial xiunu selection in Palace in Beijing. Those selected
would stay in the palace as candidates for imperial positions or as palace maids. A few
from them were selected either as wives or as imperial concubines, in which case they
would remain in the palace forever.18 Only after they went through this process and were
not selected, could their marriages be arranged by their parents and the head of the banner
to which they belonged.

Once a girl entered the palace through xiunu selection, she could bring great
benefit to her natal family, no matter whether she was finally chosen as a wife or
concubine of the imperial lineage. As a xiunu, she could contribute to her family
financially during her stay in the palace, which was up to five years. According to Qing
statutes, “all the xiunu’s daily expense will be covered by the court. They will also be
paid one tael of silver each month until their status has been changed, either they are
promoted as imperial wives/concubines or they are released to their natal family. When
they return, they will receive one time reward of 20 taels of silver.”19 In other words, a
xiunu could receive in total 80 taels of silver for the five years service in palace. Was it a
considerable sum of money? According to Mark Elliott, the average annual wages of a

laboring Han Chinese male was about 12.4 taels of silver.20 Therefore, a xiunu on service

 

'8 Da Qing huidian shili_('Ihe collected institutes and precedents of the Qing dynasty), 1114: 11b-12b and
16b.

’9 Da Qing huidian shili_(The collected institutes and precedents of the Qing dynasty), 1114:12.

2° See Mark Elliott, “Manchu Widows and Chastity in Qing China,” p. 57. The original text reads like this,
“the wife of an ordinary mounted soldier stood to receive the not-inconsiderable sum of 186 ounces of
silver upon his death—roughly fifteen times the average annual wages of a laboring Han Chinese male.”

51

could contribute to her family at least as much as a Chinese male laborer did to his.
According the archives, a female servant received 2.5 taels of silver for her annual
service.21 To buy a married couple as servants only cost 20 to 30 taels of silver in the
Qianlong period.22 To what extent could a girl help her family financially? What
proportions her income could be in the total income of the household? Under the banner

system, in general, only one from every four male adult bannermen would be recruited as

tiaojia (R$ soldier in duty) and paid three to four taels of silver monthly. By the mid-

eighteenth century, the ratio became one to seven or eight. Those who failed to be chosen

were called xiansan (fififi idlers). Since all the bannermen were prohibited from earning

money through other jobs, these xiansan must rely financially on the one in their
household who was recruited and brought in income. It was not uncommon that a
Manchu household with seven or eight, or even a dozen of people, had only one
employed male to rely on.23 Obviously, a girl’s monthly stipend was not an
inconsiderable income to a family and sometimes a family might have two or three girls
serving in the palace.

During their stay in palace, some xiunu were chosen to marry the sons of imperial

lineage. In this case, the selected girl could make a greater contribution to her family, not

 

2' Neige Hanwen huangce (The yellow book in Chinese from Grand Secretariat), microfihn, # C-5575.
March 28 in the 4“ year of Qianlong (1739).

22 See, X ingke tiben (Memorials fi'om Justice Department), February 28 in the first year of Qianlong (1736);
September 23 in the 2"“ year of Qianlong (1737); and Neige Hanwen huangce (The yellow book in Chinese
from Grand Secretariat), microfilm, # C-4046. April 27 in the 3"1 year of Qianlong (1738). There was an
extremely example that one bought four servants at the price of 12 taels of silver. See, Neiwufit laiwen
(Archives of Imperial Household Department), #2125, July 23 in the 23 year of Qianlong (1758).

2’ Ding, Manzu defimu shenghuo yu hunyin zhidu yanjiu (Research on life and marriage patterns of
Manchu women), p. 143.

52

only in terms of the regular monthly income but also receive many political, economic,
and social privileges through the marital relationship because the members of her natal
family would become relatives of the imperial family.24 If the girl married a prince who
eventually succeeded to the throne, she would become the empress or imperial
concubine. The example of Dowager Ci Xi demonstrates the ultimate level to which a
xiunu might rise. Dowager Ci Xi was the most powerful woman in China in the
nineteenth century. She was a daughter of a lower-ranking bannerrnan from Ye-he clan
and was selected as a xiunu in 1851. Then she was promoted to the fifth rank of imperial
consort of the Xianfeng emperor (r. 1851-1861). She became very powerful when her
seven-year-old son succeeded to the throne. After her son died, she made her sister’s son
the emperor (the Guangxu emperor, r. 1875-1908) and continued to rule the country from
“behind the screen” until she died in 1908.

The potential of serving in the palace or becoming wives/concubines of imperial
lineage granted Manchu girls a superior position in family. Since every girl in the banners
could possibly be chosen as a xiunu, they were respected by others in the family, not only
by their brothers and sisters-in-law but also by their parents. For those who were
dismissed in the final selection and returned to home, their status was usually still very
high because of the financial contribution they made to the family during their stay in the

palace.

 

2" See the example of Cardinal Spring, the imperial concubine in Cao’s novel of Honglou meng. Cardinal
Spring asked eunuchs to send her natal family as many as 120 taels of silver to celebrate the Spring
Festival. p. 291. Even her grandmother, the Matriarch Madam Jia, paid great respect to her and said “you
brought our family a great deal of benefits.” p. 940. At the time of the Matriarch’s death, Jia family
received 1,000 taels of silver from the Department of Ritual because the Matriarch was the grandmother of
the imperial consort. p. 1218. The author himself had two aunts who married Qing princes, sons of the
Kangxi emperor (r. 1662-1722) when Cao family was at the peak of its prominence. Cao, Honglou meng,
[Chinese version], p. 2.

53

In theory, the xiunu who were dismissed in the final selection were eligible to
marry someone else when they returned home. In fact, however, many of them preferred
to stay with their natal families forever, and chose not to marry. Two factors might
responsible for their choice. Some of them were too old to find good matches after a five-
year stint of being a xiunu; or, after having been spoiled at the palace and knowing how a
woman’s privileges could deteriorate after marriage, many women preferred to postpone
marriage. Although a five-year commitment would not have much affect on those who
entered the palace at the age of 13 and retired from the service by 18, it did affect on
those older ones who were selected at 16 years old and returned home when they were
21.25 The deterioration of women’s position in family after marriage was a more decisive
factor on discouraging some women from leaving their natal families. Many preferred to
prolong their happiness as unmarried daughters with their own parents. This was true not
only for the women who retired from xiunu service but also for all the banner women in
general.

This tradition of marrying at a relatively late 1n age or staying unmarried directly

_._. _..——....__r__——_e _. - —..._ _——-._._-._ u-.. -fimm- --+.- _. -gflflm. ..-v~~""

affected the reproduction of Manchu people. Women who married in their late twenties,

 

h..-

or everi late thirties,” might have already passed their peak fertility and would produce

' WW—> -- "

fewer children compared to those who started to bear children 1n their late teens, not to

- w—. m.--

say those who decided to stay with their natal family unmarried.

__ - -_...__..—_.._ .. “hm...-

 

25 According to James Lee’s research, the average age Manchu women married was 15.6 before 1700, 18 in
17103, and 21 in 18503. See Wang Feng and James Lee, “Liangzhong butong de jiezhixing xianzhi jizhi:
huangzu renkou dui hunnei shengyulu de kongzhi (Nuptiality and fertility among the Qing nobility:
implications for two types of preventive checks),” p. 19. In James Lee and Guo Songyi, Qingdai huangzu
renkou xingwei he shehui huanjing (Qing imperial population behavior and social environment), pp. 18-37.
26 Da Qing huidian shili (The collected institutes and precedents of the Qing dynasty), 1218:7a.

54

In Manchu society, many households kept unmarried adult daughters at home
until they found an ideal match. Some might not marry at all and lived as “old maids” in
their natal families. Unlike many Chinese families, that typically married out their
daughters as early as possible, the Manchus could financially afford these “old maids” at
home because of the economic privilege they enjoyed as banner people.27 These
unmarried adult daughters had at least the same rights and power as their brothers in the
family affairs. For example, as long as they lived in the family, their parents (or their

brothers’ family in the case that their parents had died) had the responsibility for their

daily expenses. As the elder sister-in-law (daguzi DUE-3‘), they expected respect from

their younger brothers’ wives and could act in the role of a mother-in-law to require a

daughter-in-law’s attentions. These “old maids” were often involved in the issue of
adopting a male heir (lisi III) for their parents or brothers and their recommendations
usually carried a lot of weight in the final decision.28 Even when a male heir was adopted,

the daughters could still have the rights of inheritance and would equally divide the

property with the male heir.29 The rights Manchu girls enjoyed over property were very

 

27 From interviews of elderly Manchu women in Beijing, we know that bemuse many Manchu parents
spoiled their daughters too much, they usually preferred to wait for an ideal match for their daughters rather
than marrying them out rashly. This practice caused many Manchu women to be married at a relatively
older age or they might never have a chance to marry. Another reason for the delay was that most Manchu
families could afford their adult daughters at home. See Ding Yizhuang, Zuihou dejiyi: shiliu wei qiren
fimu de koushu lishi (The last memories: the oral history of 16 Manchu women). p. 76, 131.

28 According to archives, Yifan’s daughter made the final decision for her brother Zainiu to adopt her
nephew Pulu as an heir. See Zongrenfii tanggao laiwen (Archives of imperial lineage), #442, November in
the 19"' year of Guangxu (1893); another example can be seen from Zongrenfu tanggao laiwen (Archives
of imperial lineage), # 546, December in the 32"d year of Guangxu (1906), in which Zaiyong’s daughter
chose a male heir for her sonless father in order to share the family properties with her two uncles.
Actually, Zaiong’s daughter was in charge of her father’s share since the heir was very young.

29 According to archives, Yujie had three daughters but no son. He adopted Guibao as an heir. However,
after Yujie died, his wife Wang shi divided his property into five shares, each child got one share as well as
Wangi shi as Yujie’s widow. See, Zongrenfu tanggao laiwen (Archives of imperial lineage), #536, May in
th 8 year of Guangxu (1882).

55

different from the situation in Chinese families whose daughters inherited property only
when the family did not have any male heir. This Manchu tradition, which was
maintained until the end of the Qing dynasty, reflected the superior position of unmarried

women in their natal families and in the Manchu society.

2. Young Wives

Like women in other societies, most Manchu women would marry at least once
during their lifetimes, even though maniage might actually mean deterioration of her
status in the family, especially if she lived in an extended family and would thus became
a subordinate daughter-in-law.

Materials from archival sources, novels, and interviews reveal that mo_st_M,anchu

households were headed by the eldest female figure Edi? family,-who had power to

..._...a--.--_......-__ 7...---fl‘w- . _. -,___ ._-. ,.

 

 

. .. -w. ._

manage family mattersangssrntrol othsrfamilxracnlhers. including the messengers——

._._.....

her husband, sons, and grandsons: Consequently, the power of husbands within the

-44—

 

 

 

 

household was greatly discounted. If a wife disagreed with her in-laws, the husband
would usually not stand by his wife but do whatever his mother asked of him because he
considered himself a member of the extended family rather than a member of the nuclear
family,30 the son of his mother rather than the husband of his wife. The wife, as an
outsider, was in an absolutely isolated and powerless position in the power structure of

the household, especially before she had her own children.

 

3° According to the definition of Cameron Campbell and James Lee, “nuclear families” refer only to
childless married couples or married couples with children, and widows or widowers living with children.
See, Campbell and Lee, “Causes and Consequences of Household Division in Northeast China, 1789-
1909,” p. 6, in Zhongqing Lee, Guo Songyi, and Ding Yizhuang ed. Hunyin, jiating yu renkou xingwei
(Marriage, family, and population behaviors).

56

As a wife, she must get up before sunrise to prepare breakfast for the whole

family and, as soon as her parents-in-law awoke, she needed to go to their room to say

“good morning” (qing an it?) and help them to dress. Then she would do the routine

housework, such as cleaning, shopping, cooking, getting water from wells, and taking
care of babies (her own children or those of her husband’s brothers). At the dinnertime,
she had to stand beside the dinner table serving all the family members and would not be
allowed to eat until everybody had finished.3 1 In the autobiographical novel Beneath the
Red Banner, Lao She, a Manchu bannerrnan born in Beijing in 1899, described how hard
his sister had to work for her mother-in-law:

My eldest sister’s mother-in-law was so overbearing and persnickety that she
made very strict demands on her maidservants. . .When her son Duofu married my
sister, she fired all her maidservants and gave her young daughter-in-law the task
of doing the work of ten of them . . . My sister had to be up before sunrise in order
to go out and buy the twisted fritters and sesame cakes that her mother-in-law
liked for breakfast. All the cooking, sewing, serving of tea and cleaning were in
my sister’s hands... She did not reveal her frustration to her husband, fearing to
provoke a quarrel. 32

A widespread Manchu folk song described the slave-like daily life a young wife
suffered and how she missed the days with her own parents before she married:

Trees of bitter dates, leaves are falling,
Mama has me as the only daughter.
Bathed in a golden washbowl,

Slept in a silver basin,

When grown up, I was manied off.

Married where?

To Nan Sha He,

Parents-in-law and sisters-in-law,
All watch me closely.

Getting up early to pick up vegetables,

 

3 ' Zhen-jun, Tianchi ouwen (Random notes on the capital), vol. 10.
’2 Lao She, Beneath the Red Banner, p. 22.

57

Coming down mountains to feed pigs.
Fetching sweet water to make cups of tea,
Fetching bitter water to feed ducks and geese.

High is the well step, thin is the rope,
Cutting deep into my tiny hands.
Who could pass a word to my Mom,
Asking her to send thicker ropes.

Cold is the weather, yet I have no cotton-padded clothes,
All the time I shake without an end.

Who could pass a word to my Mom,

Asking her to send more cotton wading.

Tears in eyes, I look in the direction of Yingfang (barracks?),
How sad my life is.

Who could pass a word to my Mama,

Asking her to send more paper.33

To a young wife in an extended family, her unmarried sisters-in-law were the
most awesome figures among other family members because they were spoiled and
respected by their brothers and parents. In other words, a wife might fear her sisters-in-

H...

law even more than she feared her mother-in-law. Besides serving the parents-in-law, a

.— ..—m...---m M--V"---—-.

 

. .me—f— W

wife’s duty also included serving all the unmarried brothers/sisters-in-law in the family.
It was not uncommon that wives were beaten by their sisters-in-law with the bowl of the
tobacco pipes, due to unsatisfied services. 34 A very popular folk song, titled “Sister-in-
law Getting Rid of a Thorn in her Flesh”, tells how happy the wife felt when her sister-in-
law finally married out. The song says,

Gunny pillow, gunny quilt,

Gunny handkerchief for wiping off tears.
Heartbroken, Dad cries, Mama cries,

 

’3 Ding yizhuang, Zuihou dejiyi, pp. 83-84.

3‘ Jin Qizong, Beijing jiaoqu de Manzu (The Manchus in Beijing suburb), p. 49. Manchu girls had a habit
of smoking tobacco, using a kind of long-stemmed pipe. The pipe was usually 20 inches long, some could
be as long as 25-30 inches long. There was a copper bowl in one end of the pipe, which was the part they
usually used to tap the head of their brothers’ wives.

58

Only the sister-in-law gloats.

The daughter wipes out her tears,

Early tomorrow morning she needs to get up

For a journey to her mother-in-law's.

Dad is sad, Mom is sad,

Only the sister-in-law gets rid of a thorn in her flesh.35

There was an old saying in Chinese society—jia chuqu de nu, p0 chuqu de shui

fitflfiflg 1: , Siflifilmk (the daughters that had been married out are like the water that

had been thrown away)—which means that once the daughters married out, they no

 

longer had have connections with the natal family. How in Manchu society,
dagghtasssaallxhad a close. life-longIisrxiththeir natal...fani.1ies. Inmanyubarmer
families, manied daughters (sometimes with their children together) often came back to
their natal families for extended visits, especially when the husband was too poor to make
the wife happy. Bannerman De-chang complained that his wife visited her natal family
too often and “the last time, [she] stayed [with her brother’s family] for a whole month”.
His wife answered back sarcastically, “You are in such poor condition. What did I do
wrong to stay with my brother?”36 In another case, booi (bondservant) De-ke-deng-e
confessed, “my wife lived in her natal family permanently because I am too poor to
support her.”37 Bannerman Ma-ha-da claimed that his parents-in-law “took my wife with

them for four years. I went to their home to ask. They cursed me. I then killed my father-

 

” Cite from Ji Yonghai and Zhao Zhizhong, Manzu minjian wenxue gailu (An introduction of Manchu folk
literature), p. 122. The song was written in the tone of another daughter in the family when she saw what
had happened when her elder sister was about to be married out. Therefore, the “sister-in-law” in the song
referred to the wife while the daughter who cried referred to the singer’s sister who was going to be
someone else’s wife.

’6 Neiwufil laiwen (Archives of Imperial Household Department), # 2127, August in the 34th year of
Qianlong (1769).

3 Neiwufit laiwen (Archives of Imperial Household Department), # 2129, July 4 in the 37'h year of
Qianlong (1772).

59

in-law.”38 In some banner families, the married daughters would permanently move back
to their natal family when widowed and, unlike the situation in Chinese households when

widowed daughters moved back to their parents, who would feel guilty to “live under

other’s roof” (ii ren Ii xia fiAI'F), Manchu widows felt the natal family to be their own

home as if they had never been married out. The novel Beneath the Red Banner described
the situation of the “mother” when her widowed sister-in-law moved back to the
household. “[S]ince my aunt moved in with us, even though she paid her own way, she
did presume upon her status as my father’s sister to mobilize my mother to perform all
manner of tasks for her, such as serving tea, drawing water, cleaning the tables and
sweeping the floor . . . You must remember that, in those days, a woman who didn’t boss
around her brother’s wife was hardly considered respectable.”39
A young wife had no rights over her husband’s family property, unless she chose
not to remarry after her husband died and stay with her children in her deceased husband
family, as a virtuous widow. In extreme instances, she even had no right to her own
dowry, which was considered to be part of the property of her husband family. In the 4th
year of Kangxi (1695), bannerrnan A-la-shan beat his wife to death because she pawned
her own clothes for 3,000 cash without his permission."0 However, a husband could pawn
his wife’s dowry at will. Yong F u who was a sula (low ranking bannennan whose duty

was watching over graves) under the Plain White Banner. He married 20-year-old Liu shi

in the 35th year of Qianlong (1770). On December 29, 1771 , without Liu’s permission,

 

’8 Neige Hanwen huangce (The Yellow book in Chinese from Grand Secretariat), microfilm, # C-4012, the
12'h year ofKang Xi (1673).

’9 Lao She, Beneath the Red Banner, p. 6.

4° Neige Hanwen huangce (The Yellow book in Chinese from Grand Secretariat), microfilm, # C-2418, the
4'“ year of Kang Xi (1665).

60

Yong F u secretly pawned a cupboard (Liu’s dowry) for 3,500 cash. Liu became angry
when she learned of this and committed suicide by hanging herself the next night.41
Bannerman Fu-ge mentioned in his book, that a wife even had no right to accept the gifts
from her natal family. He said, “Whenever her parents or brothers sent her some gifts
during the festivals, she had to dedicate them to her parents-in-law. Only after the
parents-in-law granted the gifts to her, could she dare to accept them. As she finally got
the gifts, she was required to share them with other family members rather than keeping
them for herself.”42

To go from a spoiled daughter to a slave-like wife was a painful transition for
most Manchu women. Some extreme cases from the archives showed that the family
quarrels and disharmony could lead to murder, usually the death of the wife.

In the 12th year of Shunzhi (1655), a booi of the Plain White Banner, named
“Carpenter” Luo, was sentenced to death for murder. The tragedy started when Luo asked
his wife to smoke out the mosquitoes and flies that were bothering him at that night. His
wife refused to do so and shouted at Luo. Luo was enraged and strangled his wife to
death.43

The similar tragedy happened to Ke-suo-li’s wife in September of the 38th year of
Kangxi (1699). In a sleepless night, Ke-suo-li wanted to smoke but his pipe was empty of
tobacco. So he woke up his wife and asked her to get the tobacco pipe ready for him.

However, his wife ignored him and did not get up. Then insults were hurled back and

 

4' Neiwufil laiwen (Archives of Imperial Household Department), # 2129, February in the 37th year of
Qianlong (1772).

‘2 Fu-ge, Tingyu congtan (Talks collected while listening to the rain), vol. 1 1, p. 209.

‘3 Neige xingke tiben (Grand Secretariat memorials on criminal matters), September 24 in the 12th year of
Shunzhi (1655).

61

forth. Afier that he gave her a poke. She then poured out a stream of abuse on his parents.
According to Ke-luo-li, “I could not control myself any more and killed her with a knife.

I was drunk when I killed her.”44

Hu-shi-na was in the vanguard (qianfeng EM) of the Bordered Yellow Banner.

On September 8, the 49th year of Kangxi (1710), when Hu-shi-na came back from a
military maneuver, he felt very hungry. He asked his wife to cook for him, but she
ignored him. He was angry and cursed his wife. That night, he did not eat anything, but
drank many cups of alcohol. When he was about to sleep, his wife stirred up the quarrel
and said many bad words about his parents. Hu-shi-na, at that time half-drunk, was
enraged and sliced his wife’s neck with a knife. She died immediately.45

Qi-er-de (under the Plain White Banner) asked for one-year leave due to illness in
April 1736. The next year when he was ready to return to the post, he found that he
needed a pair of new boots since according to Qing regulations, the soldiers were
responsible for their uniforms, boots, armors, arrows, and other equipments. Therefore,
he asked his wife to make several pairs of boots for him. However, his wife was not
interested in making boots, instead, she enjoyed strolling around the neighborhoods and
gossiping. Without the boots, Qi-er-de could not rejoin his unit on time. Therefore, he
received a notice on May 19 saying that he had been removed from the post. Qi-er-de
thought it was all his wife’s fault and blamed her. She then cursed his parents and said, “I
just do not like to make boots for you. What do you dare to do with me?” Qi-er-de got

mad and took a whip to beat her. She ran out of the room and threw a brick at her

 

“ Neige Hanwen huangce (The yellow book in Chinese from Grand Secretariat), microfihn, # C-2462,
September in the 38‘” year of Kangxi (1699).

‘5 Neige Hanwen huangce (The yellow book in Chinese from Grand Secretariat), microfilm # C-2436,
September 8 in the 49‘h year of Kangxi (1710).

62

husband. Qi-er-de rushed to her and killed her with a knife. He was sentenced to death in
1737 for murder.46

Zhao Qi was a 43-year-old soldier under the Bordered Red Banner. He murdered
his wife and was sentenced to death in 1737. The following was Zhao’s confession:

The dead person was my wife Zong shi. We have two daughters. Over the years,
we had often quarreled due to the children’s mischief. On the 6th day of June in
the second year of Qianlong (17 3 7), I took a nap on the bed after I drank some
alcohol. Shortly after I fell in asleep, my younger daughter cried and woke me up.
I asked my wife why she cried. My wife said the flies were bothering her. I
blamed my wife for not driving the flies away when we were sleeping. On hearing
this, my wife lost her temper and yelled at me. Then I took up a rolling pin to beat
her and bit her arm. She was OK the next morning, but the day after, she could
not walk. Five days later, she died. . .did not want to kill her. It was just an
accident."7

There was similar case: in the 9th year of Qianlong (1744), a Bordered Yellow
Banner soldier He-jin killed his wife Wen shi with rocks. He-jin described what
happened that night:

I woke up at midnight with cold and realized that the heating fire died out. I saw

my son was huddled up with cold, too. I tried very hard to wake up my wife and

asked her to light the fire. Finally she unwillingly and slowly got up while
swearing at me. I gave her several slaps. She swore even worse. I tried to beat her,
but she rushed out of the room. I chased her outside while she continued saying

bad words to me. I tried to drag her in. She fought with me. Being enraged, I

picked up a rock and hit her. Because I hit her in dark, I did not realize that I hurt

her head and caused her death.48

The cases cited above revealed that such tragedies began as quarrels over family
trifles. Trouble started when the husband asked his wife to do some standard household

duty. However, the wife was not willing to do these chores and, when disputes arose,

could not endure the complaints of her husband but often cursed him or his parents. The

 

’6 Neige xingke tiben (Grand Secretariat memorials on criminal matters), September 1 l in the 2"" year of
' ong (1764).

‘ Ibid., September 23 in the 2"(1 year of Qianlong (1764).

’8 Ibid., November 4 in the 9'“ year Qianlong ( 1744).

63

husband in turn became violent and the wife became the victim of the violence.
Obviously, men and women had different understandings regarding the roles the husband
and wife should play in the family.

One of the reasons that these Manchu women could not easily accept a

..... "-
,-_. ,. -_..

subordinate role and obey their husbands unconditional‘lydwasthat theyhad traditionally

enjoyed a relatively high position in their natal family, compared with Han Chinese

~—k—,_-..‘_..- w...” .1“
“"’ ' -.e,-\.. . .rc- «at ~’\-.'-- _..--‘op-anu¢.-.—u—-_-_

women. In other words, the transition from a princess-like daughter to a slave-like wife

 

was a painful and uneasy process. It is precisely for the purpose to conquer their wives,
to show off their masculinity, and to establish their dominant position in the family, the
Manchu men turned to physical abuse. Abusive husbands became a common
phenomenon among Manchu families throughout the Qing period. Such wanton abuse

added additional pain to Manchu women as they adapted to the Chinese style marriage.49

3. Elderly WomenuMothers/Mother-in-laws

Generally speaking, a woman’s inferiority and powerlessness in her husband’s
family would not last as a permanent situation. Her position in family would be changed
when her mother-in-law died and her sisters-in-law married out, changing the structure of
household from that of an extended family to one of a nuclear family.

In Manchu society, the household was considered to be women’s realm and was

__..._.._ _. -_.-_ .._.__ -.._---——.__....--_...—-—.—-.-¢--——-a—-—

 

-—-_.__...
“huan-“In..- -w W

controlled only by women. Unlike Confucian norm of “men outside, women inside” (nan

___, _,_... n-w- - um- -m--.~-

 

‘9 The archives tell us that it was a common for wives to be cursed and beaten, which reflected their slave-
like status in the family In his book of Beijing jiaoqu de Manzu (The Manchus in Beijing suburb), Jin
Qizong argues that, “to beat a wife (da laopo)” was a kind of established practice in Manchu society.
Almost every banner soldier must have had experience to abuse his wife with violence. J in believes that it
did not necessarily mean the husband was brutal, but the Manchu tradition. A man would be sneered by
neighbors or the older generation as a “henpecked husband” if he had never beaten his wife, especially
during the first years of his maniage. See the book, p. 50.

64

 

zhu wai, nu zhu nei 2;”- . tEW), an arrangement that protected female sexual chastity,

this Manchu tradition could be traced back to the time when men went hunting or fought
in battle fields, leaning all the domestic affairs for their women to handle. After the
Manchus settled down in China proper, this tradition was passed on and persisted
throughout the Qing dynasty, although life patterns changed greatly according to the new

geographical and social conditions. Traditionally, as a cultural and historical heritage,

- ._..._ ..._..,.., -—._.—...__-

 

. . .-----

 

elderly Manchu women had strong voices in family matters and the ability to manage

_mf --—--—-‘
~W—--—- e..—

household affairs, whereas Manchu men were usually excluded from domestic affairs.

 

-h...“ -

Thusfi,_atwifein—arr extended family was most likely domintat‘edtbyfihe‘r mother-in-law
rather than, bx-hafaiher.-i.9-lir°r I??? husband were? mystique flares in the
household.50 Archives revealed that many conflicts between husband and wife were
exacerbiited by the mother-in-law, the husband would always obey his mother rather than
taking the side of his wife.“ Lao She’s novel and interviews with elderly Manchu women
by Ding Yizhuang remarked that sometimes the husband beat his wife unwillingly, only
acceding to his mother’s wishes.52 Therefore, the death of the matriarch might bring a

significant change in the wife’s position in the family—making her the mistress of the

household—~while it had little impact on the men (both the husband and the father-in-law)

 

5° In Cao’s novel of Honglou meng, most of the male family members of Yungkuofu and Ningkuofu
appeared to be incapable, weak, and dependent figures. They were often controlled by women. For the
relations between mother and 3011, see the example of J ia Zheng and his mother, “the Matriarch” on p. 341.
5' Neiwufit laiwen (Archives of Imperial Household Department), # 2136, November in the 43til year of
Qianlong (1778); Neige xingke tiben (Grand Secretariat memorials on criminal matters), November 10 in
the 2“" year Qianlong (1737).

52 In his novel of Beneath the Red Banner, Lao She described the situation and the motivation of an
incident in which the husband abused the wife, “the quarrelling that inevitably resulted became a form of
family entertainment. Nine times out of ten, after arguing themselves into a comer, the other members of
her family would join forces to heap all the blame on her. Though my brother-in-law was not bad to her
[my sister] as a rule, in this burly-burly he had to berate her, too.” p. 9. The examples of the husband
abusing his wife under the command of his mothers could be found in Ding, Zuihou dejiyi, p. 94, 192.

65

in the family. The males remained in a subordinate position no matter whether the older
women (the mother) or the younger woman (the wife) was in charge of the household.

Officially compiled historical works have little information regarding the relations
among family members or the powerful mothers/mother-in-laws. However, literature and
court records offer much more illuminating materials. All these sources support the
conception that many Manchu households were actually female-centered.

Many Manchu folk stories tell that after the mother-in-law died, the father-in-law

usually passed the authority as the “household manager” (dang jiaren fi ax) to his most

capable daughter-in-law rather than to any of his sons.53 IrLthehovel, Dream of the Red
Chamber, the household of Yungkuofu was continually run by women—the Matriarch,
then Madam Wang,_and after that, the Phoenix. Here is how capable the Phoenix was of
managing such a huge household:
[Chou Jui’s wife said to Liu Lao-lac], “but I must tell you that things are different
here from what they were five or six years ago. Then Tai-tai (referring to Madam
Wang) was in active charge, but now it is Lien Er Nai-nai. And who do you think
this Lien Er Nai-nai is? Well, she is no other than Tai-tai’s own niece, whose
child name . . . is Phoenix.” “13 that 30?” Liu Lao-lac said, “I hope I shall get a
chance to see her.” “Of course,” Chou Jui’s wife said. “She is the one who
entertains all the visitors . . . She is indeed a remarkable person. She handles
things much more capably than anyone else in the house. And clever. When it
comes to making a point, ten eloquent men cannot match her.”54
To certain extent, the Phoenix’s case could be seen as an exception because she
took over the authority to master the domestic affairs from the women in the senior

generation (Madam Wang, her maternal aunt). This situation often happened in

prosperous families like Yungkuofu or Ningkuofii in the novel. Since there were still

 

5’ See the stories of “J in maju de gushi (Story of the golden colt),” “Kao xifu (Testing daughter-in-law),”
and others from Manzu minjian gushi xuan (Collection of Manchu folk stories), pp. 434-437; 440-442.

5’ Cao, Hongluo meng, p. 62. Translation cited from Dream of the Red Chamber, translated by Chi-Chen
Wang, pp.52-53.

66

several senior women alive, including the Matriarch, Madam Wang, and Madam Hsing
(her mother-in-law), Phoenix’s power was more or less limited in that she needed to ask
the elderly women’s (not male family members) advice whenever some important
decisions had to be made. However, the novel reveals that in a Manchu household,
women might have more power and ability than men in domestic affairs.

In theory, ahusband was the headuo‘f household. The Qing government registered

 

every household under the name of its eldest male member.55 However, it was trot

_,__..-......-—. u... .
-..___. --

uncommon that women actually acted the head of the household. First of all, in some

Ham... 1 "WI." -

households, it was the wife who managed family financial affairs:
In the 37th year of Kangxi (1698), Bannerman E-shi-tu was sentenced to death for
murder. The following is E-shi-tu’s confession:
“I borrowed one tael of silver from our booi Ma Jin-xiao. On the 11th of this
month (October), Ma’s wife Li shi came to my house and asked me to pay her
back. I told her that I would repay her when I have money. She didn’t believe me
and asked me to pay her right away. [At the time when we argued, I was actually
drunk], so I took advantage of drunkenness and stabbed her with a knife. She died
that night.”56
In this case, it was the wife, not the husband, who played the role of loan collector.
In another court record: Chang-shou was a booi (bondservant) of bannerman
Zhang A-li. he was sentenced to death in the 40th year of Kangxi (1701) due to the
murder of his wife Fu-jie. In his confession, Chang-shou said:
“I asked my wife to give me some silver from what she collected. My wife
refused to give me any and said that she has spent all the silver and nothing is left.

I slapped her. She then scratched my neck. I was so mad that I picked up a rock to
hit her down. Then I strangled her with a rope.”57

 

5’ Exception was made to the households who were charged by virtuous widows. See Chapter Three.
5" Neige Hanwen huangce (The yellow book in Chinese from Grand Secretariat), microfilm, #02462,
October 22 in the 37‘h year of Kangxi (1698).

‘7 Ibid., microfilm, # 02472, August in the 42"“ year of Kangxi (1703).

67

In this case, the wife was not only responsible for collecting the money from tenants but
also had power to spend the money. She even could refuse her husband’s request for
money although her bossy behavior made her the victim of the murder.

Injhe _rtove1, 1259931:le Red Chamber, Phoenix wasmthe one who controlled the

money of Yungkuofu. She was responsible for collecting rentsfrom tenants’ loans,

-dMH‘.

 

 

 

 

 

balancing income and expenses, making decisions on new investments, issuing

m...

allowances to other family members and paying servants/maids.58 The novel gives an

._4
_ r ....._c-

example of how capable Phoenix was in money investments. It also reveals that her
financial indiscretions increased her own personal wealth through usury at illegally high
interest rates. Patience, Phoenix’s trusted senior maid, described the situation when
another maid queried the non-payrnent of the month’s allowances, “[Phoenix] has already
put the money for this month’s allowances out at interest. She was waiting for the interest
on some of her other loans to pay your allowances with.” Later in the conversation
Patience reveals the extent of Phoenix’s financial interest, saying, “Just in the few years
since she started doing this, amount she has got out on loan must have grown to several
hundred times the original premium . . . Why, just her profits alone after she’s deducted
the allowances from the interest must be in the region of a thousand taels a year.”59
Women also had power to make decisions about their children’s marriage.
Archives recorded that the first Qing emperor Huangtaiji’s brother Duo-luo-rao-yu was

sentenced to death in 1636 because he ‘fivas controlled by his wife. When the Khan"0

asked him twice to marry out his daughter, he refused to do so because his wife did not

 

’8 Examples can be found in the novel on p.115, 227, 368-369, 470, 472 and more.

59 Cao, Dream of the Red Chamber, [English] 1979, p. 263.

6° The “Khan” refer to Huangtaiji. Before he announced the establishment of the Qing dynasty in 1636, he
was addressed as “Khan” rather than “emperor.”

68

want to marry their daughter to the man whom the Khan arranged.”61 In the novel of

 

Dream of the Red Chamber, the main male character Baoyu was unable to marry_ the girl

Mr“
Mtg—_-

he reallyloved. His__ fate was in _the hands of powerful women in the household. In the

“u..-

novel, every discussion about Baoyu’ s maniage was among female family members. It

“*-_\p .

 

was these women—his grandmother, mother, aunts, and sisters- in-law—who decided

“w...”

¢o~m_‘ .H“. _ .
1-"'\.2—- We -4. L e ,

F... .d— ~-~" .

whom he should marry or take as his concubine. We dope: hear the voices of male

H-
‘s..-" "'-- W- .-,_ M-.—
' m. ‘ -W. A-u.~

family rrremhersf’2 thn the” Matriarch chose Precious Virtue as Baoyu’ s bride and

‘fiF—V‘w‘

 

arranged thewedding _in a very unusual way, Baoyu’s father J ia Zheng was unhappy with

the decision and “the irregularity of the procedure outlined by the Matriarch, but he kept

- -h-..

his feelings to himself. He said, ‘Doubtless Lao Tai-tai (the Matriarch) s judgment rs

WWHMW- ......- ‘3

right. But we must be sure to keep the matter secret so as to avoid criticism." . . . Owing
to hisimpending departure, he had no time to see the things himself; the agapgetnent
must be left to the Matriarch, Madame Wang, and Phoenix.”63 In the last pages of the
novelfwélien Phoenix fell seriously ill and her husband (J ia Lian), whom she had in the
past held under her thumb, seemed to be useless. She knew that before she died, she
should have her daughter Qiao-jie’s fate arranged. As a joke, Liu Lao-lac promised
Phoenix that she would be happy to find a good man among the peasant households.
Surprisingly, Phoenix said, “Oh, go ahead. I’ll marry her to a farmer if you find a good

one.” Liu said, “I am just kidding. How could a daughter in such a prosperous family like

yours marry a farmer? Even if you would have approved this arrangement, the other Tai-

 

6’ Neiguoshiyuan dang, cited from Ding Yizhuang, Manzu defitnu shenghuo yu hunyin zhidu yanjiu
(Research on life and numage patterns of Manchu women), p. 189.

2 Cao, Honglou meng, [Chinese] p. 371, 876; 952.
‘3 Ibid., p. 1076

69

tai [senior women in the family] would definitely not approve it.”(’4 Still, over the matter
of Qiao-jie’s marriage, it seemed that Liu Lao-lac only needed to consider whether other
Tai-tai would be happy with the arrangement, while the male family members seemed to
be so insignificant that their opinions were totally neglected.

Some examples from interviews of elderly Manchu women confirm the power of
Manchu mothers over their children’s marriagesf’5 Hu F uzhen was born in 1917. She did
not marry until she was already 26 years old since her mother refused to marry her to a
non-Manchu manf’6 Zhao Yi recalled that her uncle married a girl he did not love. But at
that time, he could do nothing other than accept his mother’s choice.67 Both women in the

interview did not mention the fathers’ authority or concern over their children’s maniage.

Another distinctive feature, of the Manchu household was zhong nei girfllmfi),
literally translated as “attaehjmportanee on the maternal retatives,” which closely related

to women’s power in the family. As noted earlier, in Manchu soeiety, married daughter

.__ ~_ _s‘- __.--—.._

alwflayikpept elose ties with her natal family. In some cases, the wife might do something
that benefited her natal family at the price of sacrificing her husband’s interests. Here is a
court record fi'om archives:

In the 11th year of Qianlong (1746), Bannerman Pu-de claimed that he killed his
wife. The following is his confession:

“I am 35 years old. In the 9‘” year of Qianlong, I married the daughter of hujun
(1P? Colonel) Wu-jin-tai under the Plain Yellow Banner. After we married, my

 

“ Ibid. p.1252.

6’ Most of these Manchu women were born between 1910’s and 1920’s. The most remote memories they
could trace back were about their grandparents in mid-19th century, one century later than the time period
my study focuses on. But I think I can still use the information they provided because the purpose of my
study is to emphasize the continuity of Manchu traditions. I believe women who lived in the 17th and 18'”
centuries should keep more Manchu traditions than what these interviewed women could recall.

6" Ding Yizhuang, Zuihou dejiyi, pp. 68-69.

‘7 Ibid., p. 95

70

wife often stole things, such as my clothing and other stuff, and sent them to her
father. I have warned her. She did not listen to me but told her father that I cursed
him. Then her father, with her brothers and sisters together, came to my home and
beat me. When they finally left, I brought my wife to account. Not only did she

refuse to apologize to me but she also cursed me. I strangled her in a moment of

68
anger.”

From this case, we see that the wife still considered her natal family, not the family she
married into, as her own family. She was on more intimate terms with her parents and
siblings than with her husband.

Since the husband was not a strong figure in terms of intervening in domestic
affairs, the household would be usually run by the wife. One of the privileges of a
powerful matriarch was to develop the relations with her natal family through frequent
contacts and, at the same time, to cut off ties with paternal relatives. As a result, the
majority of the family’s relatives were from maternal side. In the novel of Dream of the
Red Chamber, although the household was organized along patrilineal lines, many
significant figures were the relatives from maternal side, some of them became the
members of Jia family through maniage. For example, Black Jade (Lin Daiyu), the
heroine of the novel, was the daughter of the Matriarch’s daughter; River Mist (Shi
Xiangyun) was the daughter of the Matriarch’s nephew. Phoenix (Wang Xifeng), the most
powerfirl woman under the Matriarch in the novel, was the daughter of Madam Wang’s
brother. Another main female figure in the novel was Precious Virtue (Xue Baochai). She
was the daughter of Madam Wang’s sister who moved in the Yungkuofu, living together
with J ia family. The other two examples were You Er-jie and You San-jie who were

sisters of J ia Chen’s wife; Qin Zhong, Baoyu’s best male fiiend, was the brother of J ia

 

68 Neige xingke tiben (Grand Secretariat memorials on criminal matters), November 8 in the lllb year of
Qianlong (1746).

71

Zhen’s daughter-in-law. We may find more examples of this kind from the novel. In the
real life, Manchu people were not only closely related to their maternal relatives, they
sometimes lived together under the same roof, as an extended household:

Zhao Xiuying, a Manchu Banner woman, born in 1916, said, “Right after my
mother-in-law died, I became the manager of our household. I took my mother over [to
my house]. My husband worked and gave me all the money he made. I used the money to
feed my family and my mother. She died at the age of 88.”69

In Beijing, an 82-year-old Manchu Banner woman told her story:

“I married him when I was already 24 years old. Because he was the youngest in

his family, I never met my mother-in-law. I mastered the household since I
entered the door of the house. I firstly took my mother over and then had two of

my sisters moved into the same compound (yuanzi R?) with us. I used my

husband’s money to support my mother and one of my sisters . . .my kids and my
sisters’ kids were very close. They do not know many relatives from their father’s
side.”70

Manchu ethnologist J in Qizong was born in 1918 in the Manchu city within
Beijing. He grew up in his mother’s natal family, located in the suburb of Beijing. In his
book of Beijing jiaoqu de Manzu (The Manchus in Beijing suburb), he emphasizes that at
the end of Qing dynasty when the Manchus within the city had lost much of their ethnic
identity, the Manchus living in the barracks in the Beijing suburb still kept many Manchu
traditions since they were pretty much isolated from the Chinese commoners.71
According to his account, women in his mother’s natal family were more dominant than
men. At the dinner party, it was usually the men who had responsibility to fill the bowl

with rice and fill the cup with wine for guests, while women just sat there talking (this

 

69 Ding Yizhuang, Zuihou dejiyi, p. 170.
7° Interview notes by Ding Yizhuang on July 25, 2000.
7' Jin Qizong, Beijing jiaoqu de Manzu (The Manchus in Beijing suburb), p. 1.

72

household might not have had a daughter-in-law). The majority of relatives were from the

mother’s side, such as yi (fl, mother’s sisters), jiu flu and jiu mu (ll, l3, mother’s

brother and his wife), and their children. When Chinese addressed maternal aunt’s

husband as yifu (Edi ), the Manchus called him as yi de (R89 ), literally translated as

“the aunt’s,” which indicated that the man was the dependent of the woman.72 I in Qizong
believes that the tradition of zhong nei qin could be traced back to the time of matriarchal
society before the Manchus emerged as an ethnic group.73

In short, elderly women were usually powerful figures in Manchu households.
They were responsible for housework, such as cooking, shopping, making clothing, and
keeping the household running according to their desires (they might direct their
daughters-in-law to do it, or do it themselves if they did not have daughters-in-law). They
also had the power to manage the family budget and make decisions over other important
domestic matters, including children’s marriage and associating with relatives. Men
would usually not intervene deeply in family affairs. Therefore, they might always live in

a female-centered household.

Conclusion: What Did It Matter to Manchu Ethnicity?

During a Manchu woman’s lifetime, her position in the family might experience
several ups and downs according to her age, marital status, and the structure of her
husband’s family. Her position was determined by the roles she played in the family as a
given identity. Unmarried girls usually enjoyed higher standing in family and had greater

freedom in society than their Chinese peers. Once a woman entered into another family

 

’2 Ibid., p. 6, 52.
7’ Ibid., p. 52.

73

through marriage, her status would be greatly changed—from a spoiled “princess” in
natal family to a “maid” in husband’s family. However, a wife’s situation would be
improved after her mother-in-law died and sisters-in-law married out. She might by then
have her own sons and, quite possibly, she herself became a mother-in-law who would
play the dominant role in the household and boss her sons’ wives around.

The subtlest and the most distinctive relations in a Manchu household were those
between the husband and wife. The lower position of a married woman in her husband’s
family actually did not necessarily mean that she was dominated by her husband, but by
her in-laws. Therefore, a wife’s position in family mostly depended on whether her
parents-in-law (especially mother-in-law) and other in-laws lived together with the
couple. It seemed that even a Manchu husband ALONE was not a strong figure in the
family. From the archives and literature, we learn that it was not uncommon for a wife in
a nuclear family to giveadvice to her husband and to make final decisions on family
matters. On certain occasions, the husbands were in a subordinate position in family and,
a3jm3ult, some Manchu households were female-centered (usually dominated by elderly
women).74 In this aspect, Manchu tradition was very different from the Chinese and this

tradition was maintained unchanged after theend of Qing.

“How were the Manchu women’s roles and positions in family relevant to larger
issues such as the construction of Manchu ethnicity? In the process of acculturation, how
did women play a different role than did men in maintaining the old traditions?

Two tentative conclusions can be made: (1) The superior standing of unmarried

girls in a family and the dramatic deterioration in status they experienced when married

 

7’ See Jin Qizong, Beijing jiaoqu de Manzu (The Manchus in Beijing suburb), pp. 49-50.

74

had a significant effect on the maniage patterns. (2) The structure of the female-centered

household made families the vehicles for transmitting Manchu traditions and customs

-—-—.__,_ flu..- .-

from generation to generation and, therefore, made a great contribution to the

_-__. - Pow-and -'

maintenance of Manchu culture.

3 it As notedehrlibr, many unmarried girls preferred to stay at their parents’ home
until they found an ideal marriage partner. Some chose not to marry and stayed with their
natal families. The shortage of available women caused bannermen to broaden their range
of marriage partners from banner women (including women in Manchu, Mongol and
Chinese banners) to all women, regardless of their ethnic, social, and cultural
backgrounds. Many Chinese became Manchus through marriage and made the ethnic
boundary even more blurred.75 These women brought Chinese traditions and values into
Manchu household and made the family a common ground for cultural exchange.
Manchu men could be influenced from within the household, and engaged additional
opportunities for contact with Chinese in other occasions. I believe that men’s exogarny
was responsible for the gendered pattern of Manchu and Chinese acculturation, in which

women changed more slowly than men.76

The structure of the female-centered household itself was a unique aspect of

 

.eH—v

Manchu ethnicity. A household, dominated by the mother (instead ofth‘eflfather), was (is)

considered as abnormal by Chinese,” while in Manchu soeiety itwaen a very common

\w-u—h

thing. This different understanding of gender roles in family also affected people’s views

w

 

7’ Here I use the term of “Chinese” for those who were not registered in banner, while the term of
“Manchu” refers to all banner people (qiren), regardless his/her original ethnic background. Regarding the
definition for “Manchu” and “Chinese,” and ethnicity in China in general, see Chapter One for more
information.

7° Manchu-Chinese intermarriage is covered in the next chapter.

77 A term for this abnormal structure is “pinji sichen” ($831!), meaning that the hens do a roosters’ job.

75

on public affairs. According to J i Qizong, Manchu people did not feel uncomfortable
when Dowager Ci Xi usurped power from the Tongzhi emperor (1862-1874) and the
Guangxu emperor (r. 1875-1908), holding court behind the screen. In matter of fact, most
Manchus appreciated Ci Xi’s rulership because of her capability and intelligence.78
However, Ci Xi (and other female rulers in history) has been given a very bad reputation
in the eyes of Chinese. One accusation among others must point to her gender.

The structure of the female-centered household helped to maintain many Manchu
traditions. Compared with the males, who might have more opportunities for
acculturation, Manchu women lived in a world relatively isolated from the Chinese
commoners79 and could live their daily life by the Manchu way. Food was made in
Manchu styles; children were dressed up in Manchu clothing; younger people were
taught Manchu etiquette; family members addressed each other in a Manchu way;
Manchu gods were worshiped in the west room (the given location for worship) and
illness was cured by a Manchu Shaman/Shamaness; mothers spoke Manchu to children
(most Manchu words that are still used in Beijing today are those related to daily life);
girls learned strong personalities from their mother and made themselves ready for
heading another household in the future; boys learned the Iaissez-faire attitude toward
domestic affairs from their father; and so on. Much more Manchu legacy than these was
passed on from generation to generation within the female-centered household. From this

perspective, we may say that, in the process of acculturation, women played a more

important role than did men in maintaining Manchu ethnicity.

 

7’ J in Qizong, Beijing jiaoqu de Manzu (The Manchus in Beijing suburb), p. 53.
79 For more information about the policies on segregation of Manchu-Chinese populations, see Chapter
One.

76

Chapter Three: Remarriage and “Guarding Chastity”

Many women in China, like women in other parts of the world, survived their
husbands and became widows. However, in Chinese history, especially after the Song,
Chinese widows usually did not to remarry after their husbands died. The idea of

“guarding chastity” came from neo-Confucian doctrines, in which the most important

norm for women was the ideal of “cong yi er zhong” (AK—HMS), translated as absolute

sexual loyalty to one’s husband, even after his death.

The tradition of “guarding chastity” was developed to an extreme during the Ming
and Qing dynasties. It was also gradually accepted by the Manchu society who, before
the conquest, women usually remanied after their husbands died. This chapter starts with
a review of the Manchu tradition on widowhood and remarriage, and then examines how
this tradition changed after the conquest. In the second part of the chapter, the discussion
focuses on the court’s policies regarding Manchu widows, primarily from the Shunzhi to
Qianlong periods (1644-17 95), to see how the government promoted Confucian norms
among all the people and how a dual policy was implemented based on distinction of the
ethnicity and gender with the consideration of geographic locations. The third part of the
chapter examines the changing tradition fi'orn the perspective of women to see what
factors determined women’s choices and how Manchu widows’ changing behaviors
could be used as a lens to explore the way they accepted new values in the process of

acculturation.

77

1. Changing tradition on remarriage

The concept of “guarding chastity” for a deceased husband was essentially
foreign to the Manchus before the conquest. According to Manchu tradition, women in
banners normally remarried after their husband died; remaining as a widow was
considered to be an exception. Remarriage was a common practice, not only among the
ordinary banner people, but also among imperial members and social elite. It was said
that Nurhaci had one younger sister, eight daughters, and two adopted daughters, among
whom five who had married twice or more.1 The J urchen/Manchus were noted for their
tradition of levirate marriage, in which men were encouraged to marry their brothers’
widows, sons to marry their father’s widows (but never their birth mothers), and nephews
to marry the widows of their paternal uncles. It was clear that remarriage was encouraged
in the early Manchu society. The key point in levirate marriage was that younger men
could marry older women (or women in a senior generation) but not the other way round.
Although the first Manchu emperor Huangtaiji issued several edicts in 16303 to prohibit
levirate marriage, female exogamy remaniage was still approved.2 The emperor himself
had once married a widow.3 His fifth daughter, A-tu, remanied Se-bu-teng after her first
husband died. Obviously, in Manchu tradition, widows did not have a concept of
remaining faithful to the memory of a deceased husband.

The tradition of widow remarriage was closely related to the need for

reproduction among the Manchu population. The adverse natural environment in which

 

I Qingshi gao (The draft of Qing history), vol. 166; Tang Bangzhi, Qing huangshi sipu (Qing imperial
genealogy), vol. 4.

Qing Taizong shilu gaoben (The draft of Qing Taizong veritable records), 14: 6.
3 Nei guoshiyuan dang (Archives of Inner Historiography Department), August 30'” in the 9’” year of
Tiancong (1635).

78

the pre-conquest Manchus lived, unstable living condition, plagues, and frequent wars
exacted a heavy toll on the Manchu population. Therefore, reproduction was considered
to be the first priority to the survival of the Manchus as an ethnic group. Encouraging
fertile widows to remarry was reasonable and necessary in a demographic sense. Lynn
Struve, in Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm, describes an incident during the first
years of the Manchu conquest between the Manchus and Chinese over the issue of
remarriage. An old Manchu lady described the situation, saying, “She (Liu Sanxiu, a
Chinese widow) may dislike being a widow [and taking a new mate]. But in our Manchu
banners, according to established regulations, when a woman’s husband dies, she is
remanied in order to keep expanding our male population. What repugnance is there in
that?”4 What the old lady said clearly indicated the significance of Manchu widow
remarriage in the sense of ethnic survival.

In early Manchu society, widow remarriage usually took place within the
woman’s deceased husband’s family through levirate marriage. Unlike the Chinese
tradition that dowry constituted a heavy obligation on a woman’s family in arranging
marriages, the Manchus paid bride price to the woman’s natal family. Therefore, once a
woman married, she was considered to be property of her husband’s family. If her
husband died, she would be usually married to another male farmly member, normally
one of her husband’s younger brothers or nephews, or on some occasions, the son of her

husband with another woman. If she chose to marry an “outsider,” she would be not

 

’ Lynn Struve, Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm, p. 107.

79

allowed to take any personal property or her children into the second marriage.5 The risk
of losing property and children significantly influenced the practice of “remaining as
widow” later on after Huangtaiji prohibited levirate marriage. I will say more about it in
the following pages.

The tradition on remaniage changed after the Manchu conquest in 1644. Manchu
women gradually avoid remarriage and, followed the example of Chinese widows,
choosing to remain as widows. Here are some examples:

Dongjia shi, the daughter of E-er-duo in the Plain White Banner who was the
minister of the Department of Personnel. She married Xingchang, a man from the
imperial clan in the Plain Blue Banner. Xingchang died of illness in the 48th year of
Kangxi (1709). Dongjia shi was only 24 years old then. However, when she heard that
she would be sent back to her natal family (for remaniage), Dongjia shi picked up a knife
and tried to cut her own throat. Her family members stopped her. One moment later, she
tried to kill herself again but was saved again. When she regained consciousness, she said
to those around her, “even though I do not have a child of my own, I want to take care of
the younger brother of my husband and bring him up. I would also like to spend my days
with my deceased husband by guarding his grave.” Her words were sent to zongrenfit (a
department that charged affairs of imperial clans). After examining her words and deeds,
the court finally approved her request to remain as a widow, staying at the home of her

deceased husband.6

 

5 Da Jinguo zhi (History of great Jin), 39:2a-b; Gu J igang, “You ‘zheng’, ‘bao’ deng hunyin fangshi kan
shehui zhidu de bianqian” (From levirate marriage see the changes on social system), Wenshi (Literature
and history), vol. 14, p. 13, 29. For full discussion about levirate tradition in Jurchen and early Manchu
society, see Ding Yizhuang, Manzu defitnu shenghuo yu hunyin zhidu yanjiu (Research on life and
rrrarriage patterns of Manchu women), Chapter One.

6 Baqi tongzhi chuji (Comprehensive history of the Eight Banners, the first edition), 239: 5371.

80

The archives of Bordered Red Banner record that on March 30 in the 11th year of

Yongzheng (1733), Lieutenant (hujun 1F?) Ji-shan died, survived by his 27-year-old

wife, a son who was only one-year old, and a daughter, three-years old. The widow chose
to continue serving her mother-in-law, raising the children, and taking care of her
husband’s grave.7

Another famous chaste widow was Xi-guang, a female Manchu poet during the
Qianlong period. Xi-guang was registered in the Plain White Banner. Her father was
Govemor-General Ai-bi-da. She married Yi-song-a whose father was the minister of the
Department of Personnel and one of the Grand Secretaries. Yi-song-a died in the 35th
year of Qianlong (1770). Since she needed to take care of her young daughter, she chose
to live as a widow. Ten years later when the daughter married out, Xi-guang hanged
herself.8

There are some extreme examples of unmanied maidens who preserved their
chastity for a deceased fiancé. Ao-leng-e, a Iingcui (Corporal) in the Bordered Red
Banner, died in the 26th year of Qianlong (1761). Leaming the news, his 24-year-old
fiancée rushed to his home. She vowed to preserve chastity for him and voluntarily take
care of his widowed mother. She kept her promised and never remarried. 9

The prince Hongdun (the son of the emperor’s brother) died in the 6th year of

Yongzheng (1728). His fiancée F ucha shi cut her hair (a pledge of remaining as a widow)
M

 

 

7 Guan J ialu, trans. Yong Qian Iiangchao xianghongqi dang (Bordered Red Banner archives, Yongzheng

and Qianlong reigns), pp. 35-37.
8 Zhen-jun. T ianchi ouwen (Random notes on the capital), p. 97.
9 Yong Qian Iiangchao xianghongqi dang (Bordered Red Banner archives, Yongzheng and Qianlong

reigns), p. 200

81

and rushed to Hongdun’s residence. She kneeled down in front of Hongdun’s parents and

requested to be accepted as their daughter-in-law. She never remarried.l0

From 1650, the Qing court started to canonize “righteous men” (yifu SUE) and

“chaste widows” (fiefu $18 )—the practice carried from Ming, in order to “demonstrate to

”11

their Han Chinese subjects their [Manchu] benignity and refinement and “to underscore

their commitment to Confucian virtues and shore up their legitimacy as master of the
Chinese empire.”12 In 1653, the court for the first time canonized their own widows.l3
After that, Qing government canonized chaste widows throughout the country every year,
granting silver to the local authority from which the chaste widows were reported, to build
memorial archways for the virtuous widows. This was not only a high honor to the chaste
widow’s own family but also to the entire community in which she lived. Since the late
16003, more and more chaste widows had come up from banner populations. By the time
of the Qianlong emperor (1736-1795), the cult of Confucian chaste widowhood seemed to
have taken root in the whole society, both among the Chinese population and among the
Manchus as well. Base on the sources of Da Qing shilu (Qing veritable records), the

following table shows increasing number of chaste widows in banners from 1653 to

1795.M

 

‘0 Qing shigao (The draft of Qing history), vol. 509, p. 14092.

" Tien Ju-k’ang, Male Anxiety and Female Chastity, p. 126.

'2 Mark Elliott, “Manchu Widows and Chastity in Qing China.” pp. 38-39

'3 Da Qing Shizu shilu, (Qing veritable records of Shizu), February in the 10'“ year of Shunzhi (1653), 72:
20b-21b.

" To create this table, I have checked Da Qing shilu from the 10til year of Shunzhi (1653) to the 60"I year of
Qianlong (1795). The numbers I provide are only those who were canonized by Qing government.
Obviously, it could not represent the exact number of chaste widows in banners. However, we still can see
the outline of the changing tradition on remarriage in Manchu society during the first 150 years after the
conquest.

82

Table l. Canonization of Chaste Widows in the Eight Banners (1653-1795)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Number of Average number of Sources

Reign Years chaste widows chaste widows per year (Qing Shilu)
Shunzhi 1653-1661 * 149 16.5 vol.72-5
(1644-1661)
Subtotal 8 149 16.5

1662-1671 258 25.8 vol.7-39

1672-1681 251 25.1 vol.40-112
Kangxi 1682-1691 438 43.8 v01.113-153
(1662-1722)

1692-1701 536 53.6 vol. 157-209

1702-1711 663 66.3 vol.210-248

1712-1722 1147 114.7 vol.252-2
Subtotal 61 3283 53.9
Yongzheng 1723-1735 2306 177.4 vol. 14-9
(1723-2735)
Subtotal 13 2306 177.4

1736-1745 3420 342 vol.33-280

1746-1755 2714 271.4 vol.281-528
Qianlong 1756-1765 2392 239.2 vol.528-774
(1736-1795)

1766-1775 2394 239.4 vol.775-1022

 

 

 

 

 

83

 

 

 

 

 

 

Number of Average number of Sources
Reign Years chaste widows chaste widows per year (Qing Shilu)
1776-1785 2488 248.8 vol.1023-1270
1786-1795 3260 326 vol.1271-1493
Subtotal 60 1 6668 277.8

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Canonization of chaste widows began in 1653, so calculations for the Shunzhi reign are made for the nine
years, from 1653 to 1661.

The table shows a steady increase in the number of banner widows refusing to
remarry during the first 150 years of the Qing dynasty. According to the table, the
number of chaste widows in banners increased more than fifteen times during the 150
years. The chaste widow ideal, once unknown among the Manchus, became popular in
banner society by the end of the 18th century. What they did and claimed seemed to be
very similar to the deeds of Chinese virtuous women.

However, when exploring the reasons behind the Manchu women borrowing the
Chinese norms of chaste widow and examine this changing tradition in the historical
context of the 17th and 18th centuries, the similarities between Chinese women and
Manchu women show only in form not in nature. It is this issue that I will examine more

in detail later in this chapter.

2. Policies on banner widows

During the first 150 years of the conquest, the emperors made certain adjustments
in official policies toward banner widows. In his pioneering work on Manchu widows,
Elliott believes that the court attitudes experienced a major shift between Yongzheng

(1723-1735) and Qianlong period (1736-1795). Elliott maintains that the court attitude

shified from an ambivalent position on widow remarriage in the Yongzheng reign to a
position opposing remarriage in the Qianlong reign, as reflected in the emperor’s
enthusiastic promotion of the virtuous widow cult among the banner populations.15 He
also believed the new policies on widows’ pensions were the answer to the puzzle of
“chaste widow boom.” Since, from the records I have examined in the Qing shilu, I find
no chaste widow boom at all but only a smooth, steady increase over the period from
Shunzhi to Qianlong."5 I do not wish to overestimate the significance of the new policies
to a widow’s choice and do not find a marked change of the court attitude toward
Manchu widows remarriage. In point of fact, the court’s attitude toward Manchu widows
was consistently ambiguous and controversial throughout the first half of the dynasty.
The Manchus first adopted the Chinese tradition of canonizing chaste widows in
1648, just four years after the Shunzhi emperor ascended the throne in Beijing.17 Two
years later, the court started to grant chaste widows silver for building archways. In 1660,
the Shunzhi emperor relaxed the requirement on the fixed number of years for being a
candidate for chaste widow—those who had remained chaste for twenty years or more
and had reached forty of age were all eligible for canonization.18 It is clear that from very

beginning, the court consciously continued the Chinese tradition of commending virtuous

 

‘5 Elliott, “Manchu Widows and Ethnicity in Qing China.” p. 42, 61-62.

'6 The number and the pattern (see Table 1 on pp. 82-83) that chaste widows increased between the
Shunzhi and Qianlong reigns are very different with those Ding Yizhuang and Mark Elliott used in their
works (see Table 6 in Ding’s book, p.136, and Table 1.1 in Mark’s article, p.35). Ding and Elliott’s
statistics are based on the “Bibliographies of Exemplary Women (Lienu zhuan)” in Baqi Tongzhi, while
mine is based on Da Qing shilu. I believe that “Lienu zhuan” of Baqi tongzhi only recorded some extreme
and selected examples, not all the banner widows canonized by the government. Moreover, Baqi tongzhi '3
records ended by the 50"I year of Qianlong reign (1790). Da Qing shilu provided a more reliable and
accurate numbers of canonized banner widows than those of in Baqi tongzhi.

'7 Da Qing Shizu shilu (Qing veritable records of Shizu), November in the 5th year of Shunzhi (1648),

41 : 13b.

'8 Ibid., June in the 17'” year of Shunzhi (1660), 137: Zla-b.

85

women. However, all the decrees were implicitly aimed at Chinese widows. The
Manchus’ attitude toward their own widows has never been entirely clear.

Some archival sources reveal that the court attitude toward the widows in the
Eight Banners seemed to be frequently contradictory, which meant that, on the one hand,
the court encouraged (or at least tolerated) widow remarriage but, at the same time, they
vigorously canonized the widows who never remanied. This ambiguity was especially
remarkable during the Yongzheng period (1723-1735).

Widow remarriage had been a Manchu tradition before the conquest and was not
an uncommon practice throughout the dynasty. In theory, the government policy gave
widows free choice whether they remarried or not. In 1724, Yi Zhaoxiong, the general of
Fuzhou garrison, submitted a memorial to the Yongzheng emperor regarding whether the
widows of banner officers and soldiers in provincial garrisons should be allowed to
remain in the garrisons and remarry there. He suggested:

To those widows who do not have brothers, sons, or nephews to rely on and wish

to remarry someone in the local (garrison), the court should allow them to do so.

In that way, the court would save money and labor on escorting the widows back

to the capital. The widows would be also benefited by not having to suffer the

long, arduous journey.19
His memorial was sent to the court officials. Afler a discussion, it was written on the law:

Henceforth the widows of all [barmer] officers and soldiers who wish to remarry

shall be free to do so. Those who wish to come back to the capital shall be

allowed to return to the banner.20

Three years later in 1727, the Yongzheng emperor set a new policy regarding financial

 

‘9 Yongzheng chao Hanwen zhupi zouzhe huibian (Collection of palace memorials in Chinese from the
Yongzheng reign), vol. 2, p. 286. According to Manchu repatriation policy, the widows of banner soldiers
and officials who died in provincial garrisons should be sent back to the capital (Beijing) with their
husbands’ remains. The banners were responsible to cover a widow’s relocation costs, including the
transport of her husband’s remains for burial in Beijing. For more information about the repatriation policy,
see Mark Elliott, The Manchu Way, “Return to the banner” policy, pp. 256-268.

2° Da Qing huidian (Collected institutes of the Qing), 1732 ed., 114:28a.

86

assistance for banner widows that encouraged childless young widows to remarry. Under
the original rules of compensation, when a soldier or an officer died, the widow would
receive half of her husband’s salary for one year, no matter how young she was or
whether she had children. But after 1727, the pension was only granted to the widows
who had sons or had reached forty in age and who also had some relatives to rely on. The
edict stated:
It would seem an unkind thing to force young, childless widows in the banners
with no kin to rely on to observe the chastity rule. When [banner] officials and
soldiers pass away, their wives are all to receive salary [pensions], regardless of
age. Those who are younger who wish to remarry, however, find themselves
caught between two difficult [choices] and would regret in the rest of their lives
[because of not having remarried]. It would greatly affect the honor of the
Manchus. It stands to reason that only those above a certain age should be
allowed to guard their chastity. If some [younger women] insist [on remaining
faithful widows], let people from their clan and company jointly and publicly
guarantee it.21
The case of Ji-shan’s widow (see page 80-81) provides an example of the kind of
over-elaborate procedure a young widow would go through and how many people would
be involved as her guarantors if she insisted on remaining a widow. In that case, since the
widow was only 27 years old, she found more than 20 people, including the heads of
her/her husband’s clans, the captain and other officers of the company, and some male
relatives from both her natal family and her husband’s family, to jointly guarantee that
she would live in her husband’s home as a chaste widow. Her case was submitted to the
Canling (Lieutenant Colonel) and Dutong (Banner Commander) through the banner
system, and then to the emperor for the final approval.22 After going through all the

tedious procedures, the widow was finally permitted not to remarry and received half of

 

2' Baqi tongzhi, chuji (Comprehensive history of the Eight Banners, first collection), 69:1338.
22 Guan, Jialu trans. Yong Qian Iiangchao xianghongqi dang (Bordered Red Banner archives, Yongzheng
and Qianlong reigns), pp. 35-37.

87

her deceased husband’s salary for one year as a pension. This case revealed it was not
easy for young banner women to choose to remain as widows after their husbands’ death.
It seems that the court did not encourage them to do so.

In the edict, “a certain age” refers the age of forty. It seems, at the first glance,
that the Yongzheng emperor virtually forced widows under forty to remarry but
encouraged the older widows to guard their chastity. But this principle was in
contradiction with the regulations of commending chaste widows. According to the
definition of jiefu (chaste widow), only those who were widowed before thirty years old
and remained chaste until fifty were considered to be “chaste widows” and were eligible
for canonization.23 The dilemma suggested that the court was actually not encouraging
most widows to “guard their chastity and refuse remarriage.”

In 1729, the Xi’an garrison general and his staff were upbraided by the
Yongzheng emperor for placing too much emphasis on the encouragement of womanly
virtues. To the general’s report of some virtuous Han-martial woman at the garrison, the
emperor retorted:

There are regular procedures for this sort of thing. Why did you have to report on

this specially? You can’t train the men to be good soldiers, but you are trying to

turn all the women of Xi’an into virtuous women and martyred wives. What’s the
good? If every twenty or thirty years one virtuous woman happens to turn up, but

we cannot resist the enemy, this is shameful.“

Obviously, from the edicts above, we see that the court is incentive for widow

 

23 The regulation on chaste widow’s age had been modified in Qing several times. During the Shunzhi
period, the widows who reached 40 years old and had already remained chaste for 20 years or more were
eligible to be canonized. In the Yongzheng reign, widows who shoujie over 15 years but died before 50
were eligible for canonization as well (but they must be older than 40).

2‘ Yongzheng chao Manwen zhupi zouzhe, packet 819, memorial of Cangseli, YZ7.5.15. Cited from Elliott,
The Manchu Way, p. 253.

88

remarriage under the Yongzheng emperor did not actually promote Confucian ideal of
chaste widowhood among banner populations. The court’s positive attitude toward
remarriage among banner widows, especially childless young widows, revealed the
emperor’s preference for maintaining the Manchu traditions over adopting Chinese
practice in the process of acculturation.

However, if the court encouraged young widows to remarry, the result would be a
decreased number of chaste widows in the canonization table during the Yongzheng
reign. But, in fact the average number of chaste widows commended annually during the
Yongzheng reign was 177, showing a continuing steady increase, compared with the
average numbers of chaste widows commended annually during the preceding Kangxi
period (see Table 1). Apparently, therefore, while the court encouraged widows to
remarry, the court also vigorously commended chaste widows through the canonization
system.

But why did the emperor, on the one hand, enthusiastically advance the
canonization of chaste widows and, on the other hand, encourage widows to remarry,
especially those young childless widows? How could we explain the seemingly
contradictory attitude toward banner widows?

The answer can be found fi'om the practice of dyarchy in Qing government and
extension in Qing society. First of all, the concept of dyarchy was embodied on the base
of ethnic distinctions. While the decrees of encouraging widows remain “chaste” affected
all the women, the edicts of incentive for widow remarriage were only issued to women
in banners. It is clear that the Qing attitude and policies toward widow remarriage were

strongly bifurcated by ethnic distinctions. From the perspective of maintaining Manchu

89

ethnicity, Manchu widow remarriage contributed to the court interests, in terms of
balancing the ratio between marriageable men and women in the banners and, in turn,
encouraging reproduction. From the discussion of Chapter two, we know that the
distinctive position of Manchu unmarried girls in family and the tradition of xiunu
selection meant that marriageable women were in short supply. Infanticide of baby girls
might be another factor responsible to the shortage of women.25 Although it does not
appear that Qing law forbade Manchu men to marry Chinese women, in fact, they usually
selected their wives within the banner system.26 Mark Elliott’s research also confirms that
there was a shortage of marriageable Manchu females during the Yongzheng and
Qianlong periods.27 Therefore, the court incentive for banner widow remarriage would
help bannermen to find partners and raise families. Moreover, the emphasis on young-
widow remarriage reflected the court interests on reproduction in order to keep Manchu
population in an increasing number.

As for Chinese widows, who did not have the mission of producing people for the
Manchu empire, the court’s attitude was unequivocal and explicit—encourage all the
Chinese widows to follow Confucian chaste widowhood cult. By advocating and
supporting Confucian norms on widowhood, Qing court could shore up their legitimacy
as master of the Chinese empire.

If widow remarriage were crucial to the Manchus’ survival, then the court’s

devotion to recognition of chaste widows——the widows who never remarry—seemed to

 

2’ James Lee, “The Chinese Demographic System: Recent Research and Implications.” p. 4, in Lee
Zhongqing, Guo Songyi. ed. Qingdai huangzu renkou xingwei he shehui huanjing (The population
behaviors and social environment of Qing nobility), pp. 1-17.

2" Ding Yizhuang, “Banner-Cormnoner Intermarriage in the Qing” (paper presented at the 1997 meeting of
the Association of Asian Studies, Chicago).

27 Elliott, “Manchu Widows and Ethnicity in Qing China,” p. 56, note 84.

90

be unreasonable. However, by connecting the commitment to canonization to the court’s
political interests after the conquest, we understand that the court incentive for widow
remarriage and its initiative in recognizing chaste widows may be seen as the two sides of
one coin, reflecting the court’s effort on accommodation between the “cosmopolitan” and
the “ethnic” modes of rulership. Both policies strengthened the Manchu rule in China.

Ever since the Manchus established Qing dynasty in 1644, pursuing harmony
between the Manchus and the Chinese had been the first priority among their other
political considerations. The court attempt to maintain the harmony was primarily from
two aspects:

First, the court showed a great initiative in promoting Confucian norms among the
general population, both the Chinese and the Manchus, in order to avoid being thought as
an alien barbarian government. In addition to some institutional adoptions and
democratization of elite Confucian virtues among the general population, the
commitment to Chinese standards of ritual and propriety among the banners was an
integral part of the court strategy. It should be not surprising that, from the Shunzhi to
Qianlong, the emperors were so zealous in canonizing chaste Manchus widows in the
banners because the existence of banner virtuous women in great numbers effectively
demonstrated that the Manchus had attained the same level of civilization as their
Chinese subjects. From the archives, we learn that the court spared no effort to search out
qualified banner widows for canonization. Unlike many Chinese chaste widows who
might be neglected for a long time and were sometimes recognized in their seventies or
even eighties, the Manchu widows were usually reported for canonization as soon as they

reached 50 years of age. According to archives of Libu yizhisijinbiao (Statistic of

91

canonization from the Department of Ritual), during the Kangxi and Yongzheng reigns,
among 86 chaste widows in the Red Banners, 65 were 50 years in age when they were
canonized; one widow was only 49 years old when she was canonized; twelve were in the
age between 51 and 59; five were between 60 and 70; three were over 70, and none was
over 80. The chaste widows of over 60 years old who had not been reported were
considered to be unusual and sometimes a document of explanation would be attached
with the report when they were canonized.28 I believe that the court’s effort in reporting
as many chaste widows as possible was responsible for the increasing numbers displayed
on the canonization list. The great number of chaste widows from the banners could
demonstrate how far the Manchus had come from their “barbarian” past and, thus, help to
underscore the Qing claim to rule China as a legitimate, civilized government.

Second, under the slogan of “Manchu and Han in one family” (Man Han yijia

sitar—g)?" the court promoted the idea of the Manchu emperor as a universal ruler,

unbiased and equitable toward all his subjects. By unifying the standards of propriety for
Manchu and Han women, the court could claim it was promoting ethnic harmony. As for
recognition of chaste widows, the standards were written on Da Qing huidian (collected
Institutes of the Qing), which applied to everyone, without regard to ethnic identity. In
other words, as soon as a widow had been chaste more than twenty years and had reached
fifty of age, she would be eligible for canonization, no matter whether she was a Chinese

or a Manchu.30 As conquerors of China, the Manchus supposedly enjoyed privileges and

 

2" According to the archives of Libu yizhisijibiao (Ritual Department - Canonization), vol. 39.

29 Da Qing Shizu shilu, (Qing veritable records of Shizu), August in the 5'” year of Shizu (1648), 40: 1 la.
For more discussion about “ethnic harmony” and the emphasis of “two peoples in one family,” see Mark
Elliott, The Manchu Way, “The Manchu-Han Family.” pp. 212-216.

30 The requirement on the number of years to be eligible for canonization changed over the time during the
Qing dynasty. See note 30 on page 91.

92

priority in any honorable situations. Therefore, it would be strange and unreasonable if
the court only rewarded Chinese chaste widows by giving them silver to build memorial
arches and making their virtuous deed wells-known, while neglecting Manchu widows
who sacrificed equally. At this point, it is better to understand the canonization as a
system to affirm a fait accompli than a way to encourage banner widows not to remarry.
In matter of fact, Manchu rulers understood that whether a woman chose to remarry or
remain as a widow was determined by many factors other than the hope of being
recognized by the court in some twenty years later. Canonization would not endanger the
Manchu’s basic interest in rapid reproduction of the banner population, by keeping young
widows away from the marriage pool.

The court dyarchy policy on widow was also presented in the aspect of gender. In
his article about Manchu widows, Elliott suggests that by the late-seventeenth century
when bannermen were “softened” and losing their ethnic identities, banner women were
not in imminent danger of losing their Manchuness.3 1 The distinctive position of men and
women in the process of acculturation helps us to understand the bifurcated court policies
with regard to gender considerations, in which promoting Confucian norms among
banner women could be simultaneous with emphasizing Manchu ideal among
bannermen. The court’s enthusiastic promotion of chaste widowhood among banner
population was a major project in building up its reputation as a legitimate Chinese
dynasty.

In addition to “gendered dyarchy,” the court’s ambiguous attitude and policies on

widow in banners can be understood from the perspective of geographic locations. The

 

3 I See, Elliott, “Manchu Widows and Ethnicity in Qing China.” pp. 64-66.

93

imperial edicts above revealed whenever the Yongzheng emperor emphasized the
significance of encouraging young banner women remarry, he actually referred to the
widows who lived in garrisons or on frontier. For example, in 1724 when the general of
Fuzhou garrison Yi Zhaoxiong submitted a memo asking the court to allow widows to
remarry in the garrison, the emperor readily approved Yi’s petition.32 In the memo of
1729, Yongzheng emperor expressed his discontent with the Xi’an garrison general who
promoted female virtue in the garrison.33 The Qianlong emperor continued this
geographic discrimination. In a decree of 1767, canonizing of chaste widows in
Shengjing (Manchu homeland) was prohibited.34 The “geographic dyarchy” also served
the court strategy of ruling China—increasing the Manchu population, especially in the
garrisons and banner lands, on the one hand and demonstrating that Manchu women had
“civilized” Confucian behavior to impress the Han Chinese on the other. Women in and
around the capital were encouraged to adopt Chinese traditions and appear more
“sinicized” by avoiding remarriage and maintaining chastity. In the banner lands,
however, where the issue of increasing the population was crucial, young widows were
actively encouraged to remarry and guarding chastity was discouraged for all but those
widows already over forty or fifiy.

The court’s attitude and policies toward banner widows continued to be
ambiguous until at least the late 1700s. After examining the Manchu strategy of ruling

China and Manchu women’s distinctive positions in the construction of Manchu

 

3’ Da Qing huidian (Collected institutes of the Qing), 1732 ed., 114:28a.

33 For more detail, see page 88.

3‘ Zongrenfir tanggao laiwen (Archives of imperial lineage), # l in package 454. Cited from Ding
Yizhuang, Manzu defimufhenghuo ya hunyin zhidu yanjiu (Research on life and marriage patterns of
Manchu women), p.141.

94

ethnicity, we may understand that the seemingly contradictory policy regarding widow
remarriage actually reflected the embodiment of the diarchy in social policies. Both
polices served the imperial needs of different aspects and strengthened the Manchu rule
in China. Together with the court’s encouragement of younger banner widow remarriage,
which reflected Qing concern over the nuptiality and fertility that closely related to
reproduction of Manchu people, to recognize chaste widows from banners was beneficial

to the court’s political interests.

3. Remaining as widow—a rational choice
Afier examining the court’s attitude and policies regarding remarriage for Manchu

women, we need to look at the issue from another perspective—how women themselves

gradually accepted the conception of “shougua” (43!, remaining as a widow) in the

changed social conditions and what factors were most responsible for a woman’s choice.
Throughout history, in many circumstances, the state law said one thing, the people did
another. The issue of widow remarriage during the Qing dynasty provided an example.
While the court advanced a series of policies, based on the political and ethnic
considerations in favor of the Manchu rule in China, individual banner widows’ choices
were based on their self-interest.

During the Qianlong reign, a series of policies regarding widow pensions was
formulated. While these pensions provided short-term financial assistance for
emergencies, however, they had no inherent connection with the almost life-long

commitment of becoming a chaste widow.

95

Da Qing Gaozong shilu (Qing veritable records of Gaozong) and Da Qing

huidian shili (The collected institutes and precedents of the Qing) contain twelve imperial

edicts about pensions to banner widows during the Qianlong period as the following:

Table 2. Regulation of Pensions to Banner Widows (1735-17 83)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Year Content Source
The 13th year of All the banner widows, regardless of Da Qing Gaozong
Yongzheng (the their ages or whether they had children, shilu, 6: 12
1 first year of were granted one-half of their husbands’
Qianlong, 1735) salaries for one year, if they chose to
maintain their chastity.
The 3rd year of The banner widows whose husbands Da Qing Gaozong
Qianlong (1738) died in the battlefield, or they did not shilu, 70:1—2
2 have sons or their sons were young,
were given one-half of their husbands’
salaries.
The 3rd year of The banner widows of retired soldiers, Da Qing Gaozong
Qianlong (1738) old and handicapped soldiers, and shilu, 82:13
“idlers” (xiansan, the candidates for a
3 paying post), who received half-salary
of the regular banner soldiers, were
given as much as their husbands
received for one year.
The 6‘" year of Regarding to the widows in provincial Da Qing Gaozong
Qianlong (1741) garrisons, if they returned to the capital, shilu,140:6-7
they should be granted one-half of their
4 husbands’ salaries; if they stayed in the
garrisons, they should be given one-half
of the salaries for one year.

 

 

 

 

96

 

 

 

Year Content Source
The 7“1 year of The widows of booi (bondservants) in Da Qing Gaozong
Qianlong (1742) lower five banners were, in accordance shilu, 179:10-11

with those of in upper three banners,
given one tael silver monthly. For those
who were obligated to feed a big family,
one hu* of rice would be granted in
addition to the monthly silver. The
pension would be stopped when their
sons found a paying post in the banners.

 

The 19’“ year of
Qianlong (1754)

The banner widows in the other register,
lingce, (a census book for listing
disreputable people) were given one-
half of their husbands’ salaries for one
year.

Da Qing huidian
shili, 1140:7b

 

 

 

 

 

The 21St year of The poor widows, widowers, and idlers Da Qing Gaozong
Qianlong (1756) in the banners were given 1.5 tael of shilu, 455:7;
silver per month until their sons found a 506:5
paying post.
The 27th year of The widows who returned to the capital Da Qing huidian
Qianlong (1762) from garrisons would receive one-half shili, 1140: 10b
of their husbands’ salaries for one year.
The 35m year of The widows of idlers (xiansan) who Da Qing Gaozong
Qianlong (1770) chose to stay at the garrisons would shilu, 455:7;
receive one-half of their husbands’ 869: 14

 

salaries for one year, in accordance with
the rule for the banner widows in the
capital.

 

 

97

 

 

Year Content Source

 

The 41St year of The banner widows whose father-in-law Da Qing Gaozong
Qianlong (1776) or brothers-in-law were currently shilu, 455:7;
officials of the fifth rank and above 1002:43-44.
(military officers) or the sixth rank and
above (civil officials) and those whose
parents-in-law, or/and sons and
daughters-in-law, or/and grandsons who
earned salaries and had real estate would
not be given a pension. The widows
would receive a pension if their remote
10 relatives were officials though. For the
widows whose brothers-in-law had been
laid off, or demoted, or in some other
similar cases, they would receive a
pension until their brothers-in-law were
reinstated. The pension was also given
to the widows whose sons or grandsons
were sent to garrisons, or were expelled
for crimes, or were fugitives [since the
widows had nobody to rely on].

 

The 44th year of Widows of banner soldiers who died on Da Qing huidian
Qianlong (1779) the battlefield before their sons came of shili, 1140:10a
age, were granted one-half of their

11 husbands’ salaries until their sons came
of age and were paid half-salary as
“idlers”.

 

 

The 48’Wyear of Remarried banner widows whose Da Qing huidian
Qianlong (1783) husbands died in the battlefield should shili, 1140:10b
12 be treated as same as the regular banner
widows and given one-half of their
husbands’ salaries.

 

 

 

 

 

“ha” (fi)was a measure of volume, equivalent to half dan (15 ) or 10 dou (Si-«about 107 liters)

These edicts indicated that the court’s policies regarding banner widows’ financial
aids limited pensions to only one year for younger widows (see the items of l, 3, 4, 6, 8,

and 9). This was the case for most banner widows. In some cases, however, the duration

98

of the pension being given was not defined (see the items of 2, 10, and 12).35 These cases
included the widows whose husbands who had fallen on the field, and the widows who
had no one to rely on. Finally, the pensions would be granted to the widows until their
sons found paying posts, and thus had ability to support them financially (see the items of
5 and 7).

Obviously, the pensions could help the banner widows out financially after their
husbands’ deaths, but these grants were emergency aids rather than a guaranteed income
on which the widows could rely for the rest of their lives. Most widows could receive the
pensions for only one year, after which they were supposed to find some other channels
to support themselves and their children. The most probable choice was to remarry. Many
of the archival records show that many widows remarried within a year of the husband’s
death.

Here are some examples fiom archives:

Na shi, 45 years old, was the daughter of Na Baozhu who served as a lieutenant under the
Mongol Plain Blue banner. When she was 19, she married San-da-se, a lieutenant under
the Manchu Plain Blue Banner. They had two sons. San-da-se died of an illness in
February in the 40th year of Qianlong (1775). Na shi was granted a pension. But “in the
41st year of the Qianlong (1776), she decided not to remain a widow any more because of
poverty. Therefore, she declined the pension and moved to her aunt’s place” and before
too long, she remarried a third rank bannerman Qiu Shuanzhu.36 Na shi’s first husband

was a lieutenant, a low rank banner official, who received four taels of silver of

 

’5 Ding Yizhuang assumes that these widows would receive a life-long pension, see Ding, Manzu defimu
shenghuo yu hunyin zhidu yanjiu (Research on life and marriage patterns of Manchu women), p. 144.
3" See Neiwufii laiwen, #2145, April 2 in the 48‘“ year of Qianlong (1783).

99

salary per month while the ordinary banner soldiers received three taels of silver
monthly.37 Na shi received a pension of two taels of silver per month after San-da-se
died. Despite the fact that her pension was better than that of the widows of common
banner soldiers, Na shi still lived in poverty and finally chose to remarry. We could
imagine how poor the life of an ordinary soldier’s widow would be.

Yin shi was the widow of Gu-lu-dai, who died in the 48th year of Kangxi (1709).
After “preserving her chastity” for one year, Yin shi remarried Zhang Mingyang (a
commoner) because she had no rice to feed her son and herself.38

Guo shi, the widow of Hua-se (bannerman in the Bordered Yellow Banner)
remanied Duo-luo-ji (a bannerman in the same banner) one year after she became a
widow. When she explained the reason of her remarriage, Guoshi said, “I was too poor
and had no one to rely on. My son was only two years old then. We could not support
ourselves.”39

Wang shi remarried twice. Both times were due to poverty. The archive did not
provide any information regarding widow pensions.40

Another widow Liu shi was about 41 years old when her husband, a Manchu
bannerman, died. Six month later, she remarried a 73-year-old man because she said she
could no longer support herself.41

These cases of remarriage reveal that not all widows received financial assistance

from government. Even if they received a pension, which might help them to cope with

 

37 Baqi tongzhi, chuji (Comprehensive history of the Eight Banners, first collection), 29: 550
3“ Neiwufit laiwen, # 2109, April 16 in the 2 year of Qianlong (1737).

3’ Ibid., #2108, June 3 in the 2"‘1 year of Qianlong (1737).

‘° Ibid., # 2129, September 29 in the 37'“ year of Qianlong (1772).

" Ibid., # 2145, April 2 in the 48" year of Qianlong (1783).

100

an emergency, it would not provide the widow with long-term security. Thus the policies
regarding pension was not really effective in preventing banner widows from choosing
remarriage as a better way of life.

If the court policies regarding widow pensions were not a decisive factor
responsible for widows’ choice, how would the increasing number of chaste widows be
explained? From the examples of chaste widows cited earlier in this chapter,42 we may
see that both those women’s behaviors and their words were very similar with those of
virtuous Chinese women. This observation might easily lead to the conclusion—as Ding
Yizhuang stated, that by the end of the Qianlong period, the banner women became no
different from the Chinese both in the way of thinking and in terms of conduct. They had
already completely accepted the Confucian doctrines."3 That more widows chose to
preserve chastity in their deceased husbands’ home rather than remarrying might be
considered as a symbol of the popularization of Neo-Confiician chaste-widow norms and
therefore, might represent real acculturation among Manchu women.44

However, for a banner woman, to “remain as a widow” was a custom borrowed
directly from the Chinese. To what extent was this change related to acculturation? Did
Manchu women accept the Neo-Confucian chaste-widow norms in which “sexual loyalty
to one’s deceased husband” was the essential principle? By examining the factors that
were responsible for the changing tradition, a conclusion may be made that the Manchu

women accepted Confucian norms only in form, not in substance. For Chinese women to

 

‘2 See the examples of chaste widows on page 82-84, including Dongjia shi, Cai’s wife, Ji-shan’s wife, Xi-
guan , Ao-leng-e and Hongdun’s fiancées.

3 Ding Yizhuang, Manzu defimufhenghuo ya hunyin zhidu yanjiu (Research on life and marriage patterns
of Manchu women), p. 136.
4‘ Elliott, “Manchu Widows and Ethnicity in Qing China,” p. 38

101

chose not to remarry continued a well-established tradition within the Confucian order, in
which sexual loyalty imposed a duty on a wife even after her husband died. However, for
Manchu women, adjustment of marriage behaviors might be related less to Confucian
practice than to the considerations of self-interest, especially property inheritance and the
guardianship of children.

Marriage and property laws underwent significant change during the Yuan
dynasty when the Mongols ruled China, distinguished by the shift of a woman’s rights on
property, children, and her own body from her natal family to her husband’s family after
she married. Because inheritance was exclusively in the male line, a woman had no right
to her husband’s property. At best as a widow, she might be allowed to manage the
property of her late husband as trustee for his heirs. Widows who remarried were not
permitted to take any property with them into the second marriage. The new regulation
on marriage and property in Yuan and Ming times, so different with those of Song and
previous dynasties, was actually a Chinese-Mongol hybrid. The new law created a strong
disincentive for a widow to remarry. Therefore, the consequent rise in widow chastity,
long assumed to be simply the result of imposing neo-Confucian norms, in fact was tied
directly to what Bettine Birge has described as the "confusing encounter between Chinese
and Mongol culture.”45

The Manchus, like the Mongols and other ethnic groups in the northern steppe,

had a tradition of depriving a widow of any right to the property of her deceased

 

‘5 Bettine Birge, “Levirate Marriage and the Revival of Widow Chastity in Yuan China,” Asia Major, 8.2
(Fall 1995), pp. 107-46. Also see Jennifer Holmgren, “Observations on the Marriage and Inheritances
Practices in early Mongol and Yuan Society, with Particular Reference to the Levirate,” Journal of Asian
History, 20 (1986) and “The Economic Foundations of Virtue: Widow-Remarriage in Early and Modern
China,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Aflairs, 13.

102

husband’s family if she remarried. As we have seen, the status of a married woman in her
husband’s family was very poor, especially when she lived with her mother-in-law and
her husband’s sisters.46 Once a woman married, she herself became a property of her
husband’s family/clan and, therefore, if her husband died, she had no right to take any
property (including her children) from this family into a new marriage. However, if she
remarried someone within her late husband’s family/clan through levirate marriage, then
she retained the rights to property and children. Levirate marriage was not against the
property law because she would not take any property away from the first husband’s
family into another family.

In 1631 and 1636 Huangtaiji publicly banned the custom of levirate as part of the
Manchu adoption of Chinese culture.47 The prohibition against levirate marriage left a
widow two choices: remaining as a widow at her deceased husband’s home or remarrying
someone outside the family. Since the traditional property laws, in which the widows
would lose their rights if they remarried an outsider, had been carried on by the Qing,
remarriage for a widow meant lose of her own property (for example, the dowry), her
share of her husband’s property, the right to her children, and other benefits she might
have if remaining in the family as a widow. The benefits a chaste widow could receive
and the loss she might suffer by remarriage were clearly defined in Da Qing huidian (The
collected institutes of Qing):

If a wife without sons maintains her chastity after her husband dies, then she

should receive her husband’s share of property, and lineage elders should select
an appropriate male from the correct family branch and generation to be

 

’6 See Chapter Two for more information about women’s role and position within family.

’7 The edict of 1631 can be found in Chen Yuan, “Tang Ruowang yu Mu Chenrnin” (Tang Ruowang and
Mu Chenmin), Chen Yuan xueshu Iunwenji (Collection of Chen Yuan’s academic papers), vol. 1, p. 493;
the edict of 1635 was in Qing Taizong shilu gaoben (The notes of veritable records of Qing Taizong), vol.
14, pp. 6-7.

103

appointed as successor and heir [to her husband]. If she remarries, then her first

husband’s family shall determine the disposition of both his household property

and her original dowry. 48
A chaste Widow had the right to independently control of her husband’s share of his
father’s household property; if they had no sons, then an heir should be appointed to carry
on her husband’s family line and to care for her in old age. These mandated rights made a
widow uniquely independent among women, so long as her husband had left enough
property to secure her living.49 But if she remarried, she left her husband’s lineage and
lost all claims to property, including any dowry she had brought into the marriage.

Cases in archives recorded the disputes between the widows and their in-laws
over property. Some suggest the real reasons behind widows’ high-sounding excuses for
refusing to remarry. According to Chinese tradition, household property would be equally
divided among male descendants. Since the equal shares brothers received in household
division might be small indeed, they simply wished (sometimes forced) the widow to
remarry and begin a new life elsewhere so that their brother’s assets could divided among
them and thus improve their own standard of living.50 For the same reason of property,

the widow would struggle to remain as a widow in the family in order to receive the share

of her husband’s property and other benefits.

 

‘8 Da Qing huidian shili (The collected institutes and precedents of the Qing dynasty), 753: 2a. Most of
items in Da Qing huidian regarding widow property laws were very similar with those in Ming huidian
(The collected institutes of the Ming dynasty). But I prefer to see the similarity as a coincidence rather than
an adoption because the Qing institutes on widows’ inheritance most likely came from the Manchu
tradition before the conquest. If the term of cultural borrowing had to be used, we had better say that the
Ming institutes about widows’ inheritance were partly borrowing from the Mongols.

’9 See Chapter Two for more information.

5° Regarding the tension between the widows and their in-laws, see Ann Waltner, “Widows and Remarriage
in Ming and early Qing China,” in Richard Guisso and Stanley Johannesen, ed., Women in China: Current
Directions in Historical Scholarship, pp. 129-146; Fuma Susuma, “Chugoku minshin jidai ni okeru kafu no
chii to kyosei saikon no fushi” (Widows’ status and the custom of forced remarriage during the Ming and
Qing dynasties), in Maekawa Kazuya, ed. Kazoku, setai, kamon: kogyoka izen no sekai kara (Clan,
property, family: the world before industrialization), Tokyo, 1993, pp. 249-287. For the records from
archives, see Junjichu Iufil zouzhe, microfilm 097, # 1987, the 45th year of Qianlong (1780).

104

According to a document from the Imperial Household Department (neiwufu), a
man in the Plain Red Banner died in the 21S" year of Qianlong (1756). His wife, Nala shi
decided to “guard her chastity and take care of his widowed mother and two sons,
Guanning and Guanliang, from his first wife.” In order to commend the widow’s virtue,
the department awarded her 80 mu (about 13 acres) land. She hired people to working on
the land and received rent of approximate three taels of silver per month. However, the
widow later left Guanning and Guanliang at their cousin’s place and did not take them
back with her with the excuse of that “they were not obedience enough”. Someone in the
banner said that Nala shi “was only interested in the land, not the children. Since her
motivation for remaining as a widow did not fit the standards of commendation, the 80
mu of land should be taken back.“

This case suggests that some women used the discourse of chastity in their own
self-interest. When a widow’s interests were threatened, her best defense was that her in-
laws were simply trying to usurp her husband’s pr0perty—a defense taken seriously by
magistrates.52 In this case, the widow’s actions brought the law into line with Confucian
ideals of widow chastity.

Widowhood also could be a state of some independence. Most cases in the
archives show that the husband had already divided his parents’ property with his
brothers and established his own household. Upon his death, his widow became the head
of this independent household. According to the census record of Liaoyang in the 18th

and early 19th century, a large percentage (about 70%) of the widows registered as the

 

5 ' Neiwufu laiwen (archives of Imperial Household Department), # 2115, August in the 21“ year of
Qianlong (1756).
52 Matthew Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China, p. 209.

105

head of household.53 They were not only in charge of the routine work within the
household but also affairs outside, such as collecting the land rents or supervising the
workers on the fields. Here are two examples fiom archives:

The first one is a law case—a widow sued her tenant who was behind with the
rent. Zhao shi was the widow of Pu-lu, a member of imperial clan in the Bordered White
Banner. After Pu-lu died, she took over his property of seven qing (about 47 hectares) of
land and entrusted her brother-in-law Yu-ding (Pu-lu’s younger brother) to rent it out. In
the 60th year of Qianlong (17 95), she asked booi (bondservant) Bao-er to bring a case to
court to sue the tenant Shao San. Bao-er claimed, “the mistress has seven qing of land in
Tongzhou (in Beijing suburb today). She rent out the land to Shao San and expected to
receive 200 taels of silver annually. In September of the 57th year of Qianlong (1792),
Shao San paid 100 taels of silver to the mistress as half of the rent he should pay for the
year. In June of the following year, he paid another 100 taels. But all he had paid was just
the rent for the year 57. He paid nothing for 58 and 59.”54 In the Qing dynasty, a county
magistrate’s annual salary was only 45 taels of silver. By renting the land her deceased
husband left behind, Zhao shi could enjoy a rich and independent life. It seemed that she
had no reason to remarry at the risk of losing all the property she owned upon her
husband’s death. Remaining as Pu-lu’s widow was the only rational choice.

In the second case, a common bannerman’s widow sold the land that her husband

left without consulting with her brother-in-law. According to the claim of the brother-in-

 

” In 1749, there were five widows in the extended family of Sn Dengke. Three of them were the head of
household. Su Qing’s family: 10 out of 12 in 1781, 7 out of 8 in 1792, and 13 out of 17 widows in 1806
were the head of household. Su Lin’s family: among 13 widows in 1827, 10 registered as the head of
household. See Liaoyang Guangningjienei Suzhuangtou hukou qingcg (The census record of overseer Su
in Guangning, Liaoyang). 1748, 1751, 1781, 1792, 1806, and 1872.

5‘ Zongrenfu tanggao laiwen (Archives of the imperial lineage department), #521, February in the 60til of
Qianlong (1 795).

106

law F u-shu, his father had four qing and 38 mu of land (about 29 hectares). When his
father died, his elder brother took over the land; his brother died soon after and his sister-
in-law became the head of household. His sister-in-law died in the 32"d year of Qianlong
(1767). When he tried to collect land rent from tenants, however, the tenants declined and
told him that his sister-in-law had already sold the land.55

Widows’ independence and power could also be seen in the novel of The Dream
of Red Chamber. In the novel, the most powerful figure was a widow, the Matriarch
Madam J ia, who was at the apex of the pyramid of the household and had filll power over
everyone in the family. Mistress Xue (mother of Precious Virtue) and Li Wan (Bao Yu’s
sister-in-law) were widows, too. They both had never remarried and enjoyed a great
extent of independence. Precious Virtue became a defacto widow after Bao Yu ran away
to a Buddhist temple. She did not remarry but stayed at Jia family and later on became
the head of household, in charge of all the family affairs and, therefore, became very
powerful. For these widows, I am not sure to what extent their choice of remaining as
widows were motivated by the Confucian ideal of conjugal fidelity. It would be more
convincing to observe that they, and the widows of well-to-do families in general,
enjoyed the independence, the power, and the security. The price they had to pay for
these privileges was not to remarry.

Many of these “independent” widows were quite young. Statistic shows that most

 

5’ Neiwufit laiwen (archives of imperial household department), # 2125, December in the 32"d year of
Qianlong (1767).

107

widows were in their twenties or early thirties when their husbands died.56 Not a few had
small children and land their husbands left for them. Such women needed help working
their land, so they would hire a laborer, often some poor relative of the deceased husband.
Usually this man would move in with the widow and her children, especially during the
busy seasons, trading his labor for food, clothes, and accommodation. The widow would
cook for him, wash and mend his clothes. By examining some legal cases in Qing
archives, Matthew Sommer found that it was not uncommon for such widows to become
sexually involved with their laborers and in many cases, it was the widow who initiated
sexual relations.57 Although the cases of adultery Sommer cited most likely concerned
the Chinese widows, Manchu widows might become involve the same situation unless——
admittedly unlikely—Manchu women were much more “virtuous” than their Chinese
peers. The sexual transgressions of a widow reflected, in a sense, the freedom and right
over her own body although in unconventional form.

“Remaining as a widow” (shougua) refers to a woman’s marital status while
“guarding one’s chastity” (shoujie) emphasizes a woman’s virtue. In Chinese language,
shougua and shoujie in most occasions are overlapped—a chaste woman usually refers to
a widow who guarded sexual loyalty to her late husband. But these two terms are not
always interchangeable. Here is a case from archives: Xicun was a 28 years old “idler”

(xiansan) in the Bordered Yellow Banner. His parents died when he was very young, so

 

5" See Table. 13 in Liu Sufen, “Qingdai huangzu hunyin yu zongfa zhidu” (Nuptiality and lineage among
the Qing imperial nobility), p. 109, in James Lee and Guo Songyi, Qingdai huangzu renkou xingwei he
shehui huanjing (Qing imperial population behavior and social environment), pp. 90-1 15. Although the
statistics recorded the widows’ ages in Beijing area and limited to imperial nobility, we still can use it as
reference. I assume that common bannermen might die in earlier of age than those of irrrperial nobility due
to poorer living conditions.

57 Matthew Somrner, Sex, Law. and Society in Late Imperial China, p. 192.

108

he lived with his uncle in Xiong County (in today’s Shangdong Province). His cousin
Wang Rongxian (the uncle’s son) died in the 41St year of Qianlong (1776) and left a
widow whose name was Zhang. Xicun shared a room with his uncle that was located on
the southern side of the yard while Zhang’s room was on the north. As the years went by,
Xicun and Zhang, his widowed sister-in-law, became lovers. Several years later when
Wang family’s financial situation started to deteriorate, Zhang decided to remarry. Xicun
was unhappy because he would lose his lover Zhang if she remarried. Therefore, Xicun
promised Zhang that he would ask his fi'iend who was in Beijing to find him a paying
post and, at the same time, to apply for a widow pension for Zhang. Zhang agreed to wait
and claimed that if Xicun’s friend could not get a position for him or a pension for her,
she would ask for the pension herself from the Qianlong emperor directly when the
emperor passed by Xiong County later the year. The case ended with punishment on
Xicun and Zhang—both received 100 blows—when their adultery was exposed.58

This is an interesting case. After her husband died, like many other widows,
Zhang chose to remain as a widow, living with her in-laws. But the prerequisite for her
“guarding chastity” was financial security, such as a widow pension or a paying post for
her lover Xicun. In that case, she would play around with her lover and have no desire to
remarry. Zhang’s case must not be seen as an exception in Qing. Many widows might
have affairs while retaining widowhood, or in other words, while waiting for the court
recognition. In Zhang’s case, financial security was the main motivation for remaining as
a widow with her in-laws. For many other widows, they might have other reasons as well,

but little room for the moral consideration when they made their choice of refusing to

 

”_Neiwufil laiwen (archives of imperial household department), # 2147, January June in the 49th year of
Qianlong (1784).

109

remarry.
Mark Elliott argues that when Manchu widows committed suicide upon their
husbands’ death (congsi, following-in-death), it represented a continuation of an older
Inner Asian custom, unrelated to Confucian practice of becoming martyr for one’s
husband.59 By the same logic, that many banner widows chose not to remarry does not
necessarily mean that they were dissuaded by the ideal of Confucian chaste widowhood,
in which the essence was the loyalty to the dead husband or cong yi er zhong. Remaining
as a widow was a rational choice in a changed social circumstance, which happened to
coincide with the ideal of Confucian chaste widowhood, in other words, they only

resembled each other in form, but were different in nature.

Conclusion: Ethnicity, Gender, Location, Class

During the first 150 years of Manchu conquest of China, the Manchus gradually
appreciated and accepted the Chinese concept of chaste widowhood. The increasing
number of chaste widows on the govemment commendatory list and the records of their
virtuous deeds in historical books seem to tell that by the end of the 18th century
“Remaining as a life-long widow”, once a foreign term to the Manchus, had taken root in
Manchu society.

Utilizing Elliot’s theory of “gendered bifurcation”, I extend the Qing political
principles of dyarchy to a broader dimension. 6° The court policy of bifurcation was not

only reflected in the distinction of gender, but also concerned with ethnicity and

 

’9 Elliott, “Manchu Widows and Ethnicity in Qing China,” p. 49.

6° Elliot, “Manchu Widows and Ethnicity in Qing China,” p. 62.

110

geographical locations. Therefore the pattern of acculturation was determined by the
distinction of gender, location, and class.

First of all, the court’s attitude and policies on banner widow remarriage was
based on an understanding that men and women had different functions in the society and
changed at different levels in the process of acculturation. From the standpoint of the
Manchu rulers, while a close watch was kept on the acculturation of bannermen,
promoting the Confucian chaste widow cult among banner women would not threaten
Manchu ethnicity but would serve to reduce the Manchu’s ethnic insecurity.

Men and women accepted the new values in different ways. Bannermen,
especially the Manchu elite and officials who had more contact with Chinese, were afraid
of being thought of as “barbarians” who did not honor female chastity and usually
married their own widows. Therefore, they consciously made their women more like
Chinese and pushed them to keep up with Confucian norms. The vigorous reporting of
virtuous women to local authorities for canonization and keeping records of chaste
widows in gazetteers reflected men’s enthusiasm for publicizing Confucian ideal of
widowhood. On the other hand, most banner women who chose not to remarry were
seldom concerned about the loyalty to a deceased husband or the “face” and “ethnic
insecurity”. These women, since they lived in a relatively closed community and did not
have as much opportunity as men to contact Chinese people and culture, changed more
slowly and accepted Chinese value in a partial and superficial way. Therefore, to women,
remaining as a widow was a rational choice of property inheritance in the guise of

Confucian “guarding chastity”.

111

The pattern of acculturation was also distinguished by location and class. The
court on the one hand enthusiastically supported the canonization of chaste widows in
capital and nearby areas, but on the other hand, was reluctant to see the banner women in
garrisons or banner lands refuse to remarry, especially those who were young and had no
children. According to the records, most of the widows honored for preserving chastity
were from the capital area.61 This was because such women were, by virtue of location, in
contact with Han Chinese and more susceptible to adopting Han customs. Moreover,
canonizing chaste widows in banners in the capital was more visible to Han Chinese
(especially Han officials), and therefore, better served the court’s political interest.

Class or economic status played an important role in acculturation. More widows
of middle-and upper classes chose to “guard chastity” while poorer widows usually chose
to remarry. Economic status was unquestionably the most decisive factor affecting a
widow’s choice. Remaining a widow was financially possible only to the widows from
well-to-do families while remarriage seemed to be the only realistic way for poorer
widows to survive. From the perspective of widows’ self-interests, remaining as a widow
was beneficial only to those who had property. Women of middle-and upper classes
usually could read Chinese, so they learned Chinese traditional values from literary
works and might appreciate Chinese culture. Moreover, just as foot-binding could be a
symbol distinguishing the rich from the poor, widow chastity served as a status symbol
for the elite, while remarriage prevailed among the very poor. As elite or well-to-do

bannermen, they were concerned about their “face” because only poor bannermen’s

 

6' See the cases of chaste widows in page 80-81.

112

families married their widows out since they could not financially afford them to “guard
their chastity”.

Among all the evidence of Manchu acculturation, the changing attitude toward
remarriage is the favorite example cited by those who see the wholesale sinicization or
Confucianization among Manchu women. For example, in her book, Ding Yizhuang uses
the theory of Confucianization to explain the changing tradition among banner women.
She believes that by the Qianlong period, one hundred years after the conquest, the
Manchus gradually caught up with the Chinese in aspects of the mode of production,
class relations, social values, and ethics. The symbol of Manchu sinicization was the
thorough acceptance of Confucian doctrines. Regarding the issue of women’s “chastity,”
the Manchus were quickly adopted Chinese standards. On the one hand, the Manchu
rulers enthusiastically promoted the chaste widowhood cult in the banner population; on
the other hand, the banner widows adopted metal attitudes and aspects of behaviors from
their Chinese peers, and became no different from the Chinese.62

Based on the analysis in previous pages of this chapter, I believe that the Manchu
widows’ changing tradition was a far more complicated process than simply the adoption
of Confucianism. By examining the context of this change more closely, it is clear that

Manchu women accepted Chinese culture only on a superficial level. Manchu women’s

new practices and Chinese traditions resembled each other only in form, not in essence.

 

’2 Ding, Manzu defimu shenghuo yu hunyin zhidu yanjiu (Research on life and marriage patterns of
Manchu women), p. 136.

113

Chapter Four: Intermarriage between the Manchus and Chinese

Intermarriage usually refers to interethnic marriages. In human history,
intermarriage has been the most effective way of eliminating the distinctions between
different ethnic groups. Intermarriage is the result of cultural amalgamation when
different peoples have lived together, and, in turn, promotes the process of acculturation.
In the case when one of the cohabited ethnic groups is overwhelmingly larger than the
other(s) in the population, the smaller group(s) would usually prohibit intermarriage with
the larger group if they wish to maintain their ethnic identities and power.

After the Manchus moved into China proper, they faced the same situation as the
colonial powers experienced in Asia in the 19th and early 20th centuries—being
outnumbered by local population.1 Like those Europeans in colonial Asia, the Qing
government carried out the policies of prohibiting intermarriage during most time of the
dynasty in order to maintain the ethnic boundary between Manchus and Chinese, in
which Manchu men were allowed to marry Chinese women, either taking them as wives

or concubines, while Manchu women were who married Chinese were removed from

banner membership (qiji fl!) and became Chinese.2

 

' According to Rawski’s estimation, the ratio of Chinese and Manchu was about ,in the early years of
Qing dynasty. See, “Ch’ing Imperial Marriage and Problems of Rulership,” p. 17 , 1n Waston and Ebrey,
ed. Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society.

2 The exact year when the Qing government started to prohibit intermarriage of Manchu and Chinese is
unknown because no imperial edicts could be found at this point. Some scholars assume that the Qing
government might have issued a decree to prohibit Manchu-Chinese intermarriage between 1648 and 1665.
See, Ding Yizhuang, Manzu defunu shenghuo yu hunyin zhidu yanjiu (Research on life and Wage
patterns of Manchu women), pp. 323-331; Guo Songyi, Lunli yu shenghuo: Qingdai de hunyin guanxi
(Ethics and life: marital relations in Qing), p. 39. Since then, the government practiced the “partial
prohibition policy” until 1901, in which the intermarriage between Manchu men and Chinese women was
allowed. Regarding European experience in colonial Asia and their policies of prohibiting intermarriage,
see Ann L. Stoler, “Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Gender, Race, and Morality in Colonial Asia,”
in Joan Wallach Scott (ed.), Feminism and History, pp. 209-266.

114

Intermarriage in Qing society had certain distinctive features compared with the
European experience in colonial Asia.
First, in the Qing dynasty, intermarriage did not necessarily refer to the conjugal

relations of the people from different ethnic backgrounds. Instead, it meant the maniage

between banner people (qiren fix) and commoners (minren EA), or in other words,

Qing intermarriage referred to those marriages between different social and
administrative groups that were irrelevant to people’s ethnic background in terms of
biological inheritance.’ The complexity of Manchu ethnicity was determined by the
unique formations of Manchu people before and after the conquest. More than half of the
banner population was genealogically of Chinese descent. Because Han persons
registered in banners—the military and social organization that was originally mainly
composed by Jurchen/Manchu people—and joined Qing in the battles against Ming, they
became part of the Manchu population. Therefore, the marriage between different
divisions of banner, for example, between people in Chinese banners and people in
Manchu banners or Mongol banners was not considered as intermarriage, whereas the
marriage between banner people and Chinese commoners was called as “intermarriage,”
even if the people were originally of the same ethnic decent. Since the expressions of
“bannermen” and “Manchu” often overlapped, I use the term of “Manchu” in this chapter
as shorthand for all banner populations, regardless the ethnic divisions within the

banners.

 

3 See Chapter One for the question of ethnicity in China and the discussion on the issue of the Manchus
(manzu) and banner people (qiren). In Chinese tradition ethnicity is determined only by culture and is
irrelevant to one’s biological inheritance.

115

Second, the children of mixed European-Asian unions were considered neither
European nor Asian and caused social and legal problems due to confusion over their
ethnicity. Asian women were not allowed to officially marry European men and,
therefore, changing ethnic identities through intermarriage was out of question.‘ But in
the case of Manchu-Chinese intermarriage, women could easily change their ethnic
identities through marriage. A woman’s ethnicity was primarily determined by that of her
husband. For example, in most cases, if a Manchu woman married a Chinese man, she
would become Chinese; a Chinese woman who married a Manchu would become
Manchu. Children of bannermen and Chinese women were considered unambiguously
Manchu, whereas the children from a union of banner woman and Chinese man were
Chinese. Obviously, only female exogamy would matter to Manchu ethnicity in terms of
reducing the Manchu population. In other words, intermarriage in the Qing society
affected men and women differently—it would change only women’s ethnic identities,
not men’s—this was why the dyarchical policies on intermarriage applied, in which
intermarriage between Manchu men and Chinese women was tolerated but Manchu
women marrying Chinese men was prohibited.

This chapter has three parts. The first part analyzes the policies on intermarriage
between Manchus and Chinese during the Qing dynasty to see how the policies were
adjusted over time in order to address Manchu rulers’ political needs and how the
Manchu rulers set a double standard on gender distinction in the matters of intermarriage.

The second part examines some cases of intermarriage, primarily based on sources from

 

’ Regarding European experience in colonial Asia and their policies of prohibiting intermarriage, see Ann
L. Stoler, “Carnal Knowledge and lrnperial Power: Gender, Race, and Morality in Colonial Asia,” in Joan
Wallach Scott (ed.), Feminism and History, pp. 209-266.

116

archives. The court’s double-standard policies on intermarriage could be seen in reality—
bannermen marrying Chinese women was more common than banner women marrying
Chinese men. The last part of the chapter discusses how gender related to ethnicity in
Qing historical settings, what role Manchu women played in maintaining the ethnic
boundaries and in construction Manchu ethnicity, and, to what extent, the gendered
pattern in acculturation can be seen from the practice of intermarriage between Manchus

and Chinese.

1. Review of Qing policies on intermarriage

Intermarriage between the Manchus and Chinese began to be seen at the
beginning of the seventeenth century, before the Qing dynasty was established. Like
other policies that changed during the course of Qing period in order to accommodate the
Manchus to the new social environment after the conquest, the policies on intermarriage
were also adjusted as well according to the political and ethnic needs of the Manchus.

Before the conquest of 1644, intermarriage between the Manchus and Chinese
was more likely a political maneuver than a natural course based on cultural
amalgamation. Marriage between Manchu and Chinese was manipulated by Manchu
rulers for political purposes, for example, to buy support of the surrendered Ming
generals and officials, or to reward Manchu soldiers by giving them female captives.

According to archival records, it was a common practice among J urchen/Manchu5

 

5 The Manchu people were originally Jurchen tribes who lived in Manchuria area. The name “Manchu” was
a Huangtaiji’s invention and was officially adopted in 1635 as the name for all the people under his control,
including but not limited to Jurchen peOple. For more information about Jurchen and Manchu, see Chapter
One.

117

rulers to send imperial women to Chinese generals in order to win their cooperation on
the battlefield. Nurhaci, the great chief of Jurchen tribes and the Ming Commander in
Liaodong formally broke with the Ming in 1616 and established the Latter J in reign (r.
1616-1626). Before he attacked F ushun city (in today’s Liaoning Province) in 1618,
Nurhaci promised Li Yongfang, the Ming general defending the city, a Manchu women
from the imperial clan in marriage if he surrendered. When Li Yongfang surrendered
later as expected, Nurhaci sent a granddaughter to him.6 In 1619, Nurhaci took over
Kaiyuan city (in today’s Liaoning Province). He “gave Manchu women to Chinese
generals according to their ranks.”7 Tong Yangxing was a Chinese local elite in
Liaodong. In order to placate the ethnic conflicts in Liaodong area, Nurhaci selected a
Manchu woman from imperial clan for Tong Yangxing as his wife. Thus, Tong became
the son-in-law of Manchu imperial family.8

When Huangtaiji acceded to the throne in 1627, Tong Yangxing was appointed as
the general manager of Liaodong, in charge of all the Chinese affairs there.9 In 1632,
Huangtaiji took over Dalinghe. In order to buy the popular support of the Chinese,
Huangtaiji accepted Prince Yuetuo’s suggestion and assigned “one thousand Manchu
women to the surrendered Chinese officials and generals [to marry].” He also classified

these Chinese into groups according to their ranks and “the first-rank officials would be

 

6 Manwen laodang (Manchu old archives), p. 57; Qingshi goo (Draft of Qing history), vol. 231, p. 9323.
7 Manwen laodang (Manchu old archives), p. 102.

8 Qingshi gao (Draft of Qing history), vol. 231, p. 9327.

9 Qingshi gao (Draft of Qing history), vol. 214, p. 8908. Tong’s family was the most prominent Chinese
family in early Qing court. Tong Yanxing’s grandniece was the empress of the Shunzhi enrperor and the
biological mother of Kangxi Emperor. Because of the marriage tie with imperial family, Tong clan was
elevated from Chinese banner to Manchu banner, granted a Manchu surname, and thus became out and out
Manchus, except their Chinese blood—the most insignificant factor in defining one’s ethnic identities in
that specific circumstance. It supported Crossley’s argument (and other’s, as well) that the Eight Banner
system ignored considerations of descent and was purely cultural and political in scope. See, Orphan
Warrior: Three Manchu Generations and the End of the Qing World, “Introduction”.

118

given Manchu princes’ daughters as wives; the second-rank officials would be given
Manchu ministers’ daughters as wives; the soldiers would be given common banner
women or widows to marry.”10 Huangtaiji believed that only through intermarriage
between Chinese and Manchus, would he be able to placate the ethnic conflicts in the
areas he conquered and “since the Chinese generals and Manchu women lived together
and ate together, it would help these surrendered generals to forget their motherland.”I1

The cases of intermarriage above show an obvious bias on gender and class. Only
Manchu women were married out to Chinese men. These women, primarily from the
Manchu imperial clans or the families of Manchu officials, were granted as rewards to
those Chinese officials and generals who had made contributions to Manchu conquest of
China. They might be also married, as a diplomatic tool, to those who were potentially
important to Manchu conquest, in order to win them over to the Manchu side. Rather than
changing their ethnicity from Manchus to Chinese after marrying Chinese, these women
were not only maintained as member of Manchu banners, but also drew their husbands
over to the banners, and so that the Chinese males became ethnically Manchu through
marriage.

Another form of intermarriage before 1644 existed between bannermen and
female captives. Archives recorded that in 1621, Nurhaci gave 400 female captives as
rewards to 400 Chinese bannermen that were fighting in the battlefields.12 During the
period of Chongde (1636-1643), the Manchu troops attacked the Beijing suburbs and the

Shandong area. The captured Chinese women, cattle, or camels were granted to banner

 

'0 Da Qing Taizong shilu (Qing vertical records of Taizong), February in the 6’” year of Tiancong ( 1632),
l 1:5b-6a.

” Baqi wenjing (Collected works of Eight Banners), 25:3.

'2 Manwen laodang (Manchu old archives), p. 229.

119

leaders as gifts.13 In the decree of 1637, Huangtaiji said, “you gusai ejen (Manchu,
banner commanders) and nirujanggin (Manchu, company captains) should investigate
marital conditions of your soldiers. To those who were too poor to marry, you should
give them female captives as wives.”l4 In the following year (1638), Huangtaiji issued
another decree emphasizing that “in our country, among all the new and old Manchus, the
old Mongols, and the new and old Han-Chinese, those who are too poor to take wives . . .
should let one’s nirujanggin know. The nirujanggin should report to his gusai ejen, and
finally inform the relevant princes (Beile). The principle of our policy is—giving
[captured] women to those who were too poor to take wives.”15 In 1643, Huangtaiji
allotted 67 captured women to the soldiers in eight Manchu banners who did not have
wives. ‘6
Obviously, women in this form of intermarriage were of a very low social status.
They were not treated as human beings, but part of war booty to be distributed among
soldiers. The Manchu rulers granted female captives to bannermen to encourage them to
fight bravely in battlefields. Moreover, to help bannermen to find wives and establish
households was traditionally considered as the responsibility of J urchen/Manchu rulers to
their people. In the particular circumstances of the early seventeenth century, helping

banner soldiers establish families was not only helpfill to stabilize the society, but also

important to maintain the Manchu population. Women in this form of intermarriage came

 

'3 Shengiing Manwen Qingiun zhanbao (Battlefield report of Shengj ing), vol. 97, cited from Qingdai
dangan shiliao congbian (Collections of Qing archives), vol. 14, p. 7.

" Da Qing T aizong shilu (Qing vertical records of Taizong), September in the 2"" year of Chongde (1637).
38: 1 6b.

'5 Nei guoshiyuan dang (Archives of Inner historiography department), July 16 in the 3'", year of Chongde
(1638)

'6 Qingdai dangan shiliao congbian (Collections of Qing archives), vol. 14, p. 108.

120

from various ethnic backgrounds. As soon as they married bannermen, these women were
automatically registered in banners and became ethnically Manchu.

Two comments can be made on intermarriage before Manchu conquest of China:
first, women were tightly controlled by Manchu rulers and were used for their political or
ethnic needs through intermarriage. Second, compared with consideration of ethnicity,
class seemed to be a principal concern in the pre-conquest intermarriage. When women
were granted to either Chinese officials or the common banner soldiers, their social
identities (class) were more important than their ethnic identities, which, in fact, were
virtually ignored. Manchu rulers did not have much ethnic consciousness until they
moved to Chinese cultural environment after 1644.

In 1644, Manchu troops entered Beijing through Shanhai Pass and established the
Qing dynasty. Five years later in 1648, the Shunzhi emperor issued a decree encouraging
intermarriage between the Manchus and Han Chinese:

Our nation has brought order to the Central Plain and people under the Heaven are

as one family. Manchu and Han officials and commoners are all my children. To

promote a harmonious relation between these two peoples, there is no better way
than encouraging them to marry each other. From now on, those Manchu and Han
officials and commoners who want to join together by marriage, we should let
them go.17
Several days later, the emperor issued another decree on Manchu-Han intermarriage,
focused on the administrative formalities that intermarriage would go through:

I want to see a harmonious co-inhabitance of Manchu and Han so that I issued a

decree earlier to encourage intermarriage between these two people. Those

Manchu officials’ daughters who want to marry Han people should inform the

Personnel Department (hubu) . . . Among those common bannermen’s daughters

who want to marry Han people, if they have registered in Personnel Department,

they need to be approve by the Personnel Department; if they have not registered

in Personnel Department, the captain of the company (nirujanggin) they belong
to individually has the right to marry them out. As for Han officials’ daughters

 

'7 Da Qing Shizu shilu (Qing vertical records of Shizu), August in the 5'“ year of Shunzhi (1648), 40:1 1a.

121

who want to marry Manchus, they should inform the Personnel Department. [In

the case of] commoners’ daughters who want to marry Manchus, [it is]

unnecessary to make the report. The Manchu officials and common bannermen

were allowed to marry Han Chinese women only when these women were taken

as first wives [not concubines].18

The main reason that the Shunzhi emperor was so concerned over the issue of
intermarriage during the first years of Manchu conquest was related to the tension
between the Manchus and Han Chinese in the wake of the conquest. As the emperor said
in his decrees, he believed that the intermarriage would eliminate the conflicts and help to
establish a harmonious relation between the Manchus and Chinese. Based on this belief,
on the one hand, the emperor continued to grant imperial daughters to Chinese high
officials, including the sons of Wu Sangui, Geng Jimao, and Shang Kexi—the Ming
defectors who were rewarded with large and almost autonomous fiefs in the south, known
as Three Feudatories.l9 Shunzhi himself took a Chinese woman as concubine.20 On the
other hand, the emperor promoted intermarriage among the whole populations and
encouraged common banner women to marry Chinese commoners. The emperor also
allowed bannermen to marry Chinese women, but only on the case of serious maniage
(taking as wives, not concubines) in order to avoid arousing Chinese indignation.”

Obviously, all of these deeds reflected that the Shunzhi emperor regarded the

issue of Manchu-Han relations very seriously after the conquest. The emperor’s decrees

 

'3 Da Qing Shizu shilu (Qing vertical records of Shizu), August in the 5'“ year of Shunzhi (1648), 40: 14 a-
b.

” Daxueshi (tilt, grand secretariat) Feng Quan was granted Manchu general E-mao-tu-ba-tu-lu’s
daughter Na-lan as wife. See, Deng Zhicheng, Qing shijishi chubian (Miscellanies from reading Qing
poems); Wu Sangui’s son nrarried Huangtaiji’s the 14'” daughter; Geng Jirnao’s two sons nrarried Prince
Su-bu-tu’s daughter and Prince Yue-le’s daughter; Shang Kexi’s son married Prince Shuo-sai’s daughter.
See Qingshi gao (Draft of Qing history).

2° Qingshi gao (Draft of Qing history), vol. 214, p. 8910.

2' Da Qing Shizu shilu (Qing vertical records of Shizu), August in the 5th year of Shunzhi (1648), 40:14b.

122

in 1648 and the practice of encouraging intermarriage in the following years were
influenced by two factors and beliefs:

(1) In the first years after the conquest, Manchu rulers did not perceive the danger
of losing their ethnic identities or being sinicized. Even as late as the Kangxi period (r.
1662-1722), the emperors, and common banner people in general, actually did not have a
very strong consciousness of being Manchu in terms of ethnicity. In other words, they
saw the boundary of Manchu ethnicity as a flexible and negotiable one—a conception
that sprang the origins of the Manchus and their experiences in Liaodong where many
Chinese and other peoples were incorporated into Manchu banners, and thus, became
Manchus. Based on this understanding, the control over nuptiality and fertility of the
Manchus with Chinese seemed to be insignificant because descent alone would not
determine one’s ethnicity.

(2) Manchu rulers believed that to promote Manchu-Han intermarriage was the
most effective way of relaxing the tensions between these two peoples. Before they
entered China proper, the Manchus discriminated against Han Chinese in Liaodong and
did not allow Han people to marry the Manchus on an equal footing.22 After the conquest
in 1644, the Manchu rulers claimed that “there are no distinctions between Manchus and
Han”23 and pursued an ethnic-equality policy, in which Manchu-Han interman'iage

played an important part. Facing the self-evident ethnic discord in the wake of the

 

22 Most Chinese co-resided with Manchus in Liaodong were captives or refugees from Ming. They worked
for the Manchus as domestic slaves or agricultural laborers and were not allowed to marry their Manchu
masters by their own will, although sometimes Chinese women were sold or given to Manchu soldiers as
wives, concubines, or maids.

23 See Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, p. 873.

123

 

r"...

conquest, Manchu rulers hoped that new intermarriage policies would bring social
tranquility and multi-ethnic cooperation.

Surprisingly, the policy of intermarriage did not case the tension between the
Manchus and Chinese, as the Shunzhi emperor expected. On the contrary, it brought new
social unrest. While the Manchus might not have had a highly developed ethnic
consciousness, the Chinese had distinguished themselves from “barbarians” for more
than two thousand years. The new tension mainly came from the Chinese. In the same
year as the emperor issued his decree about Manchu-Han intermarriage, a rumor

developed in J iangnan (the south area of the lower reaches of the Yangzi River) saying

that “it is heard that the court will send Manchu women from Guanwai (9671, beyond the

Pass) to the South and marry them to our Chinese men. All humans under Heaven are in
one family; civilized Chinese and savage barbarians are kin.”24 In the spring of 1653,
rumor spread all over the Jiangnan area, “[The Manchu court] will drive Manchu women
out to marry Chinese men; Chinese women will be assigned to Manchu men. It is called
‘Manchu-Han intermarriage.’ The parents who have daughters are so worried that they
hastily marry out their daughters to whoever is Chinese [in order to avoid marrying
Manchus]. They do not care even about the man’s financial status. This is something that
has never happened since remote ancient times.”25 These records indicated how the
common people in the South understood the policy of Manchu-Han intermarriage and

how they reacted to it.

 

2’ Yao Tinglin, Linianji (Chronological records), in Qingdai riji huichao (Collections of dairies in Qing

Pynasty), p- 66.
5 Yao Tinglin, Linian ji (Chronological records), in Qingdai riii huichao (Collections of dairies in Qing

Dynasty), p.70.

124

Ironically, the outcome of the intermarriage policy was just the opposite of what
the Shunzhi emperor and other Manchu elite had wished. The failure came from
misconceptions. It was true that the Manchus had experiences of several decades at
dealing with the Chinese in Liaodong, the home region of Manchus. But they had not
been in contact with the people in China proper in a deeper level before the conquest.

Therefore, they were not fillly aware how the Chinese in the Central Plain (zhongyuan

“13%), and in the J iangnan area in particular, would differ from those they knew in

Liaodong, where Manchu-Chinese acculturation had already existed before the conquest.
Since Chinese in Liaodong had close economic and cultural contacts with the Manchus
while living together with them, they had been more or less Manchurized. At least, they
did not have a deep prejudice against the Manchus. When the Manchus, as the ruling
group, married their daughters to Liaodong Chinese, the latter would happily accept it as
an honor. However, to the Chinese in the Central Plain and the South, being a son-in-law
of “barbarian” was taken as an insult rather than as an honor because Chinese
traditionally considered all the non-Chinese as savages and exclusively looked down on
them.

Did the Shunzhi emperor rescind the policy after he saw the unexpected outcome?
It is unknown since no any records could be found. However, based on an imperial
decree in 1665, some scholars assumed that the policy of encouraging Manchu-Chinese

intermarriage was rescinded sometime before 1665 in order to relax the social unrest in

125

the wake of the opposition to the policy of intermarriage,26 or/and to avoid losing their
ethnic identities through intermarriage.27 In this year (1665), the Kangxi emperor replied
a memo from the Department of Justice regarding intermarriage in Ningguta area, saying
that “those Chinese refilgees in Ningguta who want to marry their daughters to
bannermen, should be allowed to do so.”28 Ding and Guo believe that the Kangxi’s
approval of commoner women marrying bannermen in Ningguta indicated that a ban on
the intermarriage must have existed there before 1665, otherwise, it would have been
unnecessary to make a special report to the emperor for approval. I am not sure whether
this assumption is tenable, considering that it is derived from the only decree issued to
Ningguta, a bleak and desolate place in the Northeast where criminals were sent, where
the Shunzhi decree might never have reached. Whether or not the Qing government
rescinded the decree is not a very significant issue. During the first years of the conquest
when the war between Manchus and Chinese was still going on and the society was in
turbulence, intermarriage was almost impossible even if the government encouraged
people to do so.

What IS significant is that the decree of 1665 revealed one principle that was
carried on in later imperial decrees regarding Manchu-Han intermarriage—only Chinese

women were allowed to marry bannermen, banner women could not marry Chinese men.

 

2" Ding Yizhuang, Manzu defimu shenghuo yu hunyin zhidu yanjiu (Research on life and maniage patterns
of Manchu women), p. 331. She believes that Qing government repealed the decree of 1648 sometime soon
after it had been issued. But, instead of making a public declaration, Qing government repealed the decree
quietly. Ding also points out the annuhnent was not in connection with the fear of being sinicized by
intermarriage, but with the social unrest in the wake of the policy of intermarriage.

27 Guo Songyi, Lunli yu shenghuo: Qingdai de hunyin guanxi (Ethics and life: marital relations in Qing), p.
39. He assumes that Shunzhi’s decree was repealed between 1662 and 1665. He believes that, in addition to
the purpose of relaxing social unrest, the annulment was also for the purpose of avoiding being sinicized as
some Manchu elite felt the threat.

2’ Da Qing Shengzu shilu (Qing vertical records of Shengzu), August in the 4"I year of Kangxi (1665),
16:10b.

126

This principle had profound and lasting significance. It was written in the decrees of

Qianlong and several imperial regulations on intermarriage during J iaqing period (1796-

1820).

The decree of the seventh year of Qianlong (1742) read:

All the commoner merchants in Heilongjiang must be controlled by Eight-banners
respectively. . . From now on, these commoner merchants are not allowed to
marry banner women or daughters of booi (bondservant). They are also not
allowed to buy or accept houses as pawns from banner people, or cultivate and
lease lands without permission.29

Another decree provided a more definitive statement:

Banner women are not allowed to marry commoner men. It has been practiced for
a long time. But we were not so serious about prohibiting the daughters of booi
marrying commoner men. . . From now on, regardless of classes and social status,
all banner women are prohibited from marrying commoner men. Those who
violate this regulation will be heavily punished.3O

The prohibition was written in Da Qing huidian shili (The collected institutes and

precedents of the Qing dynasty) as law. According to the regulation:

“Banner women were not allowed to marry commoner men (minren EA). If a
banner girl is engaged to a commoner male before going through the xiunu
selection, the matchmaker would be convicted and receive heavy punishment; if
the girl has already gone through the xiunu selection but not been chosen, the
matchmaker would be convicted and get light punishment. The commoner man
would be treated as the matchmaker. The girl would be expelled fi'om the banner

register, although this marriage would be approved (wanhun 5‘63). However,

bannermen could marry commoner women (minnu Rt). They were not only to

be allowed to marry minnu but also could get sub3slidies for wedding expenses, as
the same as if they marry Manchus or Mongols.”

 

2" 0Da Qing Gaozong shilu (Qing vertical records of Gaozong), March 1n the 7‘” year of Qianlong, 162: 17a.
30Qingdai sanxingfirdutong yamen Man Han wen dangan xuanbian (Selected collections on Manchu and

Han archives of three banner Vice-commanders 1n Qing), p. 127.

31Da Qing huidian shili (The collected institutes and precedents of the Qing dynasty), 756: 23a-b. Beginning

in 1724, bannermen were eligible to receive about ten taels stipends for “red affairs” (hongshi III) and

twenty taels for “white affairs” (baishi BI), i.e. weddings and funerals. See Mark Elliott, The Manchu
Way, p. 195.

127

Interviews of elderly Manchu women also confirm that the so-called prohibition
of Manchu-Chinese intermarriage actually only referred to the marriages between banner
women and commoner men. According to Hu Fuzhen, a Manchu woman born in 1917,
the Manchus were still reluctant to marry Chinese until the 1930s, but “it only means that
we never gave our girls [Manchu women] to Han, but men could take women from
outside [of banners].”32 Zhao Xiuying was born in 1916. She recalled, “in my time,
Manchu women did not want to marry Han. Even if you are willing to [marry Han], Han
did not dare to marry you. But it was not uncommon for Han woman to marry our
Manchus.”33

In sum, after the Shunzhi emperor issued that famous decree claiming that “Man-
Han are in one family,” the Qing government still pursued a policy prohibiting Manchu-
Chinese intermarriage. But it was not a “full-scale” prohibition, in terms of prohibiting
everyone in banners, regardless of gender, from marrying non-banner people
(commoners). Instead, it was a policy of partial prohibition on intermarriage based on
gender considerations. I believe that the “partial prohibition policy” reflected that the
Manchu rulers after Kangxi had started to be aware of the danger of losing their ethnic
ethnicity. Setting up rules on intermarriage between the Manchus and Chinese, or more
precisely, between banner women and commoner men, was a necessary measure to

provide bannermen more opportunities to find wives within banners, and it also kept the

absolute number of banner people from decreasing.

 

32 Ding Yizhuang, Zuihou dejiyi. p.75.
’3 Ibid., p. 184.

128

This “partial prohibition policy” remained in force until 1901 when Empress
Dowager Ci Xi (speaking through the Guangxu emperor) removed the ban on the
intermarriage between Manchu and Chinese:

I issue this decree on behalf of Dowager: under our great Qing, Manchus and

Chinese are equal. The court has never had racial discrimination. However,

during the first years of the Conquest, these two peoples differed so greatly in

customs and languages that they could not communicate and understand each
other. Therefore, Manchu and Han intermarriage was prohibited since then.

Today, [Manchu and Han] have had same values and shared common practice for

more than two hundred years. We should follow the direction of human

sensibilities and remove the ban on intermarriage . . . The only exception is that
xiunu must be selected from banners as the tradition. Han people should not be

involved. 34

2. Review and analysis of some intermarriage cases

After having discussed Qing policies about intermarriage between the Manchus
and Chinese, I will examine some specific cases to illustrate how these policies affected
people’s marital behaviors and how the intermarriage in reality reflected the double
standards Qing government based on the consideration of gender. The sources are
collected from about 4,500 cases in the Qianlong period (1736-1795) archives, including
archives of the Imperial Household Department (Neiwufu laiwen), archives of the
Department of Justice (Xingke tiben), and archives of Grand Council (Junjichufulu

zouzhe). 35

 

3’ Da Qing Dezong shilu (Qing vertical records of Dezong), December in the 27‘h year of Guangxu (1901),
492:9b.

35 I read the archives of Inrperial Household Department and archives of Grand Council in Beijing First
Archives Museum, and the archives of Justice Department and the archives of the Cabinet in Academia
Sinica, Taipei. I chose Qianlong reign as the focus because most of the policies about intermarriage that
reflected the double standard came forth during that period as the Manchus realized the danger of losing
their ethnic identities.

129

Forty-six cases of intermarriage have been found}6 Among these cases, 38 cases

involved bannermen who married commoner women. See the following table:

Table 3. Intermarriage between bannermen and Chinese women in the Qianlong Reign

(1736-1795)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Year Identity of the wife Identity of the Source Remark
husband
Wang shi, Wang Da’s Huang Tianyou, a Neiwufu Han
QL 8 daughter, a Han bannerman laiwen, bannerman
1 commoner in Beijing. under the Plain # 2111 married
White Banner. minnu
(Chinese
girl)
Chen shi, sister of Gao Xuan, a Han Neiwufu Han
2 QL 34 Chen Si, a bannerman under laiwen, bannerman
commoner. the Bordered Blue # 2127 married
Banner. minnu
Xiu Zhao shi, Xiu Xitai, a Han Neiwufu Han
3 daughter of Zhao bannerman under laiwen, bannerman
QL 57 Shuhe, a commoner the Plain Yellow # 2166 married
in Wanping County, Banner. minnu
Shuntian Prefecture.
Wang shi, Wang Da’s Bai-er-kou, a Neiwufil Manchu
QL 1 daughter, a Manchu laiwen, bannerman
4 commoner in Beijing. bannerman. # 21 1 I married
minnu
Liu shi, a commoner Qi-shi-liu, a Neiwufu Manchu
in Wanping County, Manchu bannerman laiwen, bannerman
5 QL 23 Shuntian Prefecture. under the Plain # 2145 married
Yellow Banner. minnu
Lian-er, a commoner Chuan-zhai, a Neiwufu Manchu
in Beijing, maid of Manchu bannerman laiwen, barmerman
6 QL 26 Zhang Zongtai. under the Plain Red # 2129 manied
Banner. minnu
(concubine)

 

 

3° The actual number of cases of intermarriage might be much more than what I report here because most of
my sources are collected from the “criminal and punishment sections (xing fa lei)” of Neiwufu laiwen—the
court reports, which only reflected those who somehow violated the law. Therefore, I assume that the
intermarriage during the Qianlong period (especially the intermarriage between bannermen and commoner
women) was rrrore popular than the table described.

130

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Year Identity of the wife Identity of the Source Remark
husband
Liu Da Niu, daughter Guang-de, a Junjichufulu Manchu
of Liu Bin, a Manchu bannerman zouzhe, O97— bannerman
7 QL 37 commoner in under the Bordered 0856 married
Wanping County, Blue Barmer. (microfilm) minnu
Shuntian Prefecture.
Wang shi, sister of De-xing, a Manchu Neiwufu Manchu
8 Wang Cheng—a bannerman under laiwen, bannerman
QL 39 commoner in the Bordered # 2131 married
Wanping County, Yellow Banner. minnu
Shuntian Prefecture.
Wu shi, daughter of Guan-yin-bao, a Kaiguo A member of
Wu Qiu—a local descendant of E-yi- zuoyun imperial clan
9 QL ? official. du. gongchen manied
Hang yigong minnu
jiapu,
“tangxiong
fang”
Li shi, daughter of Li Shu-chang, a Ji Xiaolan A member of
10 QL ? Shou—a government member of imperial wenji, vol. 1, imperial clan
official clan. p. 43 manied
minnu
Hou shi, daughter of ?, the second son of Neiwufu Booi
Hou Yirrring, a Chen Zheng—a laiwen, bannerman’s
11 QL 1 commoner. bannerman under # 2108 son married
the Bordered minnu
Yellow Banner
Booi.
He shi, daughter of Chang-fir, a Neiwufu Booi
He J ikong, a warehouseman laiwen, bannerrrran
12 QL 19 commoner in Wen’an under the Bordered # 2114 married
County. Yellow Banner minnu
Booi.
Sun shi, daughter of Bai Fushou, a Neiwufu Booi
Sun Qing, a bannerman under laiwen, bannerman
13 QL 26 commoner in Shunyi the Plain White # 2120 married
County. Banner Booi. minnu

 

131

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Year Identity of the wife Identity of the Source Remark
husband
Ma shi, sister of Ma Liu-shi-san, a Neiwufu Booi
Er, a commoner in lieutenant under the laiwen, bannerman
14 QL 28 Daxing County. Bordered Yellow # 2121 married
Banner Booi. minnu
Cui Wang shi, a Cui Changde, Han Neiwufir Booi
commoner in Daxing bannerman under laiwen, bannerman
15 QL 34 County. the Plain Yellow # 2127 married
Banner Booi. minnu
?, a commoner in De-lu, a bannerman Neiwufu Booi
Tianjin County. under the Plain laiwen, bannerman
16 QL 34 Yellow Banner # 2127 married
Booi. , minnu
Chen shi, daughter of San-1i, a bannerman Neiwufu Booi
Chen Da, a under the Plain laiwen, bannerman
17 QL 35 commoner in Yellow Banner # 2128 married
Wanping County, Booi. minnu
Shuntian Prefecture.
?, granddaughter of San-yin-bu, a Neiwufu Booi
Huang Da, a bannerman under laiwen, bannerman
18 QL 35 commoner. the Plain White # 2128 married
Banner Booi. minnu
Yao shi, daughter of A-shi-ge, a Neiwufu Booi
Yao Cheng, a lieutenant under the laiwen, bannerman
19 QL 37 commoner in Yuanhe Plain White Banner # 2130 married
County, Suzhou Booi. minnu
Prefecture.
Meng Sanjie, Ming-tai, son of Neiwufu Booi
daughter of Meng Ma-sheng—a laiwen, bannerman’s
20 QL 37 Lao-er, a commoner bannerman under # 2129 son married
in J ing Prefeture. the Plain Yellow minnu
Banner Booi.
Ma shi, daughter of Li San-er, a Neiwufu Booi
Ma Chenglin, a coppersmith under laiwen, bannerman
21 QL 38 commoner in Daxing the Plain White # 2130 married
County. Banner Booi. minnu
Wang shi, a Zhuan-tou, a grave- Neiwufu Booi
commoner in Daxing guard under the laiwen, barmerman
22 QL 38 County. Bordered Yellow # 2130 married
Banner Booi. minnu

 

 

 

 

 

 

132

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Year Identity of the wife Identity of the Source Remark
husband
Sun shi, a commoner Guo Xing-a, a Neiwufu Booi
in Daxing County. grave-guard under laiwen, bannerman
23 QL 42 the Bordered # 2134 married
Yellow Banner minnu
Booi.
Li shi, daughter of Li Xu Shi-er, a Neiwufir Booi
Lao-er, a commoner stonemason under laiwen, bannerman
24 QL 42 in Daxing County. the Bordered # 2134. married
Yellow Banner minnu
Booi.
Shen shi, sister of Fang-hen, a Han Neiwufu Booi
Shen Zhong, a “idler” under the laiwen, bannerman
25 QL 43 commoner in Zhuo Plain White Banner # 2137 married
Prefecture. Booi. ' minnu
Wang shi, sister of Guan-liang, a Neiwufu Booi
Wang Youfir, a bannerman under laiwen, bannerman
26 QL 43 commoner in the Plain Yellow # 2137 manied
Wanping County, Banner Booi. minnu
Shuntian Prefecture.
Wang shi, sister of De-chang, a grave- Neiwufu Booi
Wang Youfu, a guard under the laiwen, bannerman
27 QL 43 commoner in Plain White Banner # 2137 married
Wanping County, Booi. minnu
Shuntian Prefecture.
Zhang shi, a A-ke-dun, a grave- Neiwufu Booi
commoner in Tong guard under the laiwen, bannerman
28 QL 43 Prefecture. Plain Yellow # 2139 married
Banner Booi. minnu
Li shi, daughter of Li Yong-fir, a grave- Neiwufu Booi
Jiu, a commoner in guard under the laiwen, bannerman
29 QL 43 Wanping County, Plain Yellow # 2139 married
Shuntian Prefecture. Banner Booi minnu
Qin shi, a commoner Fu-xi, a copyist Neiwufu Booi
in Wanping County, under the Bordered laiwen, bannerman
3O QL44 Shuntian Prefecture. Yellow Banner # 2141 married
Booi. minnu

 

 

 

 

 

 

133

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Year Identity of the wife Identity of the Source Remark
husband
Wang shi, sister of Tian-de, a corporal Neiwufu Booi
Wang Fang, a under the Plain laiwen, bannerman
31 QL 46 commoner in Yellow Banner # 2145 manied
Wanping County, Booi. minnu
Shuntian Prefecture.
Liu shi, a commoner Qiu Shuanzhu, a Neiwufu Booi
in Wanping County, bannerman under laiwen, bannerman
32 QL 46 Shuntian Prefecture. the Plain White # 2145 married
Banner Booi. minnu
Gao Pan shi, sister of Gao Deshou, a Neiwufu Booi
Pan Yuxi, a grave-guard under laiwen, bannerman
33 QL 46 commoner in the Plain Yellow # 2147 married
Wanping County, Banner Booi. minnu
Shuntian Prefecture.
Qi-er’s mother, a Ba-ge, an “idler” Neiwufu Booi
commoner in under the Bordered laiwen, bannerman
34 QL 47 Wanping County, Yellow Banner # 2148 married
Shuntian Prefecture. Booi. minnu
Geng shi, a San-ge, a craftsman Neiwufu Booi
commoner in Daxing under the Plain laiwen, bannerman
35 QL 47 County. White Banner Booi. # 2148 married
minnu
Zhou shi, daughter of Ba-shi, a lieutenant Neiwufu Booi
Zhou Gouzi, a under the Plain laiwen, bannerman
36 QL 50 commoner in Yellow Banner # 2151 married
Wanping County, Booi minnu
Shuntian Prefecture.
Liu shi, daughter of Chang-bao, a Neiwufu Booi
Liu De, a commoner grave-guard under laiwen, bannerman
37 QL 53 in Wanping County, the Plain White # 2164 married
Shuntian Prefecture. Banner Booi. minnu
Li shi, daughter of Li Qing-Cheng, Han Neiwufu Booi
Ming, a commoner in bannerman under laiwen, bannerman
38 QL 57 Daxing County. the Plain Yellow # 2166 manied
Banner Booi. minnu

 

 

 

 

 

 

134

 

Among those bannermen who married commoner women, some were Manchus
(cases #4 to #10), some Han Chinese (cases #1, 2, and 3), and some Booi (bondservants,
the majority of cases)”; from the perspective of class, some were banner officials (# 14,
19, 31, 36), two from the Manchu imperial clan (# 9, 10), and most were common
bannermen. Therefore, it would be safe to say that the intermarriage between bannermen
and commoner women in the 18th century was not an exception. Moreover, since none of
the bannermen from the cases above was punished for marrying commoner women, it is
apparent that the intermarriage between bannermen and commoner women was legally
permitted.

In contrast with the common practice of bannermen marrying commoner women,
the intermarriage between banner women and commoner men was very rare. From the
archives and other fragmentary documents, only ten cases of this category of
intermarriage have been found as the following:

Table 4. Intermarriage between Chinese men and banner women in the Qianlong reign
(1736-1 795)

 

 

 

Year Identity of the wife Identity of the Source Remark
husband
Han Bao-dian, Han Weng Guang-lin, a Qingdai Han banner
1 QL ? banner women under Chinese Juren guige shiren woman
the Plain Blue (# A, a degree in zhenglue, married
Banner. . . vol. 4. minren
exammatlon system)
in Renhe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

37 It was very hard to define booi’s ethnic background. They originally formed by Manchu, Mongol,
Korean, and Chinese captives and refugees. They married each other without consciousness of ethnic
background within the booi group and nrarried with other people outside booi, such as the Manchus,
Mongols, and Chinese bannermen/women. Many booi women were chosen as imperial concubine through
xiunu selection. For more inforrmtion about Booi, see Qi Meiqin, Qingdia neiwufl: (The Department of
Imperial Household in the Qing dynasty) and Spence, Ts 'ao Yin and the K 'ang-hsi Emperor, Bondservant
and Master.

135

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Year Identity of the wife Identity of the Source Remark
husband
Li shi, daughter of Li Ji Ming, a Jingcheng Han
QL ? Wei-guo—a Han commoner in Jishijiapu, bannerman’s
bannerman. Jingcheng. the 14’” daughter
generation. married
minren
J iang shi, daughter of J i Ru-kuan, a Jingcheng Han
J iang Wei-xu—a Han Chinese scholar in Jishijiapu, bannerman’s
QL ? bannerman under the J ingcheng. the 15th daughter
Bordered White generation. married
Banner. minren
Yin shi, widow of Zhang Mingyang, a Neiwufu Manchu
Gu-lu-dai. Chinese commoner. laiwen bannerman’s
KX 48 #2109, widow
married
minren
Hu shi, niece of Tong Yang Ting-dong, a Neiwufu Han
Bao-zhu—a Han commoner in laiwen, bannerman’s
QL 29 bannerman under the Shanxi. # 2125 niece married
Plain White Banner. minren (as
concubine)
Niu-er, daughter of Son of Zhao Ba, a Han
Gao Xuan-zhi—a commoner in Neiwufu bannerman’s
QL 34 corporal (lingcui) Dong’an County. laiwen, daughter
under the Han # 2127 married
Bordered Blue minren
Banner.
Ning-zhu, daughter Wang Chaochen, booi’s
of Chang-chun—a son of Wang Neiwufii daughter
QL 2 bannerman under the meing— a laiwen, married
Plain White Banner commoner in # 2109 minren
booi. Yongping
Prefecture.
Xing shi, sister of Le Yun-hui, an Neiwufu booi’s sister
Xing Quan-bao—a apprentice in laiwen, married
QL 31 bannerman under the “money store” in # 2124 minren
Plain White Banner Beijing.
booi

 

 

 

 

 

136

 

 

 

 

 

Year Identity of the wife Identity of the Source Remark
husband
Li shi, sister of Ming- Luo Yongxiang, a Neiwufu booi’s sister
9 fu—a bannerman commoner. laiwen, married
QL 44 under the Plain White # 2143 minren
Banner booi.
Da-niu, daughter of Guo San, a Neiwufu booi’s
QL 50 Zhang Baisui—a commoner. laiwen, daughter
10 bannerman under the # 2151 married
Plain White Banner minren
booi

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the table, the first three items were collected from various historical documents
and genealogies. The other seven cases were the only ones that have been found from the
thousands of pieces archives during the Qianlong reign, a sharp contrast with many cases
of bannermen marrying commoner women that were frequently seen in those archives.
This contrast indicates that the prohibition on banner women marrying commoner men
was taken seriously while the intermarriage between bannermen and commoner women
was tolerated.

In addition to the archival records, three literary works provided some
illuminating sources about Manchu-Han intermarriage. The first one was the song
“Eating crabs” in the Youth Book, which was popular in Beijing area between the
Qianlong and Guangxu period (18th and 19th centuries). The song told of two cases of

mixed Manchu-Chinese marriages, both were Chinese women manied Manchu

137

 

bannermen. 38

Once there was a young gentleman—don’t know his clan name,

Don’t even know what he was called or what man was he,

Don’t know if he was Manchu, Mongol, or Han martial man,

Much less what banner or what company,

He’d live in a village for two years and a half

When he took a wife from a Chinese family of the village.

He didn’t ask the surname of the bride’s side or her pedigree;

He just up and married her.

Now this beauty was clever and sharp, and she had a way with words as well,
And before six months were up she learned to speak Manchu.

She was a lively women, too, and fond of jokes;

Soon she became half-Manchu, half-Han “wildwoman.”39

In the text, it says that the wife learned to speak Manchu once she married, which
suggested she married into a Manchu, not a Mongol or Chinese banner household. The
song posed question of the mixed Manchu-Chinese maniage, which indicated that it was
not uncommon, and certainly not against the law for a bannerman to take a Chinese wife.

In the late 19805, some Chinese folklorists collected about 200 pieces of Manchu
folk songs, in which many touched upon the issue of Manchu-Chinese intermarriage. One
of the songs described how a Manchu farme changed from rejecting their Chinese
daughter-in-law to finally accepting her:

Sa-qi-ma, du-ri-bo,40 they are all thrown on the floor.

Gourd ladle is cast away, dinning table is turned over,

Disturbances arise in our family.
Father is yelling, mother is complaining,

 

’8 The story was written by an anonymous author. See Guan Dedong ed., Zidishu congchao (Collections of
youth books), “Pangxie duan-er (Eating crabs).” p. 772. There are four figures in the story—a-ge (a young
Manchu bannerman) and jia-ren (his Chinese wife); a servant girl, and the Auntie. The “Auntie” was
originally a Chinese because she had a pair of bound feet and a typical Chinese name. Later she married a
bannerman. In the story, the author described that she dressed up and lived in a Manchu way and behaved
as a Manchu. I think it was a very good evidence to see how possibly a Chinese woman was
“Manchurized” after she married a Manchu. Her sister—jia-ren rrrarried a bannerman as well. The story
revealed that the intermarriage between Chinese women and bannermen was not uncommon.

3’ I used the translation of Mark Elliott (with a few changes). See Elliott, “The ‘Eating Crabs’ Youth
Books,” p. 272, in Susan Mann and Yu-yin Cheng, ed. Under Confircian Eyes: Writings on Gender in
Chinese History, pp. 263-281.

” Sa-qi-ma, du-ri-bo are two kinds of most popular Manchu food during the Qing dynasty. Sa-qi-ma is still
popular in Beijing today while du-ri-bo has been lost.

138

Because my elder brother took a Nikon4| girl as wife.

Her feet are small, her ankle is deformed,

She coils her hair behind the head as a bun.42

She doesn’t knows how to husk rice, only knows how to grind wheat.
She enjoys spinning and weaving at her leisure.

The spinning wheel is buzzing all the time,

There come out silks and satins.

She makes a shirt for father-in-law and a jacket for mother-in-law.
Wearing it, father-in-law is happy and mother-in-law feels satisfied,
They both praise my sister-in-law for her skills,

They never called her Nikon since then.43

Another song was about a Manchu girl who reluctantly declined the love of a
Chinese young man because of the prohibition of Manchu-Chinese intermarriage:

Yi-er-gen, yi-er-gen,44 I know your heart by your song.

It is not true that ge-ge (refer to herself) doesn’t love you“,

But the rule does not allow me to marry a commoner,

Yi-er-gen, yi-er-gen, you may know how ruthless our clan elder is,

He will strangle me [if I marry you],

His arrow will pierce through your chest [if you marry me].

Yi-er-gen, yi-er-gen, please shut up your mouth and stop singing,

The songs make my heart restless, the songs make my heart restless.46

These songs confirm Qing “partial prohibition policy” on intermarriage, in which
banner women, the women from Manchu banners in particular, were prohibited from
marrying commoners while bannermen taking commoner wives/concubines was
tolerated. These songs also confirmed what the elderly Manchu women said in their

interviews that the so-called prohibition of Manchu-Chinese intermarriage actually only

referred to the marriages between banner women and commoner men.

3. Interpreting the pattern of Manchu-Chinese intermarriage

 

" This was a derogatory term for Chinese by Manchus.

‘2 This was a typical hairstyle of married Chinese women. Manchu women usually wrapped their hair in a
triangular pattern around a wooden ivory or metal fillet fastened behind the head.

’3 Manzu mingeji (Collections of Manchu folk songs), ed. by Bo Dagong, p. 63.

“ A Manchu term to address commoner men.

’5 Ge-ge (1515, pronounces in the raising tune in Chinese) is the term to addressManchu young girls.

’6 Bo Dagong, ed. Manzu mingeji (Collections of Manchu folk songs), p. 136.

139

From the late 17th to the early 20’h century, the Qing court pursued a policy of
partial prohibition of Manchu-Chinese intermarriage. What can we learn from the court
policy and people’s marital behavior in their real lives? How should we understand the
policy and reality featured by gender distinction? What was the women’s role in
construction of Manchu ethnicity and how different was it from men’s?

First, the pattern of Manchu-Chinese intermarriage reflected the different
positions of bannermen and banner women in the society and the different levels at which
they accepted Chinese values and culture. As noted in Chapter One, after the Manchu
conquest, the Qing court practiced a policy of separation of residency both in Beijing and
other ganison cities.47 The separated residence pattern confined women to the closed
banner communities and they could had very little contact with people other than their
own. Banner women might have to deal with Chinese peddlers to buy goods for daily
use, and some Manchu households might have Chinese servants. However, this kind of
contact could only provide banner women with a smattering of knowledge about Chinese
people and culture. Moreover, since women were not directly involved in the kind of
politics usually needed to deal with Chinese officials, the Qing court did not ask them to
learn Chinese or to adjust to the new cultural environment, as the bannermen had to do.

Bannermen, by contrast, had many opportunities for contact with non-banner
populations. Under the dyarchical system, as the member of ruling ethnic group,
bannermen occupied various political, administrative, and military positions in the Qing

government. Although they lived in Manchu cities, they worked together with Chinese

 

’7 For the ethnic tension, see Mark Elliott, The Manchu Way, pp. 98-100; Frederick Wakeman, Great
Enterprise, p. 477. For more information about the separation of residency, see Chapter One of this
dissertation.

140

officials and scholars, sharing power with Chinese who also served the Manchu court.
Moreover, since the Manchus wished to be seen as legitimate rulers who had won the
Mandate of Heaven to rule China, they had to compromise with Chinese culture in many
ways, adopting Chinese ideas and values that might be conflict with their own traditions.
In order to control China and win popular support from the Chinese, the Manchu rulers
showed great interests in Confucianism “to publicly demonstrate to their Chinese subjects
their benignity and refinement.”48 This cultural climate provided more opportunities for
bannermen to learn Chinese culture and accepted Chinese values.

The different level of access to Chinese society determined bannermen and
women’s attitude to the intermarriage with the Chinese. Being influenced by Confucian
ideal of gender relationships, bannermen might feel Chinese women’s characters closer to
their expectation—subordinate to husband, obedient to parents-in-law, dependent, and
not strong-willed. A bannerman might also enjoy the sexual monopoly of his wife during
her entire lifetime, either before the marriage, during the marriage, or after his death. At
the same time, bannermen accepted Confucian aesthetic view and felt Chinese women
were attractive and seductive (or at least acceptable) in outward appearance—they were
pale, willowy, and with a pair of tiny feet that made men felt pity and be induced to take
care of them. All these characteristics of Chinese women, both physically and mentally,
contrasted sharply with those of Manchu women, who featured vigorous, strong,
aggressive, unrestrained attitudes, and unbound feet. As city-dwelling bannermen were

”49

gradually losing their “manly virtue and getting “soft,” those masculine characters of

 

’8 Tien Ju-k’ang, Male Anxiety and Female Chastity, p. 126.

’9 “Manly virtue” refers to bannermen’s skills of riding, shooting with a bow and arrow, living a simple and
unpretentious life, like what their forefathers had before the conquest. Philip Kuhn considers the Han
decadence as the “theft of their [bannermen] virtue.” See, Soulstealers, p. 226.

141

Manchu women would not be much appreciated. In sum, by the Qianlong reign,
bannermen were generally quite Confucianized and the cultural distinction between
bannermen and commoners was fading fast. Acculturation made intermarriage possible.
When bannermen married Chinese women, they did not feel much concern over women’s
ethnic identity, at least, ethnicity was not the most important factor to be considered.

The ethnic picture looked very different from a banner woman’s perspective since
banner women were confined in a relatively closed community, where ethnic identities
were more easily maintained and passed on.50 They had little opportunity to know
Chinese people and culture on a deeper level, so banner women had always considered
Chinese men as “others” or “strangers,” and therefore, felt insecure about marrying them.
From Ding Yizhuang’s interviews of Ms. Hu Fuzhen, an elderly Manchu women in
Beijing who had manied a Han Chinese, we may see that ”prejudice against Chinese men
still existed even in 1930s. When Ms. Hu’s mother heard that someone had introduced a
Chinese man to her 26-year-old daughter, she initially wanted to turn down this proposal.
She said, “He is an outsider. We don’t know anything about his background. Who knows
whether he already has a wife—Han people usually do like that. I am afraid that he came
here to deceive us.” Later, after she took a look at her prospective son-in-law, she
complained, “He is not like us. His skin looks very dark.” However, Ms. Hu finally
married this Chinese man since she was not young anymore and also, as Ms. Hu said
herself, “I did not care about his ethnicity at that time because the banner people were all

running around here and there away from Japanese troops. It was hard to find a husband

 

5° This situation had continued until the mid-20th century when banner people still lived together as
neighbors. See, Ding Yizhuang, Zuihou dejiyi: shiliu wei qiren fimu de koushu Iishi (The last memories:
the oral history of 16 Manchu women). p. 15.

142

”5' Another interview shows the discomfort

with too many considerations on his ethnicity.
that Manchu girls felt when they married into Chinese families. Ms. Zhao Xiuying, who
was born in 1916, said that her younger sister married into a Chinese household where
she had been often scolded and insulted. (Perhaps because she did not know how to
behave like a good daughter-in-law by Chinese standards?) She suffered during all her
lifetime and never enjoyed even one single day. Ms. Zhao concluded, “That was because
she married a Chinese. I have never been scolded like that because I married a
Manchu.”52 Another Manchu woman, Ms. Bai Huimin said, “If you manied a Han
Chinese, the whole [banner community] will look down on you.”53 Unlike bannermen
who might marry without any stress over their wives’ ethnic background, women first
considered whether a future husband was registered in banner.54 Most of the women in
the interview were born in the early 20’h century. Their stories reveal that the misgivings
and prejudice against Han Chinese among banner women even continued until 1930s. By
extension, we may imagine how banner women perceived Chinese men in the 17th and
18th centuries.

In addition to the different level of acculturation between men and women, there
were some pragmatic reasons were also responsible for the gendered imbalance of
intermarriage. Only when the intermarriage benefited both parties, or at least did not hurt

their interests, could it be accomplished. In the following paragraphs, I will compare and

contrast the situation of the marriage between bannermen and Chinese women with that

 

5' Ding Yizhuang, Zuihou dejiyi, pp. 68-69.
’2 Ibid., p. 183.
’3 Ibid., p. 203.
5‘ Ibid., p. 218.

143

of intermarriage between banner women and Chinese men to see why bannermen likely
married Chinese women, while banner women were reluctant to marry Chinese.

The Manchus, like Han Chinese, followed a patrilineal tradition. Once a man
married, the wife joined the man’s family and changed her last name as well as the
banner she had belonged to before she married. If the woman were from a commoner’s
family, marrying a bannerman meant changing her ethnicity from Chinese to Manchu and
then she could enjoy all the privileges banner women were granted. The children from
the intermarriage of Manchu men and Chinese women were considered Manchu.55
Obviously, the intermarriage between bannermen and Chinese women did not change the
ethnic identities of the husband and his family. Or in other words, it would not blur the
ethnic boundaries, and therefore, would not threaten Manchu ethnic identity. On the
contrary, intermarriage helped bannermen to find wives when few marriageable banner
women were available and, therefore, to maintain banner population, which was
beneficial to Manchu ethnic interests.

Some scholars have already noticed that there were fewer banner women than
bannermen. After computerizing the statistic of Qing imperial men and women, J arnes
Lee, Wang Feng, and Cameron Campbell came to conclusion that infanticide of girl
babies was responsible for the imbalance. Their research reveals that the ratio of male to
female infants were 109 to 100 at the birth. But the mortality of infant girls within the

first 24 hours of birth was ten times of the mortality of infant boys. Lee and Wang believe

 

5’ Many exanrples from interviews of elderly Manchu women demonstrate that it was not uncorrrrnon that
bannermen married Chinese women and once a woman married into a Manchu family, she became a
Manchu. See, Ding Yizhuang, Zuihou dejiyi, p. 93, 181, 197, 202; Also the tape records of interview by
Ding Yizhuang on July 25, 2000.

144

that among every ten newborn baby girls at least one was killed.56 Thus, the infanticide
might cause the gender imbalance and the shortage of banner women available in

l.57 The tradition of that banner women married in a relatively late age or

maniage poo
stayed unmanied in their natal families also made difficult for bannermen to find
marriageable women.58 This imbalance pushed bannermen to look for wives beyond the
banner communities.

From the perspective of a Chinese woman, marrying a man in banner might be a

profitable choice. The main advantages included:

(1) Financial security. In Qing, all the men in banners and their families were privileged

people and “ate the emperor’s rice” (chi huang liang 025E). The state saw to the

material needs of all banner soldiers and their families and dispensed to them a
regular allowance of grain/cash and housing. The standard of living in a banner
family was well above that in the average Chinese household, at least in the first half
of the Qing dynasty.59 While many Chinese civilians were eager to enter the banners
under various excuses, Chinese women joined the banners through marriage. The
financial security would continue even after her husband died. A bannerman’s widow

did not face the same sort of terrible uncertainty faced by the women from a Han

 

5" James Lee, Wang F eng, and Cameron Campbell, “Lianzhong butong de siwang xianzhi jizhi—huangzu
renkou zhong de yinger he ertong siwanglu (Infant and child mortality among Qing nobility: implications
for two types of positive checks), p. 40, 43; in Qingdai huangzu renkou xingwei he shehui huanjing (The
population behaviors and social environment of Qing nobility), ed. by James Lee and Guo Songyi, pp. 39-
59.

57 Lee and Wang’s research is based on the data of Yu die (Imperial genealogy). I am not sure, to what
extent, these data reflected the imbalance of the whole banner population, not just limited the imperial
family and nobilities.

’8 See Chapter Two of this dissertation for more information about this issue.

59 For a full description of the material support to banner families, see Mark Elliott, The Manchu Way,
Chapter Four, “The Iron Rice Bowl of Banner Privilege.” pp. 191-197.

145

families. She could enjoy her husband’s pension (one-half his last salary) at least for
one year, or until she remarried."O

(2) Benefit to children. In addition to considering the financial security for themselves,
women were usually concerned for their children. The children from the marriage of
Manchu men and Chinese women were considered Manchu. As adults, the children
would enjoy various privileges that were only granted to banner people, which
included, the legal privileges, educational privileges, and occupational privileges.61
Making a secure future for children might be one of the most important
considerations when a Chinese woman married a bannerman.

(3) Authority in the household. In a Manchu household, it was the wife who usually
became the head of the household and controlled the husband.62 In households where
a mother-in-law was not present, the wife had authority in the family from very
beginning of the marriage. It was known that most bannermen left household matters
to women. In many literary works, the stereotypy of a-ge (young bannerman) was
generally dull and passive. In “Eating crabs” Youth Book, the Chinese wife was
described as a “quick-tempered, sharp-tongued, domineering” figure, while her
Manchu husband is “meek, hardly speaks, and is slow to react when the trouble with
the crabs begins.” His only response once his wife has finished cursing him is to sit,
“quiet as a mute, without making a sound.”63 The possibility of being a dominant

figure in household might draw, at least, some Chinese women to banner families.

 

6° See Chapter three of this dissertation for details.

6' For more information about bannermen’s privileges, see Mark Elliott, The Manchu Way, Chapter Four,
“The Iron Rice Bowl of Banner Privilege.” pp. 197-207.

62 For more information about banner women’s position in family, see Chapter Two of this dissertation.
6’ Mark Elliott, “The ‘Eating Crabs’ Youth Book,” in Under Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in
Chinese History, ed. by Susan Mann and Yu-yin Cheng, p. 268.

146

By contrast, if a banner woman married a Chinese, she would lose many
advantages. She would be expelled from the banner and became a commoner. All the
privileges that banner people enjoyed would vanish with the marriage. The children of
Chinese men and Manchu women were considered Chinese. They would not enjoy any
privileges for their half-Manchu blood. Moreover, since banner women lived in a
relatively isolated community, they knew little about Chinese customs and etiquette,
making it more difficult for them to marry into a Chinese household. The interviews by

Ding Yizhuang reveal that even if the Qing court allowed banner women to marry

 

Chinese men, few women wished to do so, because they did not feel secure in marrying
anyone outside the banners."4 The language barrier might be another negative factor for
intermarriage between banner women and Chinese men. According to “Eating crabs”
Youth Book, in the Qianlong period, the Manchu language was spoken in banner
households. Bannerrnen might speak Chinese when they were at work but speak Manchu
at home. Therefore, it was quite possible that most Manchu women could not speak
Chinese fluently, at least by the Qianlong period. However, the language barrier did not
exist if the intermarriage accomplished between Chinese men and the banner women
from Han banners. No doubt language is one factor why intermarriage of banner women
and Chinese men was more prevalent among Han banners than that among Manchu or
Mongol banners.

Most Chinese men would not marry barmer women even if there were no law to
forbid it. Chinese men might feel uncomfortable with banner women’s flat and big feet;

they might dislike banner women’s unrestrained personalities; they might also be

 

6‘ See, Ding Yizhuang, Zuihou dejiyi, p. 68, 75, 202-203, 218.

147

concerned with the issue of virginity, because in Manchu society female virginity was not
a major issue.65 Taking a wife from the banners would bring no benefit to the man and his
family and might well result in cultural conflicts.

In sum, the pattern of Manchu-Chinese intermaniage not only reflected the
Manchu rulers’ consideration on ethnic security, which female exogarny would threaten
ethnic identity, but also reflected the different levels at which bannermen and women
accepted Chinese values. The evidences of how men and women perceived intermarriage,
as I mentioned above, indicate that banner women changed more slowly than bannermen

in the process of acculturation.

Conclusion

In any multi-ethnic society, interrnaniage between different peoples is one of the
most effective ways to erase the ethnic boundaries. Some extent of acculturation is the
prerequisite for intermarriage. Qing society was not an exception. Manchu-Chinese
intermarriage occurred over the time as the evidence of acculturation. However,
intermarriage for the most of the Qing dynasty remained uncommon and had not become
popular until as late as 1960s, which indicated that acculturation was a long process and
banner people’s ethnic consciousness could exist continually long after the banner system
abolished.

Throughout the Qing dynasty, the Manchu rulers adjusted the policies of
intermarriage according to their political and ethnic needs. The control of Manchu males
over Manchu women’s sexuality and nuptiality was the only way to keep the women (and

their children) in banners and therefore maintain the Manchu population at a certain level.

 

65 For more information about the issue of virginity and gender relations, see Chapter Five.

148

Moreover, keeping women in banners guaranteed that most bannermen would be able to
find marriage partners with those who shared many cultural similarities and, as a result,
helped to slow down bannermen’s steps in the process of acculturation and also help to
pass Manchu traditions from generation to generation through individual households.

Banner women changed more slowly in the process of acculturation. Therefore,
they were more reluctant to marry Chinese. Furthermore, government law prohibited
them from doing so until the early 20th century. On the one hand, the position of women
in the process of acculturation helped to shape the pattern of Manchu-Chinese
intermarriage, in which bannermen marrying Chinese women was more prevalent than
that banner women marrying Chinese men. On the other hand, the pattern of
intermarriage in turn determined the acculturation as a gendered formation. When a
bannerman married a Chinese woman, he would be influenced by the Chinese life style
even within the household. To men, the family was a place where two cultures adapted to
each other, while to women who did not marry Chinese, family was a much safer place,
in which the old tradition and habits could be easily maintained.

After the Guangxu emperor issued the decree lifting the ban in 1901,
intermarriage became more common than it had been in the 18th and 19th centuries. This
was because, on the one hand, banner people’s living condition had deteriorated and their
social status declined, beginning in the late nineteenth century. Especially after Qing
government was overthrown, banner people had to have a pragmatic attitude toward their
daughters’ marriages. They reluctantly married them out without being overly concerned
about their future son-in-law’s ethnic background. On the other hand, the intermarriage

became more popular was the result of acculturation between the Manchus and Chinese

149

over the 268 years when these two peoples co-existed under one regime. However, the

ethnic consciousness still influenced people’s choices until as late as 1960s.

150

Chapter Five: Gender Relations and Sexuality
The Manchu traditions of sexuality were very different from those of the Chinese.

For example, casual sociality between different sexes was common among the Manchus,

while in Chinese society, the rule of “separation of sexes” ($tl§§$§€) was even

applied among family members.1 Sexual relations between singlefimen and women was

”-7fiflp.’ *.~.aka_n_- -—-

tolerated (though not encouraged) by the Manchus, while women who committed sexual

 

._...-_..-.. .

 

ha-—

transgressions would be severely punished according to Chinese tradition. Manchu men

Wflfimwwu ' "‘"'

did not mind marrying a woman who was not a virgin, while female virginity was a
significant issue in Chinese society where female premarital sex was considered immoral
and men’s life-long sexual monopoly over women was emphasized.

After the Manchus conquered China, they gradually accepted the Chinese values
regarding sexuality. Men started to be concerned about whether their bride was a virgin,
which determined how much bride-price they would pay. Accordingly, parents started to
confine their daughters in the inner quarters and did not allow them to have contact with
male strangers because the possibility of premarital sex would devalue the girls. Widows
became more sensitive to their reputation in terms of contacts with men. Manchu males
who were conversant with Chinese customs, wanted to be sure that a woman’s sexual
loyalty to her husband was not terminated upon his death, as it was the case before the
conquest. Instead, the loyalty became a woman’s lifelong commitment, which meant that

widows had to live chastely and should not consort with any men. Moreover, levirate

\

 

' Regarding “separation of sexes” among family members, see Fang Baoji (Collection works of Fang
Bao), p. 480. Also see Sirna Guang, Jiafan (Domestic regulations), vol. 1, p. 464. It said, “a father should
not enter his daughter’s room after she has become engaged, and a brother should not sit next to his married
sister on her return visits home.” Cited from Patricia B. Ebrey, The Inner Quarters, p. 24.

151

marriage and intimate relations among family members of opposite sexes, once a Manchu
tradition, now became illicit and would receive serious punishments.

This chapter first investigates the Manchu tradition on gender relations and
sexuality prior to 1644. Then it examines the changing tradition of Manchu women’s
lives in sexuality after the conquest. Finally, the chapter looks at the changes and
conflicts from a gendered perspective to explore the different attitudes of men and
women toward Confucian norms in sexuality.

The primary sources I use in this chapter are heavily based on criminal court
cases. On the one hand, court records provide the information that could not be found
from official-compiled history books, and therefore become very valuable for the
research. On the other hand, they may have limitation on the scope they represent and the
accuracy and reliability of the records themselves. Although inquisition by torture was
not revealing in most of the cases I use in this chapter, compared with the cases in which
the criminal tried to deny the murder, the confessions might carry some false or
exaggerated information. For example, in most cases, women were the victims of murder.
The confessions were usually drawn from the man (the criminal) and recorded by the
court officials. Therefore, the criminals might overstate women’s disobedient and
unrestrained behavior as their excuses for the murder in order to reduce the penalty.
However, the confessions still reveal a deep divide between male expectations of women,
which had changed through men’s contact with Chinese society, and women’s behaviors,
which remained more conventionally Manchu. Moreover, the way that Qing court

convicted crimes and commune sentences according to the criminal claimed in their

152

confessions reflected that the Manchu rulers were eager to have Confucian morality

rooted in the society.

1. The Manchu tradition on gender relations and sexuality

In Manchu society, women commonly appeared in public occasions and mingled
with men as they pleased. Within the household, there was no regulation of evasion
among family members of different sexes. This tradition could be traced back from the
late 16th century before the Manchus were organized as a single ethnic group. According
to Quan Liao zhi, a gazetteer of Liaodong area, edited by Li Fu in 1566, “[the barbarians]
had no ritual to follow. Men and women were mixed at parties where they flirted each
other with frivolous words and conducts. They did not even feel shamed.”2 Other
valuable records about the Manchu tradition in gender relations can be found from
travelers’ notes, written by Chinese in late 17th century.3

Liubianjilue, a traveler’s note by Yang Bin, who followed his father’s exile to
Liaodong in the early Kangxi period (1662-1722) when he was 13 years old, recorded a
number of Manchu customs in Manchuria area. According to the author’s observation,
Manchu women often appeared at family banquets and played active roles at the party.

When the Manchus held parties, men and women of the host family must dance

for their guests. Women usually kept the guests company and urged them to drink

(alcohol). They were so hospitable that they knelt down to hold the wine cups for

the guests, urging them to drink one cup after another until the guests became
drunk.

 

2 Li Fu, Quan Liao zhi (The history of Liaodong area), vol. 4, “Custom.”

3 Although these notes were taken in late 17‘” century, several decades after the Manchu conquest of
China, they still helped us to know the Manchu traditions before the conquest because what the travelers
described were the customs in Manchuria area—the Manchu homeland, where the tradition had been little
changed even hundreds of years after the conquest.

’ Yang Bin, Liubianjilue (Jotting at willow palisade), p. 76.

153

Unlike Chinese tradition, in which female family members confined themselves in the
inner quarters in order to avoid meeting with the male guests, Manchu wives and

concubines received the guests, “there was no dividing line between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’.
The guests addressed the master’s wife as soozi (112?) if they were younger than the

master, if they were older, they would address the master’s wife as shenzi (1511?)?5

According to another traveler’s notes, “All the guests would be invited to sit on

the kong (fit, bed) located on the south side of the room. Women were not asked to hide

themselves from the guests. In occasions when people met after a long separation, they
all hugged and kissed each other.”6

Johann Nieuhof (l 61 8-1 672) was secretary to an embassy of officers from the
Dutch East India Company. Between 1655-1657, he accompanied the officers traveling
north by river from Guangzhou through J iangxi to Nanjing, and then north via the Grand
Canal to Beijing. His notes fiom the journey were published in 1665 in Amsterdam. His
detailed observations of everything that his group encountered are a valuable record of
material, social, and political conditions in China in the middle 1650s.

When Nieuhof and his group were at Nanjing on May 4, 1656, they visited the
Qing governor.

“This Governor was by birth a Tartar, a young well-set Man, but understood not

the Chinese Language, therefore his Sons were Interpreters. His Wife, a proper

and comely Dame, spoke more then [than] her husband, and [was] strangely
inquisitive about Holland; she was not dismayed at our strange Arms, but like a

 

5 Ibid., p. 79.

6 Wu Zhenchen, Ninggutajilue (Jotting at Ninggu Pagoda), p. 9, 20. The author was born and grew up in
Ningguta (today Liaoning Province), the Manchu homeland before they moved to China proper. Wu’s
father was exiled to Ningguta in the Dingyou year of Shunzhi and had stayed there for 23 years. His book
provided very rich materials about Manchu customs and traditions although his records were full of ethnic
prejudice and bias.

154

bold Virago drew out our Swords, and discharged our Pistols, which much
delighted her. . .”7

Another day they rode out for sightseeing. They saw a Manchu lady who was about 40
years old, sitting by the gate of the Old Imperial Court with her servants. She invited
them into her house, although her husband was absent.

The Lady then made towards him: She was very debonair and free, looked upon
our Swards, and much admired their bending without breaking: She took the
Embassadour’s Hat, and put it on her own Head, and unbuttoned his Doublet
almost down to his Waste: Afterwards she led the way into the house and desired
him to follow, appointing one of her Attendants to conduct him, who brought us
into her apartment, where we found her standing with her Daughter about half her
age, waiting our coming, in great state.8

Nieuhof’s account notes that the Manchu women were obviously different from

Chinese women in many ways. They were bold, curious, straightforward, and did not

\.._\___ _ _-

..n_. —-.—......_._ .—

hide themselves from male strangers.
The following folk song depicted a Manchu girl who bumped into someone on the
street. Her bold and pungent character appeared vividly between the lines:

A red sedan-cart is drown by a white horse,

In the cart sits a beautiful young lady.

Seeing her neighbor coming from the south,

She asks, “dear brother, where are you going?”

“I am going to visit my parents-in-law in Cuihua Street,” the man said.
“Come to my house after your visit.”

“What can I eat at your house?”

“I don’t have anything special for you but milk tea and Manchu stearn-bread,
you must drink the tea and eat the bread,

or I’ll pour the tea down your throat and cram the bread into your mouth,
so your front teeth might be scalded off.” 9

 

7 Quoted in Lynn Struve, Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm, p. 68.

’ Ibid., pp. 68-69.

9 Cited in Li Hongyu, “Manzu rrringe zhong de minzu xinli sushi” (What Manchu folk songs tell us about
the Manchu mentality), Manzu yanjiu (Manchu studies), issue 2, 1991, p. 74.

155

The song reveals that a Manchu girl could not only run on the street freely but also talk to
young men in a very unrestrained way. Such casual behavior was very different from the
Chinese tradition.

Dream of the Red Chamber depicts a love story between Baoyu and Black Jade
(Daiyu) in a Manchu household. Although it was written in the Qianlong period (1736-
1795), one hundred years after the conquest, some old Manchu traditions still remained in
people’s daily lives, especially in the aspect of gender relations among family members.
The author used many words in the novel to describe the unusually intimate relations
between the main character—Baoyu and his female cousins, sisters-in-law, and other
female relatives in his same generation or in a younger generation.10 At one point in the
novel, Baoyu’s maid (later his concubine) Pervading Fragrance reported to his mother,
Madame Wang:

“1 have nothing to tell in particular,” Pervading Fragrance said. “I was
only thinking that it may be wise to have Er-yeh (refer to Baoyu) move out of the
Garden on some pretext.”

Madame Wang was astonished. She took the maid by the hand and asked
anxiously, “Has Baoyu done anything to make you say that?”

“No,” Pervading Fragrance hastily assured her. “But Er-yeh is growing up,
as the young mistresses are. Though they are brothers and sisters, yet there is no
telling what evil tongues might say. If Er-yeh becomes the subject of evil gossip,
we whose duty it is to wait upon him will have to answer to it. That is a small
matter, for we should gladly die for our master, but what is more important is Er-
yeh’s reputation.” ‘1

This conversation revealed three things: (1) The intimate relations did exist between
Baoyu (he was about 14 years old then) and his female relatives, who were between 13

and 24 years old; (2) By the mid-18th century—the time when this novel was composed--

some old Manchu traditions were being influenced by the Confucian norm of “separation

 

'0 See, Cao Xueqin, Honglou meng (Dream of the red chamber), p. 45, 136, 194, 206.
" Cao Xueqin, Honglou meng (Dream of the red chamber), p. 350.

156

of sexes.” This is why Madame Wang and Pervading Fragrance felt worried; (3) They

worried about Baoyu’ s reputation, not the reputation of the girls. This rs very different

-. MW ‘..-...— """"

 

from the Chinese who blamed for sexual transgression always on women first.

, .9... a-.. . _ - amrr— ----— -.- -
_.._.-.._-._——u-.—.. «hug-m- -MWW'-‘ A"

Based on the information from the traveler’s notes, the folk song, and the novel, it

is clear that during the early Qing period, Manchu women were consrderably more casual

 

and forward in male company than their Han- Chinese counterparts.

“w
__ .-..--— W—a—Mr- --.-——
._,.

Manchu women’s casual and forward attitude toward men might lead to sexual

relations before marriage. However, in the Manchu tradition, men did not see female

__.,_._ .m.‘

-m -_.__ - _W.

virginity as a major issue. The earliest historical records that reflect indifference to

-u- _t.._—V..—.p--b ”M-
._.--->

female virginity can be traced back to Jin shu, an officially compiled history of Jin (3

265-419), where it is said that the barbarians in the North shared the same tradition,
“married women are chaste and virtuous; unmarried women are promiscuous and loose in

morals. ”'2 Thus, single women could enjoy sexual freedom. Since ”it was a common

‘4‘. ufl-th.

practice, premarital sexual experiences would not devalue the girls due to the

,qwr‘A-u.“
.«--

“defilement” of the body. Only when a woman married, she would belong to her husband
only (as if she Was his personal property) and was expected to be chaste and virtuous.
The Manchus and their ancestors, the J urchen, had the same tradition. Cases in archives
regarding sexual transgressions, by unmanied women, show that they were only lightly
punished, some escaped punishment altogether. The following three cases illustrate these
points:

[on 26 February, 1621] Nurhaci said in a decree, “the servant of A-dun a-ge
fomicated with the maid of Yang-gu-li. They plotted to run away together. They

 

'2 Jin shu (History of Jin), vol. 97, “Biography of barbarians.” p. 2534.

157

ran away from their master’s house. But before too long, they came back again.
From now on, I permit them to live together.”13

Neither the man nor the woman who committed fornication were punished at all. Instead,
their cohabitation was legitimized when they came back to their master’s houses. The
tolerance toward fornication implied that pro-marriage sex was not considered as sexual
transgression by the early 17th century.

In another case of fornication, Nurhaci had two maids in his household. One
called Qin-tai, the other called Na-zha. On the 10th day of March in 1620, a serious
quarrel broke out between these two women. Na-zha accused Qin-tai of fornication with
Nong-ku. Qin-tai asked in retort, “Where did you see me to have sex with Nong-ku?
What did I give him after having sex with him? Actually, I know that you and Da-hai
have slept together and you gave him two bolts of blue cloth afterwards.” When Nurhaci
heard of Qin-tai’s charge, he first investigated, and then he sentenced Na-zha and Da-hai
to death because they took/received cloth from the inner palace without permission. He
did not punished Qin-tai and Nong-ku for their fornication.l4

In the fifth year of Tianming (1620), Prince Hui-fa’s daughter divorced Song-a-li
and returned to her natal family. Then she had affairs with her sister’s husband Sou-gen
and with her cousin Shuo-tuo. However, when Nurhaci learned of this scandal, he did not

punish them because he thought that it was “insignificant.” Although some of them were

 

'3 Manwen laodang (Old Manchu archives), vol. 18, p. 170, February 26 in the sixth year of Tianming
(1621).

'4 Manwen laodang (Old Manchu archives), vol. 14, pp. 133-134, March 10 in the 5"I year of Tianming
(1620). One puzzle in this case is why women paid for the illicit sex they had with men, not the other way
around. It was very different from Chinese tradition (I believe it was different from the traditions in other
societies as well).

158

sentenced to death later in the year, they were punished primarily for “plot to flee” rather
than committing adultery/ fornication. l 5

All the cases cited above confirmed that in the early 17”1 century, sexual relations
out of wedlock were not considered to be criminal and, therefore, would not be severely
punished. Those who were punished were not indicted for their sexual transgression but
for other illicit deeds that were considered as crimes.

Another feature of Manchu women’s lives before the conquest was that they were
allowed to have sexual relations with the family members of the households into which
they married. The J urchens/Manchus were notorious for their tradition of levirate
marriage.16 According to Ding Yizhuang, the possibility of the sexual relations between
the woman and the family members of her husband existed not only after the husband
died, but even while the husband was still alive. The intimate relations between the wife
and her husband’s younger bothers were not uncommon.17

Anthropologist S. M. Shirokogoff pointed out that in early Manchu society, men
were allowed to have sexual relations with senior female family members.

[In Manchu society], it is very strictly prohibited for “me” to speak, to look or to

run after the wives of the men who are younger than “myself ’. On the other hand

there is no restriction in “my” relations and behavior towards the wives of the
men who are older than “me”. More than that, “I” can sleep beside these women
and, if they consent, it is permitted to enter into love relations with them
especially if “I” am not married.

Thus, all women of the senior class and all women of “ my ” own class, who are

the wives of the men older than “I”, “I " do not call by their personal proper
names and "I” have sexual rights with them but “I” call all wives of the men who

 

”Manwen laodang, vol. 16, pp. 155-156, September 8 in the 5"“ year of Tianming (1620).

'6 Regarding the levirate marriage tradition in early Manchu society, see page 79-80 of this dissertation.
17 Ding Yizhuang, Manzu de F unu Shenghuo yu Hunyin Zhidu Yanjiu (Research on life and marriage
patterns of Manchu women), p. 14.

159

are younger than “me " by their proper personal names and they are strictly

prohibited to “me ”.18

Further more, Shirokogoff examined the way in which the Manchus arranged
their accommodation to prove the uniqueness of sexual relations among Manchu family
members:

In the accommodation of persons in the house there can be seen the same system:
the person between which marriage or sexual relations are prohibited, are always
separated from each other by their own children or the person of non-neighboring
classes—of two or three degrees. While a relative simplicity of relations and even
the possibility of love relations with my older brother’s wives (aso) permit the
younger brother to sleep by the side or even near to these women.19

Records in the old Manchu archives confirmed Shirokogoff’s assumption:
Ta-yin-cha was Nurhaci’s secondary wife. When she found some unusual
intimate relations between Nurhaci’s primary wife and his eldest son, she made a report

to Nurhaci.

Ta-yin-cha said, “I saw that dafujin (primary wife) had once cooked meals
herself for Prince Dai-shan (the eldest son of Nurhaci by another woman before
dafujin) and sent the meals to him twice. He accepted the meals. Moreover, she
has visited his house alone in mid-night for as many as three times.”

Nurhaci said, “I have ever promised that after I died, my eldest son will be
responsible for taking care dafujin and the younger children. I think this is why
dafujin gave her heart to Prince.”

Whenever Nurhaci called all his sons for meeting, dafujin then would
dress herself up with gold and pearls, and tried to ingratiate herself with Prince
Dai-shan.20

Although Nurhaci knew that his dafujin might have an affair with his son and felt
uncomfortable about that, he did not punish them. Instead, he divorced the dafiijin and

promoted Ta-yin-cha as his primary wife.

 

'8 S. M. Shirokogoroff, Social Organization of the Manchus: A Study of the Manchu Clan Organization.
. 100-101.
Ibid., p. 102.

2° Manwen laodang (Old Manchu archives), vol. 51, p. 485, May 9 in the 8th year of Tianming (1623).

160

This tradition remained even after 1636 when Huangtaiji issued a law to prohibit
sexual relations between family members. Duo-suo-li was a captain under the Plain
White Banner. In 1638, he was accused of committing adultery with his paternal aunt and
was brought to the court. According to the new law, people who committed adultery with
family members should be sentenced to death. However, in this case, both Duo-suo-li and
his aunt received leniency fiom Huangtaiji. They both received only one hundred blows
as the punishment for their sexual transgression.21

Another similar case was found in 1636. Lang-wei, an official in the Department
of Justice, had sexual relations with his elder brother’s wife and his father’s concubine.
After his brother and father died, he married these two women. He also committed
adultery with Liu shi, the concubine of his elder brother of the same clan. According to
Qing law, Lang-wei should receive death penalty. But Huangtaiji absolved him from guilt
and just charged him one hundred taels of silver and removed him from his office.22

The cases from archives revealed that in the early 17th century, affairs between
family members were more broadly tolerated than one hundred years later as the
Manchus shifted their views on female sexuality after they settled down in China proper.

In short, in the early Manchu society there was no conception of separation of sexes. The

~4-‘._—- -~
7 .p..

 

 

 

concept of female virginity was foreign to the Manchus, so men would not feel shamed if

Ah-M

 

they married widows. There was no law to prohibit sex between single men and women

a— -— nu.....,‘ .7_,\. .,r.._.-

-W- v‘w'“
.u-c-I-Lm‘ F‘M'

 

,.....

(including Widowed and divorced women). Married women, in certain circumstance,

. --- u- _-
_... .r- J' ‘h sna—o 4-—§w¢.n- W1 my...” un- nmnw“ ...n. vow cow“ 7‘ ““V‘.

could have sexual relations with other men of their husbands’ family, if the males were in

y __ _..

 

2' See Sheng/‘ing xingbu yuandang (Original archives from the Department of Justice in Shengjing). No.
182, p. 47, July 21 in the third year of Chongde (1638).
22Manwen laodang (Old Manchu archives), vol. 18, p. 1516, June 24 m the first year of Chongde (1636).

161

junior position/ generation even before her husband died, which was an extreme form of
the tradition of levirate marriage.

Men and women had different places in Chinese society. According to Confucian
norm of “separation of sexes”, men worked outside while women stayed in the inner
quarters. Women should avoid being seen by male strangers and would be not allowed to
have intimate relations with any male family members, including their brothers, cousins,
brothers-in-law, uncles/nephews, or fathers-in-law. Girls were not allowed to meet their
fiance until the wedding night. These traditions had existed in Chinese society for
thousands of years as part of Chinese culture. However, the Manchus gradually accepted
the Chinese values regarding sexuality after the conquest. By the end of the 18th century,
Confucian norm of “separation of sexes” had spread in Manchu society and male sexual

monopoly over women had been established.

2. Changing traditions after the conquest

The Manchu traditions of gender relations and sexuality changed during the
period of 150 years or so after they conquered China. Right after the Manchus established
Qing dynasty in 1644, the Shunzhi emperor issued a decree declaring the continuation of
Ming codes as Qing law.23 The Manchu rulers put on a pose of learning from Chinese in
order to buy political support fiom the local people and Chinese officials. They accepted
Chinese norm regarding the marriage and sex, in which marriage was the prerequisite of

sex, at least for women.“ Sex out of wedlock was no longer tolerated but even

considered to be against law. It was called “illicit sex (jian, it)”. According to Da Qing

 

7’3 Zhao Er-xun, Qingshi goo (Draft of Qing history), vol. 71, “X ingfa (Criminal codes)”.
2’ This tradition existed until the 19805 in China.

162

huidian shili (The collected institutes and precedents of the Qing dynasty), the law that

was revised by the Qianlong emperor in 1740, “Whoever commits consensual illicit sex

(he jian, 1111!?) shall receive 80 blows of the heavy bamboo; if the woman has a husband,

then the offenders shall receive 90 blows of the heavy bamboo; if a man lures a woman to
another place in order to have illicit sex, they shall receive 100 blows regardless of

whether the woman has a husband?”

Many cases are easily found in archives, in which
people were punished due to their illicit sex and the trouble caused by that.26

Like Chinese, the Manchus started to view sex out of wedlock as morally
unacceptable. First of all, this assumption reinforced the significance of female virginity
because a good woman must be a virgin until her wedding night. Many cases in the
archives indicated that, by the end of the 18th century, the Manchus hade become very
sensitive to women’s chastity and virginity, which was one of the main causes of disputes
over marriage. In some extreme cases, women were sold or even murdered for
“dishonor”.

By the late 18th and early 19th centuries, female virginity became a very
Significant issue and related to Manchu women’s morality, as illustrated in the following
cases:

Kui-ming was a bannerman under the Plain Red Banner. He married bannerman’s

daughter Da-niu, who was 19 years old in October of the 43rd year of Qianlong (1778).

However, on the wedding night he did not see blood, therefore, he assumed that Da-niu

 

2’ Da Qing huidian shili (The collected institutes and precedents of the Qing), 825: la.

26 See, Neiwufii laiwen (Archives of Imperial Household), # 2111, October in the 8"I year of Qianlong
(1743); # 2115, September 8 in the 21” year onianlong (1756); # 2119, March 18 in the 24” year of
Qianlong (1759); # 2131, October in the 39th year of Qianlong (1774); Junjichu lufii zouzhe (Memorials
from Grand Council), rrricro-film # 097-2396, March 29 in the 41" year of Qianlong (1776).

163

was not a virgin. The next morning he sent his wife back to her natal home and claimed
that Da-niu was not chaste. Her brother then sued Kui-ming for damaging his sister’s
reputation. After an inspection confirmed that Da-niu was a virgin before that night,
officials ordered Kui-ming to take Da-niu back home and make an apology to her natal
family for his false charge. In his apology, Kui-ming mentioned that “I beg you
forgiveness and understanding. The reason I became over-suspicious is because I want to
marry a chaste and pure woman, which I consider the most important character of a
woman. I was afraid that Da-niu was not a good person when I did not see her hymen
broken at the wedding night.”27
In another case of false charges relating to virginity issue, Guang-fu was a fourth-
ranked Manchu bannerman with a title of imperial clan. He had his niece betrothed to
Feng-kai’s son Chang-huan. Guang-fu received a pairs of bracelets from Feng-kai as
betrothal gifts, which the bride was supposed to wear at the wedding. However, Guang-fil
pawned the bracelets but never had enough money to redeem them. Therefore, as the
wedding day came, he bought his niece another pairs of bracelets whose quality and size
were different from the original. Feng-kai scolded Guang-fu. He also claimed that
Guang-fu’s niece was not a virgin. Guang-fu was enraged and then sued Feng-kai for

damaging his niece’s reputation.28

1th year of

In another similar case regarding to the question of virginity, in the 1
Daoguang (1830), Manchu bannerman Heng-tong’s wife E-chen shi sued bannerman Du-
lun in court. She said,

“I have a daughter who is 17 years old this year (1830). On February 16 [this
year], through a matchmaker, she was betrothed to Du-lun who is an idler

 

27 Neiwufir laiwen (Archives of Imperial Household), # 2136, Nov. 4 in the 43“I year of Qianlong (1778).
28 Zongrenfii laiwen (Archives of imperial lineage), “crimes and punishments,” # 0727.

164

(xiansan 151E181!) under the Bordered White Banner. On the third day of this month
(April), I sent my daughter to his house to have the marriage officially completed
(wanhun SEQ). However, the next morning, my son-in-law (Du-lun) came to me
complaining that my daughter was not a virgin and asked me to take her back. I

did not consent to do so, but he insisted on [this]. I have no other choice than

taking my daughter back home and want to make things clear at court.”
The defendant Du-lun confirmed E-chen shi’s accusation. He said,

“I manied E-chen shi’s daughter, but I did not see blood at the wedding night. So

I assumed that she was not a virgin. Now I request the court to inspect and verify

[this]. If the result showed that her hymen was broken for other reasons, not

related to her morality, I would take her back as my wife and would be willing to

receive any punishment for my false charge.”29

These three cases indicated that female virginity, once a foreign concept to the
Manchus, became a very important criterion of women’s morality and therefore,
determined the value of women’s body.

Zhang Baisui was a booi (bondservant) under the Plain White Banner. He had a
daughter Da-niu. Their neighbor Guo San, who was not a bannerman, often dropped in
their house whenever he was free. No one knew how and when Guo San and Da-niu
started intimate relations until the 47th year of Qianlong when Zhang and his wife found
their daughter pregnant. According to Zhang Baisui, “we grudgingly married our
daughter to Guo San in order to save our face.”30

Zhang used the word of “grudgingly” because bannerman’s daughter usually
manied a bannerman rather than a commoner like Guo San (see Chapter Four concerning
intermarriage between the Manchus and Chinese). While it was not uncommon for

bannermen to take Chinese girls as wives, few Manchu girls would choose to marry

Chinese men unless the girls were somehow deficient. Zhang Baisui married out his

 

2’ Ibid., # 0729.
3° Neiwufii laiwen (Archives of Inrperial Household), # 2151, December 211n the 50Ill year of Qianlong
(1785).

165

daughter to Guo San because she lost her virginity before maniage and therefore her
body was devalued.3 ‘

As female virginity became a sensitive issue in Manchu society, parents
redoubled their vigilance on their daughters’ social connections and activities outside the
house in order to protect their daughters from sexual seduction.

Chi-ba-er was a bannerman under the Bordered Yellow Banner. He had three
daughters. The eldest one had already married out. The second one was 19 years old. The
following was Chi-ba-er’s confession:

She was disobedient by nature and would never listen to us. She enjoyed going

outside for shopping or just wandering around on the street. On the fifth day of

this month, she went out without our permission. She did not come back by

midnight. I looked for her but could not find her anywhere. The next morning I

bumped into her on the street and drew her back home. My wife and I asked her

where She had gone for a whole night. She refused to answer but just cried. My
wife and I assmned that she must have stayed somewhere overnight with a man.

In ordinary times, we could never subject her to discipline. Now she had even

spent a night outside. Who knows how she would dishonor us in future! Thinking

like that, we strangled her into death.”

What is surprising is that Chi-ba-er and his wife did not receive any punishment
for the murder because “although Chi-ba-er could not point out who was the man and
where the illicit sex took place, it was true that the girl had sex with someone at that
night. It was a natural reaction that, as a father, Chi-ba-er was enraged and might not be
able to control himself. It [referring to the murder] should be considered as an accident

rather than a deliberate murder.”32

 

3 ’ The archive also recorded that three years later when Guo San discarded Da-niu, her parents sold her to
another Chinese man as a concubine. Her body was devalued again. They only received eight taels of
silver fi'om the Chinese man.

32 Neiwufit laiwen (Archives of Imperial Household), # 2131, October 1’t in the 39th year of Qianlong

( 1773).

166

According J in Qizong, a similar tragedy also happened in Beijing nearby where
he lived. Manchu bannerman Liu-ge had sex with his neighbor’s daughter Lian-ge. When
the parents found their daughter was pregnant, they pushed her into river since they felt
dishonored. The parents did not receive corporal punishment for murdering their
daughter.33

The sources above confirm that by the end of Qianlong period, the Manchus
differed little from the Chinese in their attitude toward female virginity, and had come to
consider pre-marital sex as immoral and illegal. In addition to the prohibition on
premarital sex, the Manchus, especially Manchu males, accepted Chinese values about
chaste widowhood, in other words, a man’s sexual monopoly over his wife would
continue after his death.

Under the old Manchu traditions, sexual loyalty between husband and wife would
be automatically terminated upon the death of either the husband or wife. In other words,
a woman would become a “single” again after her husband died or after she divorced
him, and she would enjoy the same degree of sexual freedom as an unmarried girl (see
the cases on page 160-161.) However, the views on widows’ sexual freedom gradually
changed after the conquest. Archives show that by the end of the 18th century, widows
were expected to keep away from male strangers to maintain the sexual loyalty to their
deceased husbands. Even chatting with men was considered improper behavior and
caused trouble that sometimes developed to murder.

In the 28th year of Qianlong (1 763), Bannerman Ba-jin-er was sentenced to death

 

’3 Jin Qizong, Beijing jiaoqu de Manzu (The Manchus in Beijing suburb), p. 62. The author is an 84 year-
old Manchu. He was an ethnologist and professor in Inner-Mongolia University. Retired in 1988 and now
lives in Beijing, he is the author of many books and memorials about the Manchus in Beijing area.

167

on a charge of murder. The following is his confession:
“I am an idler under the Plain Yellow banner. I am 28 years old. My father died
nine years ago. I live with my grandmother. My father married my stepmother
Guo shi when I was five. She brought me two half brothers and two half sisters.
They live in the same compound with us but a separate household. In the evening
of the 27th day of December, I saw my younger sister bring a man to my
stepmother’s room. I became suspicious and came to the outside of her room,
standing by the window. I heard that my mother said something like--‘do not let
Ba-jin-er know. . .’ I became even more suspicious. When the man came out, I
recognized he was our neighbor Liu Er-ge. We came to fight and he was beaten to
death. He was a 72 years old man then.”
The court inspected the case and concluded that Liu Er-ge did not do anything improper
to Ba-jin-er’s stepmother. The tragedy happened because Ba-jin-er was over-sensitive
and over-concemed about his “face.”34
Another similar tragedy happened in the 22nd year of Qianlong (1757). Qiang-du
was an “idler” under the Bordered Yellow Banner. His widowed stepmother Liu shi lived
with his younger brother San-da-se. One day, neighbor Zhang Da-se’s wife Yan shi made
fun of her widowed friend Liu-jie, said, “You are a widow, but you are so fat as if you are
pregnant.” Their conversation was overheard by Qiang-du who passed by. He thought
they must be talking about his stepmother and implied that she had affairs with someone.
Qiang-du felt insulted and, thus thereafter, he went to Zhang Da-se’s house shouting
curses over and over again until violence was provoked. Qiang-du was killed accidentally
in the fight.35 This tragedy started from a joke between two women and finally led to a
vicious fight in which someone lost his life. We can therefore confirm that women’s

chastity (including that of widows) was a major issue for the Manchus by the end of the

18th century. Sexual relations between men and women (even if their marital status was

 

3‘ Neiwufii laiwen (Archives of Imperial Household), # 2121, May 6 in the 28‘’1 year of Qianlong (1763).
35 Ibid., # 2116, September 17 in the 22"d year of Qianlong (1757).

168

single, widowed, or divorced) were considered severe transgression and therefore
dishonored the whole family. This was why people in these cases fought for their
mother’s reputation so fiercely that they even did not consider the potential results.

The most remarkable change can be seen in the aspect of the relations among
family members. Before the conquest, sexual relations between women and family
members of their husbands’ family were not prohibited under the system of levirate
marriage, although there was a rule, in which younger men or the men in junior
generation always married older women or the women in senior generation. Due to this
understanding, people usually tolerated affairs between a wife and the husband’s younger
brother. However, according to Confucian codes, the sexual relation among family
members, including those who did not have the ties of blood, was seen as incest—the
first taboo in the Chinese tradition. As early as 1636 when the Manchus prepared to take
over China, the emperor Huangtaiji issued a law prohibiting levirate marriage.36 In order
to demonstrate to the Chinese that the Manchus were civilized people who followed the
Confucian norms. The perception that Manchus had absorbed such Confucian standards
would help his regime to be more easily accepted by the Chinese.

After the conquest, affairs among family members were considered as crimes and
would receive more serious punishment than regular adultery or even murder:

In the 32"d year onianlong (1767), Liu Cheng-en and his elder brother’s wife
Yang shi were sentenced to death for adultery and running away together. The following

was Liu Cheng-en’s confession:

 

3" Qing T aizong shilu gaoben (The draft of Qing Taizong veritable records), See Qingchu shiliao congkan
disanzhong (The third volume of historical rmterials about the early period of Qing), pp.6-7.

169

I am 28 this year. I live with my elder brother under the same roof. Last year in
May, my brother took Yang Cun-zhu’s daughter Yang shi as his wife. In the
midnight of the 17th in August, I slept in the courtyard. Yang shi came over and
asked me whether I felt cold. Then she covered me up with some clothes. I held
her in my arms and then had sex with her. After that we had sex for many times.
My brother did not know. On the 18th of January this year, we were detected by
my brother when Yang shi came to my bedroom in midnight. We were scared and
ran away the next morning.
They both were caught five days later. They were sentenced to death by hanging and
were executed immediately.37
Another case of adultery was between Xi-cun, who was a 28-year-old unmarried
bannerman, and his widowed sister-in-law Zhang shi. His parents died when he was
young. He lived with his uncle’s family. Xi-cun’s cousin Wang Rongxian died in the 41S”
year of Qianlong (1776) and left his widow Zhang shi behind. Zhang shi lived in the
north room while Xi-cun and his uncle lived in the south room. As time passed, Xi-cun
and Zhang shi started an affair. Later on their illicit relation was exposed. Xi-cun was
deprived of his position on the banner register and was beaten 100 blows of the heavy
bamboo. Zhang shi received 100 blows of the heavy bamboo and was sent to a distant
place for three years.38
If this case had happened 150 years earlier, it would have been considered
perfectly legitimate sex because both parties were in a marriageable status and the

unmarried younger brother was a perfectly-well qualified candidate for the widow’s

remarriage under the system of levirate marriage. However, by the mid-18th century the

 

37 Neiwufu laiwen (Archives of lnrperial Household Department), # 2125, May 17 in the 32"” year of
Qianlong (1767)

’8 Neiwufit laiwen (Archives of Imperial Household department), # 2147, January-June in the 49"I year of
Qianlong (1784).

170

Manchus had accepted the Confucian values on the relations of family members and
therefore saw the sexual relations between Xi-cun and the widow of his brother as incest.

The most common cases in the archives are murders, which were due to the
husband’s suspicion of his wife’s affairs with other men. Among these cases, more than
seventy percent are affairs that happened among family members, especially between the
wife and her husband’s younger brother.

In the first year of Qianlong (1736), the Plain Yellow Banner booi Zhang Yang-
cheng killed his wife and his brother with a kitchen knife. Zhang confessed that one day

when he came home from work, he saw his wife and his younger brother sitting at the

edge of kong (fit, bed). He felt a little uncomfortable. When he found that they made eyes

at each other, he was sure that they had an affair. Several days later, when he squabbled
with his brother over some trifles, his wife tried to defend his brother. Therefore, his
suspicion seemed to be proved. That night, Zhang woke up and saw his wife sitting at the
edge of kong, smoking. He asked her where she had gone. She said she went outside to
pee. Zhang thought she must have gone to his brother’s room for sex. He was so enraged
that he picked up a kitchen knife and rushed to his brother’s room. His wife followed. He
killed them both and cut off their heads. Then he surrendered to the police yamen. Zhang
was condemned to death with the sentence suspended for one year.”
Sun Hei-zi was a bannerman under the Bordered Blue Banner. His wife Wan shi
disliked him because he was poor and ill. They often argued and fought. Hei-zi thus
suspected Wan shi had affairs with his younger brother. On 27 September 1736, Heizi

came home drunk. Wan shi insulted him and his parents. Hei-zi was enraged and thought

 

’9 X ingke tiben (Memorials from Justice Department), September in the 1” year of Qianlong (1736).

171

Wan shi must be killed due to her rude attitude to his parents and the affair with his
brother. Then he chopped her with a kitchen knife. The court decided to condemn him to
death with the sentence suspended for one year.40
In the same year in the Nigu Pagoda area, a Plain Yellow bannerman A-er-xi
killed his wife because he assumed she had an affair with his nephew. The following is
A—er-xi’s confession:
I am 38 years old this year. My wife was 39. We did not have children during the
15 years of marriage. I went to army for service in the 7th year of Yongzheng
(1729). When I came back in August in the 13th year of Yongzheng (1735) for my
mother’s funeral, however, I found my wife pregnant. Rumor said that she had
slept with my nephew Cha-na-bu, but she denied when I questioned her. Then I
went to Cha-na-bu’s house. After I beat him with whip, he admitted [the affair]. I
thought that Cha-na-bu had had sex with my wife, how could I not to kill him. So,
I killed him with a knife. Then I came back home and killed my wife. This is the
fact.
The authority of Ninggu Pagoda investigated the case and confirmed that A-er-xi could
not provide any evidence of the affair and that he accused his wife of being pregnant in
December of 1735, five months after their reunion. Therefore, the murder was caused by
A-er-xi’s over-suspiciousness. The court decision was exactly as the same as Zhang
Yang-cheng and Sun Hei-zi’s cases—A—er-xi was condemned to death with the sentence
suspended for one year.41
Another wife-killer named Chang-cun, a bannerman under the Bordered Yellow
Banner. He had been married to his wife F u shi for several years and had been living in a
harmonious life. However, one day when he saw Fu shi and her brother-in-law (her

sister’s husband) Hu J in sitting at the kong in her bedroom chatting, he assumed she must

be having an affair with Hu J in. When he brought his wife to account, Hu J in was as a

 

’0 Xingke tiben (Memorials from Justice Department), October in the 1” year of Qianlong (1736).
" X ingke tiben (Memorials from Justice Department), December in the 1st year of Qianlong (1736).

172

mediator and tried to make peace between the couple, which made Chang-cun even more
suspicious about their relations. The suspicion finally developed into murder. Chang-cun
was condemned to death with the sentence suspended for one year for murdering his
wife.42

These four cases shared one thing in common. All were murders, in which the
victims were the wives and/or her assumed lover. In no case was there solid evidence to
support the husband’s assumption, in other words, the “evidence” was basically from his
imagination. The court decisions on these cases were the same as well—to condemn the
husband to death but not to execute it immediately, instead he was given at least one
year’s reprieve (usually he could find ways to waive the death penalty and reduce it to
imprisonment for life, or even lighter penalty during this time). When checking the Qing
Codes, I noticed that a man would be condemned to death (without a grace period) if he
married (or had sex with) the widow of his family members.43 Surprisingly, Qing law
even judged homicide as a lesser crime than committing levirate marriage. After the
conquest, the priority of the Manchus was to make themselves appear as legitimate rulers
by showing efforts to adjust to Chinese traditions and values, which included, but was not
limited to, the prohibition of levirate marriage. The heavier penalty on levirate marriage
and the leniency towards the wife-killers were the two sides of a coin, reflecting that the

Manchus as conquering outsiders “sought to codify and enforce norms in traditional

 

’2 Neige Hanwen huangce (Yellow books in Chinese from the Cabinet), microfilm, # C-5575. October 26
in the 5th year of Qianlong (1740).
‘3 Do Qing huidian shili (The collected institutes and precedents of the Qing), 756: 8b-9a.

173

Chinese culture so that they could claim to represent an indigenous moral and social

system.”44

3. Gendered format on the changing tradition

From the cases discussed above, we can see that the Manchu traditional values in
the aspects of gender relations and sexuality had substantially changed by the end of the
18th century. First of all, female virginity and purity became a very important criterion in
the male construction of the value of women. According to cases in the archives, brides
could be returned back to their natal family by their husbands after the wedding night
because of questionable sexual purity. Girls who lost their virginity were devalued and
could be sold in marriage only for a low price. These cases indicated that the Manchus
became very concerned about female virginity—a conception that was foreign to them
before the conquest, and, like Chinese, the Manchus started to associate virginity with the
woman’s moral characters.

Related to the issue of virginity, women’s lifelong sexual loyalty to one single
man was emphasized. In other words, a woman should not have intimate relations with
any men other than her husband during her entire life span. This comrrritrnent existed not
only as long as the marriage but also covered the period before she married and after her
husband died. The cases of Chi-ba-er, Ba-jin-er, and Qiang-du discussed above (see page
171-173) indicated that, by the end of the 18th century, Manchu males had gradually

accepted many new Confucian values regarding to gender relations and sexuality,

 

“ Susan Mann, “Widows in the Kinship, Class, and Community Structures of Qing Dynasty China.”
Journal of Asian Studies, 46.1 (February 1987), p. 50.

174

including men’s sexual monopoly over women, the separation of sexes, and the
conception of “men outside, women inside”.

Another change could be seen in the aspect of intimate relations among family
members. The cases in archives revealed that after the conquest the Manchus prohibited
levirate marriage and became very sensitive to the intimate relations between younger
men (or men in junior generation) and older women (or women in senior generation). The
serious penalties given to those who committed sexual transgression within families and
the leniency exhibited toward the over-suspicious husbands who murdered their wives
indicated that the Manchu rulers made effort to root out their “barbarian” tradition and
replace it with Chinese ethic about family life.

It seems that a conclusion can be made based on these changes: by the end of the
18'h century, the Manchus had accepted Confucian values on the aspects of gender
relations and sexuality, they had been Confucianized or sinicized. However, this
conclusion is only partly correct because the cases just cited primarily reflected males’
attitudes towards those new values. One cannot extrapolate fi'om those cases what
Manchu women thought about the new values. After the conquest, did women fit into the
new social and cultural environment in the same way and at a same pace as Manchu men
did? By examining the changing tradition from a gendered perspective, we see that men
and women had different views on the new morality.

The cases in the archives revealed how seriously the men considered the sexual
purity of their brides.“ However, their actions make it clear that they still lived

according to the former traditions, in which virginity was not a significant issue, women

 

’5 See the confessions of Du-lun and Kui-ming on the pages 163 and 164.

175

were not separated from men, and intercourse among relatives was tolerated. Hundreds of
cases of sexual transgressions from the Qianlong period (1736-1795) are preserved in the
First Archives Museum in Beijing. Many of the cases began with a casual chat and visits
between unmarried girls and their male neighbors. For example, Guo San was a neighbor
of Zhang Baisui. He often dropped in Zhang’s house to have chat with Zhang’s daughter.
Later their friendship developed into sexual relations and as the result, Zhang grudgingly
married Da-niu to Guo San in order to save everyone’s face because Da-niu was already
pregnant.46 In some cases, girls behaved in accordance with traditional customs and did
not realize the significance of virginity and body purity until the tragedies happened. For
example, Chi-ba-er’s daughter “enjoyed going outside for shopping or just wandering
around on the street” and at one night in October of 1774, she even stayed somewhere
overnight.47 It seems that the girls enjoyed casual relationships with men and were not
sensitive about the possibility of losing their virginity. A distance can be seen here
between the attitudes of men and those of women-—whereas men were extremely
concerned about female virginity, women took a less rigorous attitude to the new moral
issues and continued to socialize with people without gender boundaries.

One may argue that the archival materials might have bias since they were mostly
from court records in which women were indicted and viewed as lacking in morality
according to Confucian norms, and, therefore, such cases are by definition exceptionable
and may not represent the whole body of the Manchu women in the 17th and 18th

centuries. However, the entire corpus of officially-compiled sources about Qing women,

 

‘6 Neiwufii laiwen (Archives of Inrperial Household Department), # 2151, December 21in the 50" year of
'anlong (1785). For the details of the case, see pp. 163-164 in this chapter.

’ Neiwufii laiwen (Archives of Imperial Household Departrrrent), # 2131, October 1‘t in the 39'” year of

Qianlong (1774). For the details of the case, see p. 164 in this chapter.

176

for example, the Lienu zhuon (exemplary women) in Qingshi goo (The draft of Qing
history) and Baqi tongzhi (Comprehensive history of the Eight Banners), also reflect that

Manchu women in general did not consider virginity and purity as a significant matter.

According to the tradition of Chinese historiography, Lienu zhuon (5111153, Biography of

exemplary women) in of ficially-compiled dynastic history usually had four categories:

xiaonu (3t, filial daughters); lienu (£1111, unmarried woman who died a martyr for her

country or her sexual purity); jiefu (ma, chaste widows); and Iiefu (£11151, married woman

who died a martyr for one’s country or to protect one’s sexual purity). Among 653
exemplary women recorded in Qingshi goo, 635 were Chinese while 18 were Manchus.
Among Chinese women, 147 (about 23%) died defending their sexual purity. Not a single
Manchu woman died for the same cause. The Lienu zhuon in Baqi tongzhi was
exclusively about the exemplary women in banners. However, there were only two
categories there—chaste widows, who refused to remarry after their husbands or fiancées

died, and martyr widows who followed their husbands in death. In both books—Baqi

tongzhi and Qingshi gao, no unmarried Manchu girls (qinu flit) were recorded as

exemplary women. I believe that this is because to die a martyr for one’s bodily purity
was the main criterion for being a lienu. But to Manchu girls, bodily purity and integrity
did not traditionally carry the same degree of significance as it did for Chinese women.
Therefore, Manchu women would not choose to die for defending something they did not
consider important.

Thus we can make a conclusion—not only based on what the history books did

177

record but also based on What is missing in the books—that by the end of the 18th century
Manchu women still felt that the concept of female virginity was foreign. They changed
more slowly than men did at this point.

In addition to the issue of virginity, Manchu men and women had different
attitudes and reactions to other new values as well, for example, the lifelong sexual
commitment to one man, separation of sexes, and the concept of “men outside, women
inside”.

In Manchu tradition, sexual loyalty only stood as long as the marriage existed.
After the conquest, Manchu men accepted Confucian ideal for chaste widows, in which
remarriage and consorting with men were considered shameful conduct, but Manchu
women changed more Slowly. In the case of Ba-jin-er, the widow Guo shi did not feel it
inappropriate to invite her male fiiend to her room for a talk. It was her son who thought
his mother was doing something wrong. He became so resentful of the man who might
ruin her mother’s reputation that he committed a murder.48 In another case, widow Sun
shi remarried right after her husband died. She did not feel embarrassed since she was
flee to do so according to tradition. However, her son Hei-da-zi felt differently. He
deceived the clan elder into believing that his mother died when actually she had
remarried. He did so because he feared “losing face” over his mother’s un-Confucian
behavior.‘19 These two cases reveal that while Manchu men accepted new values, women

still held to the old traditions.

 

’8 Neiwufit laiwen (Archives of Imperial Household Department), # 2121, May 6 in the 28'” year of
Qianlong (1763). For more detail of the case, see page 165.

‘9 Neiwufu laiwen (Archives of Imperial Household Department), # 2118, August in the 25"I year of
Qianlong (1760).

178

In the archives preserved in Beijing and in Taipei, most homicide cases involved
in sexual transgression. About half of those were manslaughter due to the husbands’ over
sensitiveness and overreaction to their wives social activities. The cases of Zhang
Yangcheng, Sun Heizi, A-er-xi, and Chang-cun, cited in previous pages, are good
examples of the manslaughter of that kind,50 as are the cases below:

Chou-er was a booi under the Plain Yellow Banner. In the 46th year of Kangxi
(1707), he killed his wife Xu-jie. The following is his confession:

Xu-jie was brought into this household by our master last year (1706). He initially

intended to marry Xu-jie to another booi Ba-er. Since Ba-er was not interested in

Xu-jie, the Master then married her to me. After we were manied, however, my

wife still often played with Ba-er together and had fun with him. On the 17’” day

in July this year, when I was sharpening a small knife, my wife came to me said,

“The Mistress asked you to buy buttons. Why are you still here? What are you

sharpening the knife for?” As she said so, the scene of how she and Ba-er amused

themselves together came into my mind. I was filled with filry and killed her with
the knife.51

In another case, booi Nan-jing’s wife Bao shi told him that the Master asked him
to feed the horses at stable and not to come back home until called. So Nan-jing went to
the stable. A moment later, he suddenly thought that Bao shi might be having an affair
with someone and was doing something behind his back. So he came back home and

killed his wife with axe.52

E-min was a Manchu official, who was in charge of minority affairs (Iifan yuan

Eflfi). On July 5, 1735 when he was on his way to work, he realized that he forgot to

bring with him some important items. So he went back home. As he arrived at home, he

caught sight of a figure sneaking out from the back door of the courtyard. His wife stood

 

5° For more details, see pp. 169-171 in this chapter.

5 ' Neige Hanwen huangce (Yellow books in Chinese from the cabinet), microfilm, # C-2434. July in the
49th year of Kangxi (1710).

‘2 Ibid., microfilm, # 02451. The 57'“ year of Kangxi (1717).

179

by the door waving her hands. E-min said, “When she turned around and saw me, she
trembled with fear. I was sure she had done something shameful [refering to having sex]
behind my back. . .” He killed her with axe.53

De-min was a bannerman under the Plain Yellow Banner, working at yamen. On
the 5th day in September of 1735, he asked for a day off because of sickness. As he got
home, he saw that the servant Zhu Gui behaving very badly. When he tried to discipline
the servant, his wife Guan shi argued with him in Zhu Gui’s favor, which made him
suspicious of their relations. The next day in the evening, when he passed by Zhu Gui’s
room, he heard Zhu Gui saying to Xiang-er (De-min’s concubine), “What should we fear
of him?” De-rrrin was thus confirmed the belief that both his wife and concubine were
having affairs with Zhu Gui. Driven by fury, he strangled his wife.54

The murderers in the above cases were condemned to death with one-year grace
period, during which the men could find ways to have the penalties commuted. The court
decision indicated the govemment’s leniency toward the over-suspicious “wife-killers”
and unfairness to the innocent wives, which suggests that, in the aspect of promoting
Confucian norms on female sexuality, the Qing court was little different fiom that of the
Ming or other dynasties ruled by Chinese.

Many more similar cases could be found from the archives, indicating that murder
due to men’s suspicion and over-sensitivity about their wives’ sexual purity was a
widespread phenomenon in 18th century Manchu society. At first glance, these cases

seemed to be puzzling and shocking. It was hard to understand why these Manchu men

 

53Neige Hanwen huangce (Yellow books in Chinese from the Cabinet), microfilm, # C-5582, July 20 in the
first year of Qianlong (1736).

5‘ Neige Hanwen huangce (Yellow books in Chinese from the Cabinet), microfilm, # 05582, May 15 in
the 3rd year of Qianlong (1738).

180

were so easily initated by their wives’ behavior and why they became so brutal that they
killed their wives without mercy. However, if these cases were examined from a
gendered perspective, the reasons become clear.

After the Manchus established Qing dynasty in China and adjusted to a new
political environment, they also experienced a process of cultural relocation. Since men
and women had different functions and positions in society, they accepted new values
(for example the Confircian norms in sexuality) on different levels and at a different pace.
The conjugal conflicts in the archives reflected cultural discrepancy within the household
between husband and wife, who interpreted the Confucian concepts and values according
to their own understanding.

Among other Confucian norms regarding gender relations and sexuality, the
conception of “separation of sexes” and “men inside, women outside” were the kernel of
the doctrine. Manchu men very quickly learned to appreciate Confucian values on gender
relations and sexuality, especially these two key concepts, which benefited their interests
the most. After the conquest, the Manchus, as an ethnic minority, lived in an ocean of
Chinese population—according to Rawski, the ratio of the number of Chinese and
Manchu was 49:1 in mid-seventeenth century?5 Elliott estimates that the Manchus were
outnumbered by the Chinese by about 350 to 1.56 To confine their women in the inner
quarters would help Manchu men felt more secure psychologically. When the Manchus
were far away fi'om their homelands, family became more significant to them since it

carried double meanings—the home both in narrow sense and in broader sense.

 

’5 Evelyn Rawski, “Ch’ing Imperial Marriage and Problems of Rulership,” p. 171, in Watson & Ebrey, ed.
Marriage and Inequality in Chinese History).
56 Elliott, The Manchu Way, p. 3.

181

Moreover, along with the settlement and the grth of social economy, wealth was
accumulated within individual families. The issue of women chastity became more
important due to increasing emphasis on guaranteed paternity and heirs to inherit
property. Therefore, the idea of separation of sexes was especially beneficial to men’s
interests.

Acculturation of Manchu women presents a different picture. Compared with men
who dealt extensively with Chinese outside the Manchu cities, women were confined
within the cities, so they had little opportunity to contact Chinese people and culture in a
deeper level or in a consistent way, although sometimes they had chance to talk to
Chinese peddlers on the street or other casual-laborers elsewhere. Their knowledge about
Chinese society and values came primarily from their fathers, husbands, and sons. While
they accepted and practiced these new values, they still maintained old Manchu
traditions. In other words, they watered down Manchu traditions with Chinese values and
understood Confucian conceptions from their own perspective. As the result, Manchu
men and women developed different definitions of new conceptions they learned. For
example, to men, “separation of sexes” meant that during a woman’s entire life span, she
should have no kind of intimate contact (sexual or non-sexual) with men, including male
family members, other than her husband.57 However, the “separation of sexes” to
Manchu women only meant a boundary of sexual relations beyond marriage, and a
boundary of intimate association with strangers. If we keep this assumption in mind and

examine the conflicts/tragedies in the archives from a perspective of gender, we realize

 

’7 This understanding was exactly as same as of the Chinese people (both men and women) about the
conception of “separation of sexes.”

182

that the source of conflicts was the disjuncture between men’s and women’s conceptions
of Confucian tradition.

The following case demonstrates this argument:

Kuilin was a bannerman under the Plain Yellow Banner. He manied Zhai shi and
they had a daughter. Kuilin died in the 58th year of Qianlong (1793). Zhai shi stayed as a
widow, living with Kuilin’s mother and his two unmarried brothers. Their house had two
rooms. Zhai shi lived in the inner room with her daughter and mother-in-law while
Kuilin’s brothers lived in the outer room. Kuilin’s cousin had a son, named An-zi. In the
60th year of Qianlong, when his parents died, An-zi moved in the same courtyard living
with Kuilin’s family. Tragedy started when Kuilin’s younger brother assumed that his
widowed sister-in-law had an affair with An-zi because he saw her and An-zi chatting
and laughing by the door. So he killed her with a knife. When this case of murder was
submitted to the yamen, Zhai shi’s mother-in-law was called as a witness. She said, “My
daughter-in-law was chaste and decent. It was true that she sometimes amused herself by
chatting with An-zi, but that was just some small talk. Nothing serious.”58 This case
illustrates the different reactions of men and women to the same deed. To Zhai shi’s
brother-in-law, if a woman talked with a man other than her deceased husband, she had
violated the rule of separation of sexes, which could be considered as a sexual
transgression. But to Zhai shi’s mother-in-law and Zhai herself, talking to a man was
morally distinct from having sex with him. Moreover, since Zhai shi did not chat with a
stranger but with a relative and the conversation was just small talk, she had done nothing

wrong and was still considered as a “chaste and decent person.” This disagreement on the

 

58 NEinlfil laiwen (Archives of Imperial Household Department), # 2170, August 12 in the first year of
Jiajing (1796).

183

definition of sexual transgression could also explain the conflicts in other cases of murder
cited in previous pages—when the husband saw his wife talking or playing with other
men, he would assume they had affairs. However, since women did not think general
contact with men, especially with someone in one’s own household (relatives or
servants), amounted to a sexual transgression by any means, they still kept up casual
contact with men, in the way with which they were familiar from Manchu tradition.
Manchu men and women had different understanding and definitions over another
Confucian key conception—“men outside, women inside.” Like Chinese, the Manchu
men tried to confine their women to the house in order to ensure their sexual safety. To
men, a woman’s space should be limited to her bedroom, or within the wall of the
courtyard at the most. The only man who had authority to enter into this “inner quarter”
was the husband. Manchu women in the 18th century did accept the idea of “women
inside” for the sake of safety. But they extended their “inner quarters” fi'om the
bedroom/courtyard to the whole neighborhood or even to the Manchu communities—— the
Tartar city, as the missionaries called it—enclosed within the city wall that separated the
Manchus from the Chinese population. It seems that the ethnic security was more of a
concern to Manchu women. They usually felt that moving around within the “extended
inner quarters” was safe and appropriate. The archives recorded many casual visits
between men and women within the neighborhood.” It was true that the frequent
contacts enhanced the possibility of sexual transgression, but women were generally

unaware of the logical connection. They commonly invited male neighbors into their

 

59 See the case of Qiu-jie in Neiwufil laiwen (Archives of Imperial Household Department), # 2115,
September 8 in the 21“ year of Qianlong (1756); the case of Lian-er in # 2129; the case of Chi-ba-er in
#2131; the case of E-ke-zang in X ingke tiben (Memorials from Justice Department), September 11 in the
2“” year of Qianlong (1737); and many more.

184

courtyards or even their bedrooms—they did not have another boundary between their
bedrooms and other spaces within the “extended inner quarters”—while in other times
they dropped by the neighbors’ house. This was especially common between relatives

since women did not consider relatives (for example, the husband’s brothers, nephews, or

cousins) as “outsiders” (flkwairen) according to their definitions of “inside” and

“outside”. However, Manchu men maintained sharp vigilance over everyone who
intruded into their women’s private spaces, especially the bedroom and kang. According
to the archives, many murders took place in bedrooms when the husband saw another
man sitting on the kang with his wife.60

After examining the cases from a gendered perspective, I believe that the
tragedies resulted from cultural conflicts between husband and wife. The cultural
conflicts within the family confirm my argument that in the process of acculturation men
and women had different attitude and reactions toward new ideas and values. When men
accepted new values and adjusted to the new cultural environment, women still

maintained many traditions and lived in an old Manchu way.

Conclusion

Manchu women’s lives experienced significant changes during the first 150 years
after the conquest. One of the most notable changes is seen in the aspects of gender
relations and sexuality. In Manchu tradition, there was no conception of “separation of
sexes.” Women were allowed to have general contact with men. Archives revealed the

relatively loose regulation on sexual relations between different genders, especially

 

6° See the case of Zhang Yangcheng on page 169 and the case of Xi-cun on page 170 in this chapter.

185

between single men and women, reflecting that in the early Manchu society female
virginity was not a major issue. A woman’s moral character did not determine the value
of her body, and this common understanding in turn helped to undermine the significance
of separation of sexes. The Manchu tradition also included tolerance of sexual
transgression among family members and the system of levirate maniage.

By the end of the 18th century, the Confucian norms of female sexual chastity
disseminated throughout Manchu society, as well as male life-long sexual monopoly over
women was emphasized. Levirate marriage was banned and sexual relations among
family members were considered as a crime and, therefore, would be punished more
severely. The changes reflected how in the process of acculturation, the Manchus
gradually accepted Confucian values in the aspect of sexuality as they relocated in China
proper.

Chinese scholars of Qing history have used the sexual changes in Manchu women

as evidence of Manchu sinicization (33218) or Confucianization (fit L1). They postulate that

after 1644, the Manchus quickly emulated Han Chinese in the aspects of social lives and

ideologies. Ethics and practice regarding sexuality in Manchu society showed little

difference with those of Chinese society by the end of the Qianlong reign (1736-1795).61
This conclusion is only partly right. It is true that after the conquest of China, the

Manchus experienced a process of cultural adoption and adaptation into Chinese society,

 

6' Ding Yizhuang, Manzu deflmu shenghuo yu hunyin zhidu yanjiu (Research on life and marriage patterns
of Manchu women), p. 104; p. 159; Liu Zhiyang, “Cong Manzu chuantong guannian de zhuanbian kan
Han wenhua de yingxiang (From the changes in Manchu traditional value to see Chinese culture’s
influence on the Manchus)” Minzu yanjiu (Ethnicity studies), issue 6, 1992, pp. 83-91; Zhang Wei,
“Qingdai Manzu defunu shenghuo (Manchu women’s lives in Qing dynasty)” Zhongguo gudaifimu
zhuanji (Special issue for ancient Chinese women), pp. 76-80.

186

including a gradual acceptance of Confucian values on gender relations and sexuality.
However, from a gendered perspective, women changed more slowly than men. Cases
from archives reveal that men and women had different attitudes toward the new values
of sexuality and explained new conceptions differently according to their own
understanding.

Men and women experienced differential opportunities for contact with Chinese
culture. Bannermen had more contacts with Chinese in the public spheres. As the result,
during the first 150 years after the conquest, Manchu men gradually appreciated and
accepted a greater part of Confucian doctrine, including the norms of gender relations and
sexuality.

However, banner women lived in a relatively closed communities, within the
Manchu cities. They were not exposed to Chinese society and, therefore, did not accept
the new values as quickly as the men. Actually, they were in a situation of dual
confinement, which meant that they, as women, were expected by men to stay in the
inner quarters and at the same time, as members of ruling ethnicity, they were enclosed
by the city walls. Their situation offered few opportunities to learn from the world
outside. Therefore, the changes in Manchu women’s lives reflected men’s expectation, on
the virginity issue, chaste widowhood, and levirate marriage. Since men and women had
different positions in society, women needed more time to adjust to the new cultural
environment and accept new values and conceptions. Women therefore maintained more
traditions and changed more slowly than men in the process of acculturation.

The court records examined in this chapter revealed that this process of change

resulted in struggles between old traditions and new values and within individual

187

households. The cases from the archives reveal how differently Manchu men and women
understood and evaluated Confucian values on gender relations and sexuality and how

their disagreements could lead to their respective conduct.

188

Conclusion: Manchu Women’s Place in Manchu and Chinese Acculturation

After the 10‘h century, China was frequently ruled (partly or wholly) by non-
Chinese governments, including the Liao (907-1119) of the Khitan, the Xi Xia (1038-
1227) of the Tanguts, the Jin (1115-1234) of the Jurchen, the Yuan (1271-1368) of the
Mongols. The Qing (1644-1911) was the final conquest dynasty, established by the
Manchus. Most of these conquest dynasties were short-lived and limited their powers to
the northern part of China. Only the Yuan and the Qing ruled all of China, and only the
Qing rule lasted for almost three hundred years.

The key to the Manchus’ success in China was that the Manchus kept a balance
between adopting Chinese culture and maintaining their own ethnic identity until the end
of the dynasty. Focusing on the Qing institutions and policies, the recent works of
Crossley, Rawski, and Elliott have examined the ways in which the Manchu rulers made
every effort to maintain their Altaic traditions throughout the dynasty and emphasize the
significance of martial skills to the Manchu soldiers. '

In this dissertation, I have examined the lives of common banner women from the
time of the conquest to the high Qing period of the Emperor Qianlong, a period of 150
years. As we have seen from the primary sources of archives, literature, and interviews,
women living in the banners enclaves inside China acted as reservoirs to conserve and
pass on Manchu culture. They played a different role than did banner males in
maintaining Manchu ethnicity and changed more slowly than men did in the process of

acculturation.

 

' The Manchus’ Altaic traditions included the system of levirate marriage, women’s relatively high status
within the family, women greatly involved political, economic, and social activities, the appreciation of
bold, healthy, and vigorous as female beauty, and so on.

189

The discussion in preceding chapters demonstrated that while bannermen
gradually appreciated the Confucian values and had become “sofi” since the late 16005,
banner women continued to maintain the Manchu traditions in many aspects of their
lives. For example, the pattern of female-centered households, the relationships among
family members, and the rights women could enjoy within the family, were kept almost
unchanged as the unique part of Manchu culture until the end of Qing. In turn, many
Manchu traditions and identities, including language, food, etiquette, dress and hairstyle,
etc. were passed through women within the family from one generation to another.2

Manchu women might accept Confucian values in a superficial way. In the case
of changing traditions on widow remarriage, at first glance, it seemed that more and more
Manchu widows were choosing not to remarry but to remain as virtuous widows, which,
if true, would provide a good evidence for women’s Confucianization. However, when
examined more carefully, Manchu women’s “guarding chastity” resembled Confucian
ideal of virtuous widowhood only in form, not in function. Behind the chaste-widow
screen, Manchu women had other considerations than loyalty to their deceased
husbands—the essence of Confucian chaste widowhood cult—they were more concerned
about their pragmatic interests, such as the right of inheritance and custody of children.3

Women accepted new values much more slowly than did men. In the aspect of
intermarriage, while some bannermen manied Chinese women, very few banner women
married Chinese men. On the one hand, this imbalance was undoubtedly determined by
the court’s prohibition on female exogarny. But from the cultural perspective, even if

there had been no such ban, Manchu women might still have been reluctant to marry

 

2 See Chapter Two for details.
3 See Chapter Three for details.

190

Chinese men because they saw the Chinese as “outsiders” and “strangers.” The different
attitudes of banner men and women toward marrying Chinese reflected the fact that
women accepted Chinese culture on a different level and at a different pace than did
Manchu males.4

The most remarkable example demonstrating the different reactions of men and
women as they adjusted to the new cultural environment can be found in the judicial
cases cited in Chapter Five where gender relations and sexuality are discussed. The
disagreements between husbands and wives or concubines within the households actually
reflected the cultural conflicts under the same roof. While men had come to appreciate
Confucian norms regarding female virtue and judged sexual transgression according to
Chinese standards, women still stuck by the old Manchu traditions and defined the new
Confucian concepts according to their own understanding.

The different level of acculturation between banner men and women could also be
seen fiom their response to the court’s call. In many cases, women’s behaviors and
choices did not coincide with the court’s will. Therefore, a historian’s duty is not only to
examine the court’s policies but also to check these ways in which these policies were
executed in social reality.

Until as late as 1990, scholars of Qing social and cultural history primarily
focused on analyzing court policies and the lives of social elite, based on the available
officially compiled documents. But these sources provide little information about
ordinary people’s daily lives and barely mention women. The policies of court reflected

the rulers’ ideology, but the imperial intentions did not necessarily filter down to the

 

‘ See Chapter Four for details about Manchu-Han intermarriage.

191

common people. Thanks to the Beijing First Archives Museum that officially opened the
Qing archives to public (including Western scholars) in the early 19803, many archival
sources about the lives of common people and women are now available for the study of
Qing history and culture. From these archival sources, for example, the confessions of
court record, we can hear men and women’s voices and learn how the common people
lived and thought in 300 years ago.

When examining the primary sources, one may find that, to a great extent, banner
women ignored the court’s promotion of Confucian values and chose to follow the old
Manchu traditions. For example, the Manchu rulers promoted the Confucian ideal of
virtuous womanhood among Han and Manchu alike, promoting female obedience,
confinement to the home, and separation of the sexes. In reality, however, banner women
still lived in a traditional Manchu way. In Chapter Two, we found unrestrained girls,
dominating mothers-in-law, and rebellious wives (although they often became victims),
who were not, or were not willing to be, obedient. Ignoring the rule of separation of the
sexes, young men and women got together within households or on the street. Women
kept their bedroom doors open to fiiends, neighbors, and relatives, even though it caused
their husbands to be suspicious, and sometimes women dropped in other households for
gossip and ftm (though this practice led to many sexual transgressions).5 Considering the
interests of Manchu rule, the Qing court encouraged young banner widows to remarry
while promoted Confucian chaste widowhood cult among those who were older than
forty. In reality, however, women made their decisions primarily based on the

considerations of their own self-interests. As for the matter of intermarriage, in addition

 

5 See Chapter Five for details.

192

to the court’s prohibition, cultural incompatibility seemed to be the more decisive force
preventing banner women from marrying Chinese men. From literary works and
interviews, we find that the most banner women did not want to marry Chinese because
of the cultural unfamiliarity and misunderstandingf’

In most situations, bannermen appreciated what the court promoted, including the
Confucian ideal of virtuous womanhood. In other cases, however, they could not (or did
not want to) understand and share the values with the rulers. As noted in Chapter Four,
during the most of the dynasty (1665-1901), the Qing government carried out a policy of
“partial prohibition of intermarriage.” One of the purposes of the policy was, of course, to
maintain the population of barmer people registered in banners. Once a banner woman
married a Chinese, she would be expelled from the banner and become a “commoner”
and her children were not considered as Manchu. Another purpose for preventing banner
women from marrying Chinese was to ensure sufficient marriage partners for bannermen.
But why was it so important? If bannermen could marry Chinese and the children from
this union would be considered as Manchu, then what did the court worry about? I
believe that the court’s real anxiety was not about reproducing Manchu people but about
the bannermen’s acculturation at home. The Manchu rulers might not want to see too
many “banner women”7 who had tiny feet in the banner since that practice would further
blur the boundary between banner people and Chinese commoners. However, not all the
bannermen shared such an anxiety with government. Many chose to marry Chinese

women and gradually came to appreciate Chinese culture. Having Chinese wives and

 

6 See p.147 in this dissertation.
7 Once a Chinese woman married a bannerman, she changed her ethnicity from Chinese to Manchu and her
name would be registered in banner. See Chapter Four.

193

concubines in turn promoted men’s sinicization. Qing government was strong and
powerful, but it could not stop the process of acculturation between Manchus and
Chinese.

Banner men and women served the Qing national interests differently. From the
beginning of the conquest, the Manchus ruled China by the form of dyarchy—a strategy
that kept balance between the “cosmopolitan” and the “ethnic” modes of rulership.8 The
policies of dyarchy were not only embodied in the institutional system but also extended
to the social sphere and to areas that were closely related to common people’s daily lives.
Unlike the dyarchical system in Qing administration where the ethnic balance was on
public display in the distribution of government personnel, dyarchy in social policies was
invisible in terms of physical arrangement, but existed in the Manchu rulers’ minds as an
ideology and strategy with which to rule both Chinese and Manchus. Throughout Qing
period, the emperors sought to win support of Han Chinese elite by adopting Confucian
norms and expanding Confucian values to the whole society, while on the other hand,
they were very concerned about maintaining the Manchu ethnicity and emphasized their
position as a caste of occupation. In the aspects of women’s lives, the Qing government
promoted Confucian ideals of virtuous womanhood among the Manchus, including the
virtue of obedience, the practice of separation of the sexes and “men outside, women
inside”, the idea of premarital sexual purity, and the cult of chaste widowhood. At the

same time, however, the government insisted that Manchu traditions be maintained. For

 

8 Mark Elliott, “Manchu Widows and Chastity in Qing China.” p. 37. These terms were first used by Philip
Kuhn in his book Soulstealers: the Chinese Sorcery Scare of l 768, p. 80.

194

example, Manchu women were not allowed to bind their feet and wear wide sleeves.9 If
earrings were worn, the number of earrings on each car must be three instead of one as
the Han-Chinese style. Throughout the dynasty, the tradition of xiunu selection was
maintained and the policies on partial prohibition of intermarriage were carried out
through 1665 to 1901.

The policies of dyarchy were perceived from the perspective of gender. Once the
Qing rulers became aware that the Manchu population was in danger of losing its ethnic
identity, they pursued two sets of policies for bannermen and women. For example,

during the Qianlong reign, the court urged bannermen to maintain their “manly virtue” by

being wu (fl, martial) and Manchu, whereas, regarding banner women, the emperor

encouraged them to appreciate and accept Confucian codes on virtuous womanhood—but
not those that might threaten Manchu ethnicity, such as changes in their outward
appearance, fertility and nuptiality. Using Elliott’s words, “while the emperor (Qianlong)
was busy defending the cultural boundaries of male ethnicity, he was simultaneously
breaking down . . . the cultural boundaries of female ethnicity.”IO It seems that when the
Qing rulers were facing a difficult situation in accommodating both the “cosmOpolitan”
and the “ethnic” aspects of rulership, they “used” men and women respectively to ensure

these different political interests—strengthening male ethnicity to maintain the

 

9 Manchu women started to wear wide—sleeve clothing by the mid-19'” century. From some pictures of
dowager Ci Xi, we may see that she and other imperial ladies wore wide-sleeves. Valery Garrett believes
that the changing style of Manchu clothing was due to the influence of Chinese and indicated an
assimilation of Chinese culture (Garrett, Chinese Clothing, p. 58). Still, the sleeves of Manchu women’s
clothing were much narrower than those of Chinese.

'0 Mark Elliott, “Manchu Widows and Chastity in Qing China,” pp. 62-63. I agree partly with Elliott’s
arguments. The Manchu court actually gave two different sets of signals to their women. They promoted
older widows to maintain their chaste widowhood and be virtuous for the purpose of showing their
Confucian refinement, while encouraging younger widows to remarry in order to provide Manchu men
more available women for marriage and thus maintain the Manchu population in a certain number.

195

“Manchuness” of Qing, and appearing to promote female Confucianization to make Qing
a legitimate Chinese dynasty.

But, did the Manchu emperor really intend to promote Confucianization or
sinicization among Manchu women? The answer to that question appears to be
ambiguous. As I have shown in the preceding chapters, even at the end of the eighteenth
century, Manchu women still maintained many of the old traditions. They thought as
Manchus and lived in traditional Manchu ways. Thus the statements that the emperors
promulgated for political purposes had little effect in changing the ideology or the
lifestyles of women within the banner enclaves. Sinicization posed equally serious threats
to the maintenance of Manchu ethnicity and thus to the martial vitality of the banner
troops, whether practiced by men or by women. Allowing Manchu males to marry
Chinese women and bring them into the banners did not threaten the Manchu way of life.
And while the Qing court publicly honored women who followed the cult of virtuous
widowhood, court policies at the same time protected widows financially and encouraged
them to remarry and continue to bear children within the banner. Such policies did not
pose the risk that Manchu women might leave the banners and become Chinese.

Dyarchy in social practice was a significant strategy for Manchu rule in China.
Throughout their 268-year rule in China, the Manchu rulers made a conscious effort to
keep the balance between the two national interests—supplying Confucian legitimacy
and maintaining Manchu “ethnic sovereignty”. ” They were much more successful in
maintaining this double strategy than other conquest dynasties—Liao, J in, and Yuan—in

Chinese history.

 

” This term is Elliott’s. See The Manchu Way, p. 4.

196

Using the approach of viewing women as a diverse category and as a historical
product, this research emphasizes the differences between Manchu women and Chinese
women, and between different classes within the category of the Manchu women.
Women’s identities and behaviors changed along with the social conditions. This study
shows that Manchu women in the early 17th century were very different from those in the
late 18th century, one and half centuries after the Manchus conquered China. However,
these changes did not mean that the Manchu women were becoming Chinese.

During the recent decade, Crossley, Rawski, and Elliott, based on newly obtained

archival sources, have challenged the traditional “sino-centric” view of the Manchu

sinicization.12 This work supports the views that, from the outward appearance (wai, 9%)

to the self-consciousness (nei, [*1 ), the Manchus maintained their “Manchuness” until the

end of Qing dynasty and beyond. Focusing on Manchu women’s lives during the
transition period, this study provides more evidence supporting the argument that to a
great extent the Manchu ethnic identities had been maintained at least until the end of
Qing. This study differs from the existing works on Manchus in the way that examines
Manchu ethnicity from the perspective of gender distinction and emphasizes women’s
role and place in Chinese and Manchu acculturation. Thus this dissertation provides a
convincing argument to show that women living in the banners enclaves inside China
acted as reservoirs to conserve and pass on Manchu culture. The case of Manchu
women’s role in preserving cultural traditions was common in other ethnic minorities

outside China as well, for example, the well-known Jewish grandmother syndrome.

 

'2 See Chapter One for details about the debates between the “sinicization school” and the “Altaic school.”
Also see Crossley, Rawski, and Elliott’s works on the Manchus, including The Manchus (1997); A
Translucent Mirror (1999); The Last Emperors (1998); and The Manchu Way (2001).

197

Consequently, this study also contributes to the studies of ethnicity and gender in other
periods of Chinese history, for example, Khitan, Jurchen, and Mongol women’s
experiences in China during Liao, J in, and Yuan dynasties, and indirectly contributes to

ethnicity-gender studies in other parts of the world as well.

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199

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Dowager, p. xiv-xv). In 1648, the Shunzhi emperor issued an edict asking the Chinese
living within the city walls in Beijing to move to the southern suburbs. Since then until the
end of the Qing dynasty, Beijing was divided into two parts—the Manchu city (Tartar city)
occupied the northern half, surrounding the imperial city, and the Chinese city, occupied
southern rectangle.

200

 

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Manchu Way, p. 103). The banner people were assigned to live in different quarters
according to the color of their banner. Each quarter was firrther divided into Manchu,
Mongol, and Chinese banner neighborhoods. Unshaded areas were for the Manchu
banners, shaded areas were for the Mongol banners; and diagonally barred areas were for
the Chinese banners.

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203

 

 

Figure 1. Comparison of the bound feet (right) and natural feet (lefi). A comparison of
the Chinese elite women’s bound feet with the normal feet, which Manchu women were
supposed to keep unbound. (from Wang, Aching for Beauty, p. 42)

204

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