The Chastity Idea Of The Qing And Ming Dynasties

The idea of chastity has been part of human society since the civilization. However, just as history progresses, such ideas have undergone through constant changes. In Chinese history, at the beginning, the idea of chastity was not specific to the female, but on the contrary, it laid limit to the privileged class of males to some extent. Then, with the evolution of history, why did the idea of chastity change into such an extreme that it was specific to the female, especially during the Ming and Qing dynasties? How did it evolve? What were the features of the extreme demand of chastity from women during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and what were the reasons? How did the reinforced idea of chastity of that period influence the society? More over, what did the scholar-officials of that period argue about that issue? Starting from the chastity, this thesis traces the changes that the chastity idea has undergone, and then examines the extreme reinforcement of such idea during the Ming and Qing dynasties, and it is also expected that this thesis may contribute to the formation of socialist new chastity idea in the modern time.In traditional Chinese society, the chastity idea for the female has changes along the time, which displays the features of one-sidedness, narrowness in the ideology, but shows comprehensiveness and diversity in space and quantity. Especially during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the chastity idea for women even evolved into a religion, which had changed fundamentally from before: the chastity not only referred to the goodness of morality but also the physical virgin, the number of women who preserved chastity after the death of their husbands increased, and the related approaches diversified and extended in nationality and scope, and such a choice was the natural result of the mores. In conclusion, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, which lasted more than 500 years, the chastity idea for women had been constantly reinforced.The forces behind this extreme reinforcement come from all levels. First of all, the ruling class continuously intensified the chastity idea for the sake of the interest of government; secondly, patriarchal family strengthened the control over the chastity idea by means of education, award, punishment, and other ways so as to protect its own benefits; at the same time, as regards morality teaching, the Ming and Qing dynasties upheld the Neo-Confucianism, which emphasized the notion that "Virgin is a much more significant matter than foods" and further stressed the teaching of chastity idea for the women; another fact is that the prevalent idea of chastity was strengthened by the popularity of sacrifice for chastity and the appearance of Chastity Halls.A point worth noting is that, while the idea of chastity for women was constantly reinforced during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the scholar-officials did not entirely advocate such idea and had debated a lot about the chastity and anti-chastity, which were reflected in literature. Therefore, it is also another good approach to understanding the chastity idea of that period through the literary works. Yet, the so-called debate is just an invisible wave of the dominant ideology, and shall not influence the main trend of reinforcement of the idea of chastity for women.The reinforcement of the idea of chastity had exerted great impact on the productivity and life, both from the positive aspect and the negative. The positive aspect is reflected as: the women who did now want to remarry were protected, the female culture was promoted and the promiscuity was curbed; while the negative aspect is that: the living condition for women were worsened, the status for women in family was low, they were mentally tortured, their natural sex desire was repressed, and their creativity was constrained, all of which influenced the thoughts and social status of the female of following generations.At the same time, another point shall be noted that the idea of chastity for women still influence the people at contemporary time. The chastity idea of the Qing and Ming dynasties shares many similarities with the socialist idea and nevertheless differs a lot. Therefore, the research into the chastity idea of the Qing and Ming dynasties still has great realistic significance.