Ming Dynasty Female Officer Study

The female official system is a traditional imperial system in the ancient China. It was designed to serve the royal, maintain the power of emperors and contain the kings'desire to have a harmonious and orderly harem. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the Emperor Hongwu paid much attention to the establishment, improvement and completion of the female official system during his reign. In the following years, the system kept altering with the changes of imperial authority and political situation. Hence, the positive significance of this thesis can be found in studying the political history, the royal history and the special female group of the Ming Dynasty.The thesis mainly focuses on the various selecting standards, the settings, and the working and living conditions of the female officials, in order to make a profound understanding on the special group, exploring its development and evolution under the autocracy during the Ming Dynasty.The first chapter explains the various female officials selecting standards from the aspects of age, appearance, knowledge and native place, comparing the diversity of the selection process and its influence in the early and later periods of the Ming Dynasty. In the early days of the Ming Dynasty, the royal preferred the well-educated widows and aged virgins. In the middle Ming dynasty, there rarely existed special selection for female officials. During the Emperor Jiajing's reign, the selecting standards were far from the one formulated in the initiative Ming dynasty, which in fact were nothing different with the selecting standards of maids, who were all young virgins without education requirements.The second chapter discusses the organization structure, staff rations,separation of duties, and the daily work of the female officials in Six Departments, Twenty-four sectors and Gongzheng Si. In spite of routine management, female officials played important roles in royal grand celebrations, such as the royal wedding, Celi Yi, and Qincan Yi. Consequently, we can get a comprehensive acknowledge of the division, function and roles of female officials in ceremonies.The third chapter reveals the female officials' life in the Forbidden City from clothing, food and medicine, shelter and transportation, amusement and end results separately. As a group between the concubines and the maids hierarchy, the female officials'clothing, food, house and transportation should conform to the feudal hierarchy, which should not only represent the royal character which is different from the ordinary, but also share the living characters of women in the palace.The fourth chapter explores the evolution and influence factors of the female official system through the relation with emperors, empresses and eunuchs. There were indications that the structure of the female officials system still existed in the late Ming Dynasty. With the eunuchs monopolizing the imperial power, the female officials' function vanished. In the early Ming Dynasty, the female officials could play important roles with the support of the queens. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the queens declined in the status while the concubines arrogated to themselves, the female officials had no alternative but to stand by. Though the female officials made particular relationships with the emperors, they could not participate the government and political affairs anyway. It was established to assist the imperial power, as a result, the destiny of female official system, after all, depended on the imperial power, no matter how the eunuchs, concubines and queens intervene.Any royal systems are the ramifications of emperor system, which has strong relation with autocracy royalty. Emperors are the dominance in the palace, and the destinies of others were all controlled by them. So does the alteration of relevant system. Hence, the research on the female in the palace and the establishment, development and evolution of the female official system would provide a fresh perspective of studying the imperial power in the Ming Dynasty.