Research On Biographies Of Chaste Female In The History Of Ming

This paper explores Biographies of Chaste female in the History of Ming through three chapters.Chapter one expounds from the two perspectives of the compiling and the historical background of Biographies of Chaste female in the History of Ming. Section one of Chapter one discusses the evolutionary process of Biographies of Chaste female in the History of Ming and thoroughly divides the compiling process into three periods, the first of which is the preparatory period from year two of Shunzhi to year seventeen of Kangxi, the second of which is the critical period from year eighteen of Kangxi to year sixty-one of Kangxi, and the third of which is the decisive period from year one of Yongzheng to year four of Qianlong. On the basis of analyses of the objective elements affecting historians’compiling and several subjective factors of themselves in different stages, Section one points out that the History of Ming was compiled by different men who compiled it from their own perspectives. Historians couldn’t reach an agreement on how to define the female model images in the official history, so there exist lots of variations about the number and the pattern of images of chaste women in Biographies of Chaste female in the History of Ming.Section two pays attention to the historical background of Ming and Qing, seeking subtle changes of people’s thought from the social and economic basis as well as humanistic thought brought about by commercial development at that time. Meanwhile, it also pays attention to the ruler’s intention to maintain its rule, the system to support the Chaste Women politically and the political use of the historical compiling under the main steam of social thought, which was aimed at imprisoning people’s freedom of thought.Chapter two classifies women in the Biographies of Chaste female in the History of Ming into various groups including loyal images of servants who protected their masters by sacrificing themselves, unselfish images who sacrificed themselves for the benefit of their family, kind-hearted women who return others with kindnesses etc. The chapter analyses the actual motivation to describe the images. The images of chaste women in Biographies of Chaste female in the History of Ming embody the expectation of women’s roles in that traditional society which caters men’s demand to dominate the world. The next group is the image of chastity filial piety which is classified into the relations between women and their parents’ family, the relations between women and their husbands’family, and the relations between their parents’family and their husbands’family. By means of analyses of these women’s family backgrounds and social backgrounds, their roles change between different social circumstances, but they almost conformed to the norms and rules which made them suppressed physically and mentally under control of the male power consciousness. The last is the group of virgin women including six kinds: unmarried chastity, married chastity, unmarried sacrifice, married sacrifice, dutch act to rape, great death when raped. In addition, some special female types are also included to show chaste women’s tolerance through tough reality and their expectations to be recorded in history. It was their tough spirit but not their body that had shaped and reinforced their images in history.Chapter three studies the choroids to describe traditional women in each dynasty, stressing the analyses of mother images and deviation from great mothers, so as to learn the practical significance of the relations between Biographies of Chaste female in the History of Ming and Chaste Women in other historical books as well as women’s moral standard of selection. It also analyzes certain alterations in order to deepen people’s understanding of women’s images in Biographies of Chaste female in the History of Ming.