Jealous and Violent
Constraining and Celebrating Wifely Jealousy in Mid-to-late Ming China
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11206347 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Shiau-Yun Chen (0009-0008-5141-7435, Cornell University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 2019 |
| Issue | 79 |
| Pages | 21-48 |
| Publication date | 2019-01-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Ming Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0147-037X • E-ISSN: 1759-7595 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0147037x.2019.1598676 |
| OpenAlex | W2944084048 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 18 |
This essay examines wifely jealousy in mid-to-late Ming China (from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries), focusing on the tensions between maintaining a wife’s superior position over concubines and constraining a wife’s violence against her husband’s offspring as result of a woman’s jealous nature. By examining the Ming standard history (Mingshi) and Veritable Records of the Ming (Mingshilu), this article argues that jealous wives’ violence was policed by the state and was involved with the anxiety of producing heirs. Wifely jealousy was criminalized when it threatened the interest of producing sons for the patriarchal family. In contrast, wifely jealousy was celebrated as an expression of a deep, genuine emotion between the husband and the wife when it did not go against the mission of producing heirs and was considered acceptable under the accepted values of the moral system. Wives’ violence was sanctioned when it emerged from maintaining the hierarchical order between wives and concubines instead of jealousy; “non-jealous” wives maintained their authority over their husbands’ concubines and earned the respect of their husbands by actively bringing home concubines to serve the purpose of producing sons for the patriarchal household
Archaeology · Art · China · Criminology · Jealousy · Literature · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Marriage and Sexual Relationships · Psychology · Social Psychology
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The Chinese Virago
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Intimate Memory
Princely Courts of the Ming Dynasty
The Inversion of Marital Hierarchy
Social Power and Legal Culture
The Chinese Vernacular Story
The Market in Concubines in Jiangnan During Ming-Qing China
| Highly cited | No |
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