Society like Qing China had an influential ideology in making laws which is Confucianism. Specifically in this paper, I will focus on Chastity law in Qing China. Most of scholars, who had previous studies about the law, had written from the viewpoint of state that is based on patriarchal system. It makes sense somehow because states were the lawmakers and law was exercised as an instrument to control and maintain the state power at that time. So, in this paper, I would like to see the chastity law from the view point of women because I study that there is gender inequality and the consequence problems of chastity law in Qing society. I also think that the Qing law served the interest of the women of the rich household but not the poor women. For example, it is hard for a common widow to survive while keeping chastity since they are economically weak. In one study, it mentions that the widow populations were dramatically increasing dynasty by dynasty in China since 17th century. Thus, at one glance, chastity law seemed to be successful in its application to society. However, I do not think that the rise of widow population means the chastity law is perfect. Thus, my hypothesis is that whether the widows really satisfied with chastity law that was strictly imposed on them. In other words, I would examine whether all widows follow the chastity law or not. Also, I would also examine that weather the chastity law is the protection of widows or not. In case of poor widows, they might choose to remarry. Accordingly, this paper will have a study on the chastity law in Qing society by examining the problems that widows at the time might surely had faced in terms of chastity laws posed on them. My paper is elaborated mainly based on Matthew H. Sommer’s artcle.
As I mentioned in my introductory part, laws regarding with relations between sexuality and gender are based on Confucianism. It is Confucianization of law or the Confucian influence on legal codes. In terms of gender relations, Confucianized Qing law is in favor of patriarchal society. There is always hierarchy between men and women. For the Confucian philosopher, the five types of relationships or hierarchy bonds such as bonds joining rulers and ministers, father and son, elder brother and younger brother, and husband and wife is very important. Therefore, they think that wife must follow husband as the minister is faithful to ruler. The chastity law was also strongly influenced by Confucianism. The scholar Susan Mann mentions that “Sexual fidelity (jie) was the wife’s quintessential virtue, the conjugal metaphor of loyalty (zhong), or filial piety (xiao)”. 18th century Qing was the prosperous era in Global economy and the population growth reached the highest as well. So, agricultural production could not keep up with the population growth. Due to this, Qing society turned out to be a poor society. So, the society overall was unstable and there were the so-called “rootless rascal”, the men who cannot afford to build their own economy and the state started to see them as a threat to family-based gender role. It is because since their lives went astray, they were the potential being for rape and various sex crimes. For this reason, the state was really concern about this issue and enforced the law that promote chastity cult exactly in 19th century.
Basically, chastity law started to influence on Qing widows’ lives since then. It is a law for the widows to have sexual loyalty to husbands. “Honoring of chaste widows dated from at least Han dynasty, which first institutionalized Confucian morality as imperial dogma”. Chastity law, at first sight was beneficial for a widow because it is granted widows the rights of property and independence. But there were problems in terms of rights of property and independence. Here, I would like to focus on the rich widows (widows with property) versus the poor widows in terms of chastity law as a big picture of my argument.
The Qing chastity law in general granted the rights to property and independence of widows. Here, my argument is what about in case of the poor widows with less property. For a rich widow, as long as her husband left her with charitable estates, she could survive by herself without remarriage. There are many cases of rich widows, who decided to keep chastity since they got enough property such as paddy lands, cows etc. Not only that, their in-laws and young children depended on her for survival and she is quite autonomous. Thus Sommer mentions that “the legal discourse of chastity had little practical relevance for propertyless widows, but for a widow living on her husband’s estate, the claim to chastity was the vital prerequisite for independence and livelihood”.
On the other hand, poor widows have to pay their dead husband’s debt. Not only she had to pay debts of her husband, but also her husband left her with the kids. And she is economically weak and had no one to support her. How could she survive while keeping chastity? It is hard even thinking of the situation. But the law of chastity strongly prohibited women from remarrying and forced remarriage encouraged by the in-laws. However, I think the only best choice for her is to remarry. By remarrying, she could pay the debt by her bride-price and raise her children successfully. In reality, there were lots of widows’ remarriage cases in Qing China. In Sommer’s article, a widow called “Zheng Shi” said that “I have no choice but to remarry in order to preserve these four sons”. It is very logical and reasonable for me that most widows had to remarry according to their weak economic status. But the state had too strict law upon widows. There are many requirements and standards for widows in order to be recognized as an official widow. For example, a widow must spend her widowhood the year between twenty to fifty years so that she might be recognized as a qualified widow. Even stricter than this is the case of a chastity martyr. It is because the state did not recognize all widows who killed themselves in the case of rape attempt. The state only recognized widows martyr who are not penetrated by the rapist. Thus to become a chaste widow is not an easy thing. In my opinion, a chaste widowhood is very dangerous. They are not easily recognized as chaste even they risk their lives to show their chastity. Through this state policy, I can’t help but confirm that the only purpose of state policy is to keep the male-oriented family order.
For me, I think there could be various alternative ways to keep the patriarchal order and property of husbands. Especially for poor widows, one alternative way could be raising her first husband’s children by building second marriage. My view is that as long as she keeps the family line which is raising her children got by her first husband; it is meaning that she keeps the family lines. Well, if she abandoned those children and took no responsibility for them, that could be contradict with the purpose of the state policy. In fact, there are women who really care about their children of first family though they remarry. One widow justified her remarriage by saying that “…if these four sons starved to death, that would completely cut off my husband’s line of descent”. Through this evidence, we can see her real purpose for remarriage. She cares about her first husband’s family lines. Fortunately, this kind of case was forgiven by the court. Aside from this case, let us say if a widow just remarries only for her own survival, what would be the court’s reaction? They would not have been forgiven her behavior since this is not consistent with the purpose of state policy. Again for me, if the court did so, it is absolutely about restricting the free choices of poor widows. In the article of Sommer, it is said that “the code states that a widow who remarried in order to finance her first husband’s burial should receive only the lighter penalty”. What an aggressive law! Still, there is a penalty. Thus, I would like to keep saying that a widow’s life is very miserable and dangerous, and had no security. The Qing Chastity law obviously did not serve for the interest of poor widows.
Although the law seemed to serve the interest of rich widows, widows’ lives in general are threatened. Specifically, regardless of their status whether the poor or the rich, widows’ independence and rights of property are always threatened. Then it is the real independence for widows? Actually, the threat came from in-laws. Most of the in-laws are always keep their eyes on the property of widows. Since, the state granted absolute rights of property to widows, in-laws could not interrupt those properties by law. But in reality, an in-law said “I wanted to get her property, so I got the idea to sell her in marriage…I forced her to remarry so I could occupy her land”.
The state is justifying that they granted independence and rights of property while their real purpose is to maintain the family order. The in-laws intervention of property is one of the problems of chastity law. By upholding the laws, in-laws even set up a story of adultery of widows and sue against them in order to expel the widows. There was a case that shows the wrong accusation of a widow by her in-laws. The property of a widow called Wang Zhao Shi was seized by her in-laws family. The in-laws made up the false story of her by saying that she [the widow] commits adultery with her tenant. And especially her mother-in-law sent her two sons to occupy the property of her widow daughter-in-law. Wang Zhao Shi said that “how cruel, for a chaste widow to suffer such a disgraceful and false accusation…!”
Although chaste widows are falsely blamed by their in-laws, their suffering life was not recorded fully in historical archives. Under the title “Widows in Qing Dynasty China”, Mann mentions that although a widow life is full of hardship, tears, suffering, blood, and tears yet her story is recorded so briefly. It mentions as follows,
For no one will ever know that these few cryptic words encompass so much hardship and suffering, so many drops of blood and tears… when I complied gazetteer for this county, I read through many old writings, and I often found things that were too sketchy or brief, which could never fully capture even a fraction of a suffering endured by filial, faithful, virtuous, and ...chaste women of the past.

There were also the expectations for stereotype widowhood from the society. For example, widows must mourn for all days after the husband died and so on. Neighbors at that time were so curious what is going on inside the widow’s house. There is a lot of gossip about the widow’s behavior as well. A study mentions the stereotype image for a chaste widow at that time in Qing era as follows.
“Gossip hangs around a widow’s doorstep”…When a woman becomes a widow, the best thing for her to do is to cover her face and weep all day,…it would be the best for her not to eat anything at all, for if she shows a preference for sour or spicy food, she is at once suspected of expecting a baby…Generally speaking, a widow’s life is not to be envied.

Indeed, widow’s life is not likable. Another pressure for widows, I think, is the awarding system of state to chaste widows. The official recognition of widows was rising since early Qing. Widows were supported by the state. The study mentions that “by the Daoguang period (1820-1851), recognition of chaste widows had become an expression of family honor in local communities” and “female chastity was more than a competition for social status among local families”. So, being a chaste widow was praised and awarded by the society. In my opinion, the widows might feel social pressure more or less by state recognition. Although the good image for widows set up by the state or society is to be a chaste widow, I do not think this system fits for every widow especially for the propertyless widows. As mentioned in introduction part, I think the only reason that widow populations were increasing is because of this pressure and awarding system. As I have discussed above, there are many problems or threat of chaste widows. We have been discussed that the purpose of state policy is to keep the male dominant family order. The purpose is not necessarily about protecting widow’s rights. I also see that this awarding or recognition of chaste widow is just propaganda for persuading widows to be chaste. But in reality, it is hundred percent impossible for a widows to maintain her chastity because of economic conditions and various other factors. Moreover, martyr widows have to risk their lives in order to prove their chastity. For the poor widows, even if they prove their chastity by death, their names were not on the list of recognition. Mann mentions that “Yet, because they were poor, most of their names were lost, they did not win the recognition in this world. How pitiful!” Yes, it is so pitiful and so unfair for me. If there is no such a law like chastity law, widows might have a free choice for their future life. I strongly believe that the state just focus on their own interest and did not care the loss of thousands widow’s lives.
To sum up, the chastity law is no longer exist in today China since the Cultural Revolution. However, some still praise widows mother who deny remarrying. If widowed mother is interested in remarrying, people still criticize that she is immoral. I think those kind of criticism should be stopped. Instead, the society and the law itself should give a chance for widows to choose their own fate freely. By examining the problems of widowhood in Qing Dynasty, I could figure out how widow life is dangerous with limited choices. Specifically, the law did not serve for the interest of poor chaste widows. As our class reading mentioned, “the intent of chastity law was to guard the interest of husbands, defending each patriarchal unit against encroachment by avaricious relatives and subversion by unchaste wife and widows”. Nevertheless, Chastity law was not observed by all widows in Qing Dynasty.

Bibliography
Matthew H. Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).

Susan Mann, “Widows in the Kinship, Class, and Community Structures of Qing Dynasty China,” The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol.46, No.1 (Feb., 1987).

Mark C. Elliot, “Manchu Widows and Ethnicity in Qing China”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.41, No.1 (Jan., 1999).

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[ 2 ]. Mark C. Elliot, “Manchu Widows and Ethnicity in Qing China”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.41, No.1 (Jan., 1999), pg. 35.
[ 3 ]. Susan Mann, “Widows in the Kinship, Class, and Community Structures of Qing Dynasty China”, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol.46, No.1 (Feb., 1987), pg.37.
[ 4 ]. Matthew H. Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000): pg. 169.
[ 5 ]. Matthew H. Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000): pg. 191.
[ 6 ]. Ibid., pg.186.
[ 7 ]. Matthew H. Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000): pg .169.
[ 8 ]. Ibid., pg.169.
[ 9 ]. . Ibid., pg.186.
[ 10 ]. Matthew H. Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000): pg. 187.
[ 11 ]. Ibid., pg. 191.
[ 12 ]. Matthew H. Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000): pg. 198.
[ 13 ]. Susan Mann, “Widows in the Kinship, Class, and Community Structures of Qing Dynasty China”, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol.46, No.1 (Feb., 1987), pg.39.
[ 14 ]. Ibid., pg. 39.
[ 15 ]. Susan Mann, “Widows in the Kinship, Class, and Community Structures of Qing Dynasty China”, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol.46, No.1 (Feb., 1987), pg.42.
[ 16 ]. Ibid., pg. 43.
[ 17 ]. Susan Mann, “Widows in the Kinship, Class, and Community Structures of Qing Dynasty China”, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol.46, No.1 (Feb., 1987), pg.52.
[ 18 ]. Matthew H. Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (Standard: Stanford University Press, 2000): pg. 208.