Turning Things Around: Daughters and Their Natal Families in Qing China

Maram Epstein discusses the theme of filial devotions of daughters to their natal families in 18th-19th century Chinese fiction.

The traditional Chinese saying that daughters are born “facing out” is part of the patrilineal culture that expected women to switch loyalties to their husband’s family after marriage. As has been well documented, this expectation intensified during the Ming and Qing when many chaste maidens threw in their lot with their future husband’s family after betrothal. These chaste widows and maidens became important symbols of local virtue. However, even as female virtue became more narrowly identified with chastity and loyalty to the marital family, natal families became more invested in their daughters’ symbolic value as icons of virtue. 

Historians of women’s culture have paid relatively little attention to changes in women’s relationships with their natal families. My presentation will discuss how the filial devotions of daughters to their natal families became a popular theme in eighteenth and nineteenth-century fiction. This increased interest in daughters’ relationships with their natal families is also reflected in certain local gazetteers that recognized chastity daughters, girls who refused to marry in order to serve their parents. My presentation argues that the universal fascination with women as virtuous agents during the late-imperial period invested women’s filial loyalties to their natal families with a renewed moral validity.

Discussant: Sophie Volpp, Assistant Professor, East Asian Languages & Cultures