Study Of The Ming And Qing Women's Lives In Yunnan

Gender means not only the difference between men and women in physiology but also a series differences between men and women in characteristics or behaviors, which portrayed by their culture tradition. It is well known that a series of gender roles and gender behaviors are determined by sex/gender system in a certain society-culture circumstance and different culture that has different gender idea or system. Women are always the mainly portrayed objects in almost every different culture of the world. The women's fortune is determined by different gender system, hence, women in different culture circumstances have different fates. All of these are the fundamental theories we research the Yunnan women's lives in Ming and Qing dynasties.Ming and Qing dynasties were the most important period, which the society of the various nationalities developed forward rapidly and great changes occurred in the area of nationalities culture in the history of Yunnan. Re-comprehending these previous phases through these Women's lives is one of the purposes of this paper. Some major conclusions are drawn as follows after careful observations.1.The changes and re-structure of social estates, the immigration of the Han nationality which are more than minorities in amount, the emergence of new habitation and melting in culture, all of these are the background of the change of women's lives.2.Social and culture differences exist between the Han women and minority's women in aspect from marriage custom, dress, diet, entertainment in festival, attitude for chastity or virginity, gender role and the behavior to economic behavior in making a living. The polygamy(一夫多妻) or monogamy一夫一妻marriage of the Han women was different from the polyandry(一妻多夫) of Tibtan in Yunnan and the communal marriage or pairing marriage(对偶婚)in Achang ,Miao ,Luohei, and so on. The Han women who were in the agriculture economy form was different from the minorities women who were in the hunting, fishing, gathering, pasture or slash-and-burn cultivation economy form in aspect of method making a living, diet, dress, even in habit of lives. Environment, mode of production and gender idea is important factors, which influence the women's lives.3. Yuannan local chronicles in Ming and Qing dynasties recorded more than 10 thousand chaste women and their sorrow stories. The chaste women, who were made of dutiful daughters, high moral wives, pure ladies, loving mothers and this kind of women dying to preserve their chastity were a special group among women, and they...