Epitaphs And Biograghies Of Women: A Study Of Ladies With Royally Granted Titles In The Ming Dynasty

As a document system in female research, the female epitaphs and biographies in the Ming essay collections have neither been sorted out completely nor been made full use of. Ladies with royally granted titles is one of the main female groups recorded in the female epitaphs and biographies. As a special female stratum, Ladies with royally granted titles was a unique female group that could have political status, which caused their life to have both identical and distinctive characteristics when compared with the other female strata. However, in the preceding research on the upper-class women, most attention was focused on the relationship between the imperial concubines and the politics of Ming dynasty, while Ladies with royally granted titles was scarcely noticed. Numerous female epitaphs and biographies may solve the problem that historical documents are not enough to make a good research on female and make the research on Ladies with royally granted titles feasible. Therefore, based on the research into the female epitaphs and biograghies, combined with the political system, social gender, social and family hierarchy, family ethics and patriarch system in Ming dynasty, this thesis makes a comprehensive investigation on ladies with royally granted titles and aims to present Ladies with royally granted titles's complicated and diverse life.As a basis of the Ladies with royally granted titles research, the thesis first makes a careful investigation on the female epitaphs and biographies mainly in the essay collections by the Ming authors in the Complete Library of the Four Treasures. This thesis discusses the scale, contents and features of ladies with royally granted titles. As a result, this thesis discovers that this kind of documents is numerous and has various styles and rich contents. Most of these documents took Ladies with royally granted titles as their descriptive objects so that a large number of Ladies with royally granted titles's biographies were kept down. Although much content of the biographies were the exaggeration of the authors, they could still present some true information about Ladies with royally granted titles's family life, social communication, spiritual ambitions, satisfactions, misfortunes and so on.The research on Ladies with royally granted titles system is the basis of the investigation on this group. Ladies with royally granted titles's getting titled was connected with bureaucratic check-up system. At the same time, the titled woman should have a respectable family origin and get married through a formal wedding. It was possible for a Ladies with royally granted titles to be deprived of her title. Although Ladies with royally granted titles's status had the subordinate and dependant features in essence, women who got the title of Ming-Fu could improve a lot their social status and practical life. They got some rights as well as formal official hats and costumes symbolizing their status and status. They could attend formal court ceremonies regularly, get consoling ceremonies after their deaths and produce memorials to the throne. Although they could get rewards from time to time, they had no regular income. When they committed crimes, they could be treated leniently. Meanwhile, they could be implicated when their family's bureaucratic member broke the law. As a part of the political system, Ladies with royally granted titles system was a valid element to maintain the relationship between the emperor and the bureaucratic group as well as being the intention to help the bureaucrats manage their family well. It was also a way for women to get honors and realize their self-value.In view of the aspects of gender, hierarchy and patriarch system, this thesis try to make a comprehensive research on Ladies with royally granted titles's social role, family life and inner life, which comprises another important part of this thesis. Ladies with royally granted titles system enabled women in Ming dynasty to achieve vertical social mobility and become members of the privileged class so that those women could get more opportunities to participate in social public affairs. Some Ladies with royally granted titles's behavior became social role's model and was imitated by other people. They affected the social salvation in a certain way and had a certain influence on the local administration. It is necessary to point out that the effect and influence were limited. The valid means that Ladies with royally granted titles could participate into the social public affairs was to influence their husbands or sons. Their major working space was still inside the family. When their efforts to assist their husbands and educate their sons got public recognition from the society, that is to say, when they became Ladies with royally granted titles, their influence was not only within the inner family, but also was spread into the social public realm. On account of their special status, Ladies with royally granted titles presented a different level of mental and spiritual visage. They took their status as Ladies with royally granted titles very seriously and formed a voluntary identification with their status. This very identification restrained their behavior in conforming to the standard and made Ladies with royally granted titles deeply concerned with the social public affairs. Their deep concern about national affairs, their Confucian ideology and their knowledge of how to be a good bureaucrat showed that they had the same mind and spirit as the Literati and Officialdom.The female epitaphs and biographies used in this thesis are valuable documents in female research, but almost all of them were written by men and not the direct expression on the inner world of Ladies with royally granted titles. We should go deep into the investigation on the inner world of Ladies with royally granted titles from other point of view.