A Study On The Chastity View Of Female In Ming

The chastity, particularly refers that the female keep the sex integrity for the male. About the subject of women's chastity of Ming Dynasty, there is lack of the special academic research in recent years. And the former viewpoints, based on the governmental advocacy of the chastity in the official histories and the legitimate Neo-Confucianism background, thought that the feminine chastity idea was strengthened greatly during the Ming Dynasty.In this article, whereas the fact that in the Ming Dynasty popular novels there are lots of work being of massive descriptions of the ways of the world or the human sentiment, which might reflect the social custom of that time, therefore, I tried hard from the novels, which mainly are San Yan 三言, Two beat 两拍, Yi Xing 一型 and Qing Ping Shan Tang Hua Ben 清平山堂话本 and so on this kind of story-telling scripts or the drawed up story-telling script, to proceed with, and assisted by the official histories, Shanxi and southern provinces' local chronicles and Shuang Huai Sui Chao 双槐岁钞 Jie An Lao Ren Man Bi 戒庵老人漫笔 and so on the Ming person's related historical materials, to carry on a more comprehensive exploration to this question, in order to approach the historical reality.First looked from the Chinese ethics history that the chastity idea continued to be strengthened in the Ming Dynasty, female education books continued to increase, in the official histories the amount of the women of integrity climbed suddenly; and in the popular novels there also appeared some typical chastity events. The causations that Ming Dynasty chastity idea strengthened were traditional blood relationship ethics, politics, education,etc. But at the same time, in the novels there are universal remarry phenomenon or behind chastity event occured we can see the reality that the widows were compelled to remarry and so on. Looked from some Ming persons' nots, the popular novels and the Shanxi, Zhejiang, Fujian, and so on some various provinces' local chronicles, this phenomenon also have been verified.The causations formed this kind of actual behavior such as remarry and so on are of two aspects, the history and the reality: human's nature cannot be constrained, the family economic's function could not be underestimated, in the mid and late Ming, general mood of society changed more opened, the progressed thinkers initiated, and so on. Therefore, in the entire Ming generation, there actually always had the phenomenon that the universal female lost loyal and remarried. While carries on a more comprehensive contemplation and ponders over the history, for the social history research, proceeding with the novel aspect is a new angle of view. The thinking history and the social history researcher should shift emphasis to the mass culture aspect, because the seepage from outstanding person culture to the mass culture is a difficult process.