Research On The Reason Of Southern Women’s Remarriage In Ming Dynasty

Widow is a needful role in the society,widow’s remarry is an ineluctable problem from the monogamy’s existence. After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, government promote to advocate of virtuous behavior, and the chastity system further become institutionalization and standardization.Both the family’s attention to the woman’s chastity and various groups’s help provide a good social conditions with the chastity women. But Social contradiction is exposed subsequently with the economic development of Ming Dynasty and the emergence of capitalism. Especially after the middle period of Ming Dynasty, the different social worker gradually pay attention to the lower-class women’s remarry phenomenon. Since the modern times, scholars research on women’s remarry often focused on women’s remarriage, causes and discuss, but only sporadic, not comprehensive. This paper focuses on the analysis of the cause of women remarry, is divided into four parts. The first section, research on the social causes of the southern region women’s remarriage.Through the ratio of men to women, and women marrying crowd uxorilocal custom prevails, the Ming Dynasty official on women remarry views and attitudes, to explain the social environment on women’s remarriage effect.The second part, is the main part of the thesis. Mainly discusses the women in the family economic conditions after the death of her husband, raising children, the family and in-laws advise women remarry, forcing them remarry and so on. Becase of these conditions exist,women is between the feast of the ideal and the reality situation, had to choose the latter. The third part, discuss the women remarry’s ideas.Lower-class women due to economic reasons, have the fewer opportunities to study Confucian culture, and they are engaged in farm work, so have more opportunities to meet men, therefore, their thought is relative opening to the upper.