27 TRIBUTES TO CLOSE RELATIVES Appreciations written by a woman for her husband and a man for his elder sister (18th and 19th c.)
Xu Yezhao 徐葉昭 (b. 1729) recounts her marriage and her husband’s recognition and appreciation of her talent. It is paired with the reminiscences of a nineteenth-century man, Wang Zheng 王拯 (1815–1873), about the years he lived with his sister and studied under her supervision.
In Confucian family ethics, the hierarchical ties of father and son, husband and wife, and elder and younger brother were seen as of central importance and something that one could write about. Men could circulate what they wrote about their love for their parents and their advice for their sons, but other family relationships were much less often the subject of essays or other writing. Wang Huizu, in his autobiography (selection 26), writes at great length about his mothers but says very little about his wife or sisters. This makes the writings about other relationships that do survive worth close reading.
In the first piece below, the woman poet Xu Yezhao discusses her relationship with her husband. By her period, in literati circles, literate women were not rare, and several thousand Ming and Qing women left behind collected works. These female authors were often supported by family members, formed their own mentor-disciple relationships, and enjoyed long-term and long-distance friendships among themselves. Xu’s collected work includes poems and biographies for family members, which reveal much about her family life, including intimate details about her interactions with her father, husband, aunts, sisters-in-law, and even maids. The selection below was written in the form of a preface to poems dedicated to her husband and focuses on the various unconventional aspects of her marriage and her husband’s recognition of her talent. Note especially how he directly approached her father, proposing that he marry into her family.
Brother-sister relationships were also rarely celebrated in writing, perhaps in part because sisters usually left home in their late teens to marry. This makes the essay written by Wang Zheng to accompany a portrait he had commissioned for his elder sister of special interest. Wang was from Guangxi in southwestern China and an important figure of the influential Tongcheng School, known for its prose writing and advocacy of Neo-Confucianism. Orphaned at a young age, Wang was raised by his sister, went on to earn the jinshi degree, and served in multiple government positions. This short memoir is a passionate declaration of his emotional attachment to his sister, almost a mother figure to him. From it, we also gain a glimpse of the sister herself: a strong but unnamed childless widow who poured her energy into her younger brother and earned his profound gratitude.
Preface to Poems Dedicated to My Husband, Mr. Xu, by Xu Yezhao
Good husband and obedient wife; husband leading and wife following: these are the correct principles of the Three Relationships and Five Virtues. Therefore, in the past, in choosing wives for their sons, families cared about nothing but the prospective bride’s virtues. Nowadays, the criteria are different, with a woman judged according to wealth, status, talent, looks, and virtue. Of the five, some people talk about female virtue but do not know what it means. If a woman does not have much talent, she can still be entrusted with small household matters. As for learning, the conventional wisdom is that it is useless, so it is not sought. A pleasing appearance is of course desired. When it comes to status, a family’s long history and good reputation are not as important as its current prominence. If a woman is from a rich family and the groom’s family can benefit from the marriage, the match is then much desired. Contemporary thinking is roughly like this. An occasional man of refined taste may value a woman with literary ability, but no one cares as much about talent as he does about looks.
My husband, Mr. Xu, is the exception. Since his tastes and preferences are out of fashion, people consider him clueless, but he thinks he’s got it right. Ah! How amazing! My husband is a student in the Haining [Zhejiang] County School. His given name is Yaozi, courtesy name Shixi, and studio name Heting. His writing is wide-ranging and rich, his conduct loyal and honest. Additionally, he loves a woman of talent and virtue. Although he married into my family with his father’s permission, he did not select me as his wife through a matchmaker. After his first wife’s death, he planned to remarry but found no one to his satisfaction after looking all over. He happened to visit the Zhuji [Zhejiang] County School, where my late father taught. Someone told him, “The daughter of the instructor at the school is both virtuous and a talented writer.” Upon hearing this, Mr. Xu went home to ask for his father’s permission. He then called on my father and brother, asking them in person to let us marry.
My late father said, “Matchmakers often exaggerate, but I am now telling you the truth. My daughter’s talent and virtue are inadequate. In terms of other considerations in marriage alliances, you know that I am old and my rank is low. I have set aside no funds for my daughter’s dowry, so she wouldn’t even be able to prepare the simplest clothes and jewelry. Besides, her looks are ordinary. All considered, she is not a good catch at all.” This pleased Mr. Xu, who responded, “She has everything I want. Others wouldn’t understand.” The two families then employed the service of a matchmaker and completed the marriage arrangements. The next spring, he married into my family.
Alas, the ancients esteemed such behavior. What the world favors today is different. My husband is certainly no match for the ancients, but compared to his contemporaries, isn’t he an exemplary person? I feel bad that my talent and virtue are not up to what I owe him for appreciating me. Ashamed, I am at a loss on what to do, aware of my limitations. After thinking it over, the only plan I came up with to pay him back for understanding me is to recount the origin of our marriage in this preface. Although it is hardly adequate, I can’t remain silent about how much I fall short of him.
SOURCE: Xu Yezhao 徐葉昭, Zhisizhai xuewen gao 職思齋學文稿, 1.47a–48a, accessed May 28, 2021, https://digital.library.mcgill.ca/mingqing/search/details-poem.php?poemID=44141&language=ch.
Preface to Portrait of My Sister Pounding Clothes to Clean Them While Supervising My Study, by Wang Zheng
I had Portrait of My Sister Pounding Clothes to Clean Them While Supervising My Study made while I was an official in the capital. When I was leaving for the capital, my older sister could not join me because she was taking care of her elderly mother-in-law. Now that her mother-in-law has passed away, she is temporarily living with my second older sister’s family [in Guangzhou, Guangdong] and not inclined to travel long distances. Ever since I was appointed to the capital, I have been wanting to return to the south. This wish has not been satisfied due to all sorts of hardships and trivial matters.
I went to live with my sister when I was seven, right after my mother’s passing. Having just lost her husband and posthumous son, she lived all alone. Behind the main residence, there was a small garden a few dozen feet long. Beautiful trees provided plenty of shade for the two-room house. This was where my sister and I resided. At ten, I went to school, leaving home in the morning and returning at dusk. At night, my sister always lit a lamp and had me study next to her while she kept busy with needlework. On extremely hot days in the summer, I was allowed to skip night study. But she would wake me up at daybreak and have me take a small table outside to study under the trees in the garden. At the base of the trees were two large stones: one was for Sister to pound and wash clothes, the other for me to sit on and read.
When the sun rose, she would send me off to school. For this reason, when I was young, every morning when I arrived at school, I did better than other boys at reciting the books taught to us the day before. Sometimes when I was tired from studying in the evening, I would play around a little. My sister would soberly describe to me how hardworking our mother had been and her death from exhaustion. She then told me, “If you don’t study diligently, you’ll make mother worried in the underworld!” Her words filled me with sadness and anxiety. After I begged her with tears in my eyes not to say such things again, she relented.
Alas! How unfilial I am! I am already thirty. I still remember reading aloud by her side when I was fifteen or sixteen. Poor and distressed, I was anxious and dared not to slacken even the slightest. After I left my sister’s house at twenty, I no longer read aloud and gradually abandoned my study. Determined never to forget my sister’s guidance, I had this portrait painted to remind me of her and enable me to read next to her every day. That should prevent me from sinking ever deeper into laziness and ending up achieving nothing in this life. The painter of the portrait is Chen Shuo, who earned the jinshi degree in the same year as I did and is a good friend of mine, which is why I turned to him for the painting.
SOURCE: Wang Zheng 王拯, Longbi shanfang wenji 龍壁山房文集 (Guangxu xinsi ed., 1881), 5.18a–19a, accessed May 18, 2021, https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&file=95606&page=36.
Further Reading
- Huang, Martin. Intimate Memory: Gender and Mourning in Late Imperial China. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2018.
- Idema, Wilt L. “The Biographical and the Autobiographical in Bo Shaojun’s One Hundred Poems Lamenting My Husband.” In Beyond Exemplar Tales: Women’s Biography in Chinese History, edited by Joan Judge and Hu Ying, 230–45. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.
- Lu, Weijing. “Personal Writings on Female Relatives in the Qing Collected Works.” In Overt and Covert Treasures: Essays on the Sources for Chinese Women’s History, edited by Clara Wing-ching Ho, 403–26. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2010.
- Widmer, Ellen. “Women as Biographers in Mid-Qing Jiangnan.” In Beyond Exemplar Tales: Women’s Biography in Chinese History, edited by Joan Judge and Hu Ying, 246–61. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.