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In the Confucian family scheme, the paramount li is filial piety. In this concept, the meanings of family relationships, duty and honor were all tied directly to the concept of the patrilineal line, from father to son, son to grandson. Having no care for familial posterity was considered one of the worst offences to correct filial behavior.35 The greatest significance of a marriage, in this sense, is in how it served to consciously perpetuate the family line. As the Liji described, “to secure the services in the ancestral temple” and “to secure the continuance of the family line” were the ultimate goals of a

successful union.36 Marriage under the empire was an act performed by families, not by

individuals.

One of the most conspicuous expressions of the authority and affection of Chinese parents was the privilege and duty of arranging marriages for their children. As Mencius asserted: “when a man is born his parents hope he will find a wife; when a woman is born her parents hope she will find a husband. All parents feel like this.”37 The arrangement of a marriage was such a significant family matter that ideally all marriage decisions were made using extra caution and discretion, and the old generation was worshipped for their superior wisdom and experience on such matters.

Under the norm of filial piety, which required children’s absolute obedience to their parents, sons and daughters had no right to refuse the life partners selected by their parents or the acting family head. This rule was repeatedly reinforced by the dynastic codes. For example, the Qing code says that marriage should be controlled by the parents or the grandparents of those supposed to get married. Those who married on their own

would be punished under the charge of disobedience to parental instructions.38 A marital

decision, in the context of filial piety, was not a matter of love or an individual’s choice of a life partner, but was rather an issue chiefly concerning obligations and

35

Mencius, The Works of Mencius, in The Four Books, trans. James Legge (New York: Paragon Book Reprint Corp. 1966), 725.

36

Liji, 2: 428.

37_{Mencius, trans. Bryan Can Norden, in Images of Women, 103.} 38

Da Qing Lü Li, Article 101.01, quoted in Derk Bodde and Clarence Morris, Law in Imperial China: Exemplified by 190 Ch’ing Dynasty Cases (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1967), 254-255.

responsibilities, obedience and disobedience. As Sommer perceives through his critical examination of the legal cases of the Qing, “in China, marriage rites symbolized not the free will of individual souls exercised before an omniscient God, but rather the

submission of maturing children to family roles and filial duty.”39

In traditional Chinese literature, there were many romantic love stories in which free love secretly escaped parental control.40 In the tales, a young man (often a scholar or potential candidate for the Civil Examinations) and a beautiful girl (often a daughter of a wealthy or political powerful family) fell in love after a short encounter. With the help of a servant, often a maiden of the bride, they exchanged love poems, letters and decorative items, set secret dates in backyards, and even developed sexual relationships. The stories, presented as tragedies, often ended with the betrayal of one party (usually the male) and

the death of the other. In those rarer examples with happy endings, such as Xixiang ji西

厢记[Romance of the West Chamber], the two lovers, after a temporary period of

separation and suffering, would finally get their parents’ consent for marriage and live happily ever after. Such narratives were so popular during the Ming and Qing period that one might be easily misled into believing that free love was appreciated in pre-modern China, if one’s opinion were based solely on such accounts.

This kind of story was often the creation of male writers making a living by producing love fantasies. The readers of these works were mostly young single male scholars. There were female readers of these stories, but not many. On the one hand, the official support behind the cult of “women’s ignorance” and their almost universal illiteracy excluded females from any significant reading group. On the other hand, for the educated elite women who were literate, such stories were prohibited from their inner chambers, being

viewed by those in charge as vulgar, degrading and misleading. As Jiamu贾母 [the

39

Sommer, 39.

40

While the term “free love” is defined in many English sources as “the idea or practice of having sexual relations according to choice, without being restricted by marriage or long-term relationships”

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_love), the “free love” used in this dissertation is adherent to its Chinese interpretation: ziyou lian’ai自由恋爱, which was created by the Chinese social reformers in the early twentieth century in challenging the traditional arranged marriage system. Therefore, the term “free love” used here refers to “a love feeling naturally grows between a man and a woman without the interference from the third party”.

dowager Lady Jia], a main character in Cao Xueqin's (曹雪芹1724-1764) Honglou meng

红楼梦 [Dream of the Red Chamber] commented: “They abuse people's daughters in

every possible way, and then they still term them nice pretty girls. They're so concocted that there's not even a semblance of truth in them.”41

Free love between two youths, no matter how fully it was felt by the two parties, could never trump the parental authority in making a marriage contract. Sometimes, young men and women were willing to let their parents know of someone they were attracted to as a potential spouse. Without parental permission, however, this love match would be blessed by neither law nor custom. Although some parents might consult with their children, it was more a gesture of affection than a will to transfer filial rights. Education instilling the spirit of obedience weighed so heavily upon the attitudes of the youth that children in the early twentieth century were still lacking the courage to reject a marriage imposed on them by their parents. As Tan Shih-hua, a college student in the 1920s

explained: “It was not in vain that since my babyhood I had been taught good manners by my uncle, my grandmother, my teachers, and my mother, whose last words were: ‘Never fight, Shih-hua.’”42

However, students in this field should keep in mind the fact that a parent’s authority in arranging marriage was accepted by most children as a matter of course. In pre-modern China, people were not taught to expect to gain love and happiness from marriage. The goal of any official union was not for personal satisfaction but rather for the continuation of the family and of the “stream of life.”Under the dual influence of social ethics and legal jurisdiction, the attitude of children towards this power relationship was generally not antagonistic. Coercion existed, but only in a few cases.43

41

Cao Xueqin, Honglou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber), chapter 54. Translated by H. Bencract Joly H.B.M. 1891. http://www.woyouxian.com/b06/b060402/hlmen_en125.html (eBooks@Adelaide 2009) .

42 _{Sergei M. Tretiakov, The Chinese Testament, New York, 1934, 187. Quoted in Lang, 292.} 43

M. J. Meijer, Marriage Law and Policy: In the Chinese People’s Republic (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1971), 87.