Prior to the twentieth century, Chinese society was an extremely male-dominated world (Yuan, 2005). Infamous practices toward women included foot-binding, concubinage and female infanticide. Confucian texts claimed that women were born with a lower status than men, and therefore women were expected to obey and to remain in a subordinated position under the will of their fathers, husbands and sons (Yuan, 2005). The daughter was even not included as a family member when Confucius talked about family as a body, shown in the passage presented earlier in this section. There is a popular Chinese saying to express the influence of Confucian attitudes towards women: ―Being untalented is a virtue in women.‖ This ostensible
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―virtue‖ promotes a Confucian notion of respectful men and humble women. In the Chinese philosophy of Yin-Yang (阴-阳), women are Yin; men are Yang. With Yang,
Yin is presupposed; and with Yin, Yang is presupposed. Each is dependent upon the
other for its completion. Yin and Yang do not mean anything when they are presented alone (Tung-Sun, 1970). Although Yin and Yang are interdependent,
Yang is more primary and visible. According to Yin-Yang code, women should
always be subordinate to their men since Yin should always correlate to Yang and not be allowed to develop itself independently. In a Chinese saying, ―if a woman marries a chicken, she must stay with the chicken; if she marries a dog, she must obey the dog.‖ Women are expected to obey the father before marriage, to obey the husband after marriage, and to obey the son after the husband‘s death (Yuan, 2005). These three principles of obedience are called Threefold Obedience (sancong, 三从) which forms a specific moral obligation for women. Threefold Obedience appears in the Li Chi, and is explained in the following passage in conjunction with the marriage rite:
In passing through the great gate of (her father-in-law‘s house), the man leads the woman and the woman follows the man. This is the beginning of the proper relation between husband and wife. Women are the ones who follow others: when they are little, they follow their fathers and elder brothers; when they are married they follow their husbands; and when their husbands die they follow their sons. ‗Husband‘ denotes supporter. A husband uses wisdom to lead others. (cited in Rosenlee, 2006, p. 90)
Consequently, Chinese women were ascribed a marginal role in traditional family life (Zhou, 2003) because of the social norms that underpinned their roles as submissive and as ―eternally oppressed, powerless, passive, and silent‖ (Raphals, 1998, p. 1).
Within a traditional filial piety context, the son carries out the filial duties of living with and looking after his aged parents. However, the responsibility of caring for older parents is culturally prescribed to their wives (Sun, 2005) because the wives are expected to obey their husbands under the rules of Threefold Obedience. A woman marries not only her husband, but also into her husband‘s family and inherits the obligation to care for her parents-in-law and other family members (Zhan & Montgomery, 2003). Once married, the daughter-in-law is supposed to serve and
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please every family member, especially the parents-in-law, in order to conform to the social norms of a threefold-obedient daughter, wife, daughter-in-law, and mother (Ling, 1998). In a traditional setting, married women were not expected to take care of their own parents.
The gender norms appear to be changing in China. Nowadays, women provide as much support for their own parents as men do. For example, Whyte (2004) found married daughters in Baoding city provide as much support for filial obligations toward their own parents as do their married brothers. Zhan and Montgomery‘s (2003) study also found that despite the long-standing existence of cultural norms that would dictate direct parent care by a daughter-in-law, daughters in urban China provide care at a level nearly equal to that of daughters-in-law. A number of factors have contributed to the continuities and changes of gender norms in filial piety. First, the dictates of Threefold Obedience have been challenged in the May 4th Movement in 1919, which was initiated by a group of young scholars who returned to China from Europe and who aimed to reform the cultural system by devaluing Confucianism (Chan, 1956). Second, the Constitution of the People‘s Republic of China provides a legal basis for Chinese women and men have to the same rights in every sense and have equal personal dignity (Zhou, 2003). In theory at least, Chinese women are free to make their own choices about looking after their own parents. Third, Chinese women actively participate in social and economic activities. In general, many have also become family providers and are financially more able to support their own parents. Fourth, as a result of the implementing the one child family policy, many aged parents of one-child family have no sons, but only daughters (Miller, 2004). Those daughters and their husbands have to share the responsibilities to provide support for their own parents and parents-in-law (All-China Women‘s Federation, 2009).
Much less research addresses the gender norms of filial piety derived practice among the Chinese living abroad. Chappell‘s (2005) research among Chinese seniors in Canada suggested that these seniors are much more likely to seek help from their sons. However, daughters are increasingly contributing to the care of their own aged parents, while daughters-in-law are less involved in caring for their aged parents-in-law. Chappell and Kusch (2007) maintain that this pattern perhaps suggests that Chinese families are adapting to some elements of Western parental caregiving practices. Parental caregiving appears to largely depend on who lives locally.
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In summary, for Chinese people filial piety has served as a set of guiding principles governing general patterns of socialisation, as well as providing specific rules for intergenerational conduct, applicable throughout the length of one‘s life course (Ho, 1996). Traditionally, filial piety has been treated in an abstract fashion (Ikels, 2004a). Studies of filial piety have placed emphasis on quantitative measures or abstract conceptual categories, such as filial piety scales (Ho & Lee, 1974; Ng, Loong, Liu, & Weatherall, 2000; Sung, 1995). The meaning of filial piety in everyday life has been largely neglected. My review has shown that filial piety is a conception which is developed and negotiated in people‘s daily living. People discover deeper meanings of filial piety through the process of reflecting and storying the events, experiences, memories and feelings that they have lived (cf., Atkinson, 1998). Filial piety is not an abstract conception that is displayed in or measured by research instruments, rather, it is a concept that is coherent, established and well articulated in people‘s daily activities. Filial piety is something enacted and portrayed in people‘s everyday practices (cf., Goffman, 1959).