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Shrines, Governing-Class Identity, and the Cult of Widow Fidelity in Mid-Ming Jiangnan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2024

Katherine Carlitz
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The shrine constructed in 1498 to the faithful widow Qian of Changshu county (modern Jiangsu province) gave her a place in local history that no woman had occupied before. Though the ideal of widow-fidelity was nearly two millennia old and was understood to be part of “Confucian” (ru) teaching, it had always been expressed more as precept than as practice. Earlier communities rarely congratulated themselves on their faithful widows; even widows whom the emperor had honored were generally recorded in the dynastic rather than the local histories. But the widow Qian, who committed suicide in 1435 upon the death of her husband, was celebrated in prose and poetry, written up in the county history, and granted a shrine with the same spring and autumn sacrifices that the government accorded enshrined men. Now she was a visible part of the ritual landscape, with a corresponding multiplier effect on her iconic power.

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Research Article
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , August 1997 , pp. 612 - 640
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1997

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