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True to Her Word
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Notesintroduction1. Throughout the book, I have translated the Chinese expression of a per-son’s age, sui, as “years old.” A person is one sui at birth and gains another suiat every Chinese new year. In this case, faithful maiden Wu was about sixteen years old in Western calculation.2. BZJ: 7097. 3. In addition to a fiancé’s death, there were other situations under which a young woman might refuse to accept a second betrothal: for example, if a fiancé were afflicted with a terminal illness and both families wanted to call off the marriage agreement; or if a fiancé married another woman, became a Buddhist monk, or disappeared. Several situations commonly accounted for a fiancé’s disappearance: he wandered away from home when his village was hit by natural disaster; he was drafted to serve in the military; or he went to visit a town or city and never came home. 4. Even though some faithful maidens ended up marrying their first be-trothed, they were still regarded as and called a faithful maiden for the rest of their lives. 5. The printing industry entered a new phase of growth from the sixteenth century onward, enlarging a reading public that began to include even women of commoner status. See Brokaw and Chow 2005: 23 – 25, 152 – 83. During the late sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, as Dorothy Ko observes, elite women in urban Jiangnan were a vital new force in both book consumption and book production. Ko 1994: 30 – 67.6. Recent scholarship on Chinese women writers includes women’s antholo-gies as well as monographic studies. For major works on the topic in English language, see Ko 1994; Mann 1997, 2007; Widmer and Chang 1997; Chang and Saussy 1999; Idema and Grant 2004.7. The institution of jingbiao was established much earlier in Chinese history,
© 2020 Stanford University Press, Redwood City

Notesintroduction1. Throughout the book, I have translated the Chinese expression of a per-son’s age, sui, as “years old.” A person is one sui at birth and gains another suiat every Chinese new year. In this case, faithful maiden Wu was about sixteen years old in Western calculation.2. BZJ: 7097. 3. In addition to a fiancé’s death, there were other situations under which a young woman might refuse to accept a second betrothal: for example, if a fiancé were afflicted with a terminal illness and both families wanted to call off the marriage agreement; or if a fiancé married another woman, became a Buddhist monk, or disappeared. Several situations commonly accounted for a fiancé’s disappearance: he wandered away from home when his village was hit by natural disaster; he was drafted to serve in the military; or he went to visit a town or city and never came home. 4. Even though some faithful maidens ended up marrying their first be-trothed, they were still regarded as and called a faithful maiden for the rest of their lives. 5. The printing industry entered a new phase of growth from the sixteenth century onward, enlarging a reading public that began to include even women of commoner status. See Brokaw and Chow 2005: 23 – 25, 152 – 83. During the late sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, as Dorothy Ko observes, elite women in urban Jiangnan were a vital new force in both book consumption and book production. Ko 1994: 30 – 67.6. Recent scholarship on Chinese women writers includes women’s antholo-gies as well as monographic studies. For major works on the topic in English language, see Ko 1994; Mann 1997, 2007; Widmer and Chang 1997; Chang and Saussy 1999; Idema and Grant 2004.7. The institution of jingbiao was established much earlier in Chinese history,
© 2020 Stanford University Press, Redwood City

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. List of Illustrations ix
  4. Acknowledgments xi
  5. Chronology xv
  6. Maps xvi
  7. Introduction 1
  8. Part One. History 19
  9. Part Two. Choices 101
  10. Part Three. Ideology 211
  11. Conclusion 247
  12. Appendix: Faithful Maidens Reported in Qinding da Qing yitong zhi (Siku quanshu edition) 257
  13. Character List 261
  14. Notes 269
  15. References 315
  16. Index 335
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https://doi.org/10.1515/9780804786782-012

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. List of Illustrations ix
  4. Acknowledgments xi
  5. Chronology xv
  6. Maps xvi
  7. Introduction 1
  8. Part One. History 19
  9. Part Two. Choices 101
  10. Part Three. Ideology 211
  11. Conclusion 247
  12. Appendix: Faithful Maidens Reported in Qinding da Qing yitong zhi (Siku quanshu edition) 257
  13. Character List 261
  14. Notes 269
  15. References 315
  16. Index 335
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