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The traditional concept of the yin and yang duality and the Confucian social order – which centred around human relationships between ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, siblings, and friends – had historically prescribed social norms and hierarchy. Put simply, men took precedence over women and elders outranked juniors.
Modern discourses about the biological body could also provide social justifications for the polarisation of masculinity and femininity and facilitate the division of responsibilities in the family.
Traditional marriage roles expected wives or concubines to adopt the task of childbearing – especially sons – to continue the husband’s family line. Motherhood and child upbringing underlined the women’s duties in the socialisation process for transmitting social norms and cultural values.
With momentous social and economic change, could these traditional Chinese concepts of family and marriage be sustained without disruption?
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Courtesy of the Hong Kong Museum of History
Gender hierarchy in the traditional Chinese family was centred around the male head of the family. The role and duties of each member were prescribed by norms and protocols for attaining the ideal of domestic harmony.Power relations were further conditioned by the ranks of women in the family. The mother-in-law or the official wife governed the house. The concubine, on the other hand, did not have the same status or power as the wife. While trying to foster family harmony, this system generated inequality, conflict, and rivalry.
Polygamy and concubinage were not formally abolished in Hong Kong until 1971.
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Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection
This image of a family in Kowloon, taken by the Scottish photographer John Thomson (1837-1921), sheds light on a woman’s role in rural and domestic life.
Standing by her family around the dining table, she is responsible for the household tasks of cooking and childcare. Her dark complexion and headscarf suggest outdoor manual work as part of her family responsibilies. Village women like her were often conditioned by economic realities to assume different roles in both private and public spaces.
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Courtesy of the Caritas Lung Yeuk Tau Community Development Project
This document demonstrates the Chinese customs of selecting an auspicious time to conduct a wedding ceremony.
Following the traditional practice of astrological calculations, it combines the births of the groom and the bride and situates their union within the cosmic forces that structure human affairs. It also states what to avoid in ensuring an auspicious transition.
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These lyrics, from traditional bridal songs, sung by women at wedding rituals in Guangdong, express the sadness and complex feelings of a bride as she steps out from one family into another. The bridal lament is an expressive genre born from girls learning how to mourn and how to cope with the immense responsibilities placed on them as women.
Traditionally, the bride and her female companions would sing these songs in the attic a few days before marriage and during the marriage rituals.
With the rise of more companionate marriages from the 1960s onwards, these lamenting songs were no longer popular. As part of the folk tradition, they are preserved in the villages of Lung Yeuk Tau, Fanling, and are now valued as an intangible cultural heritage.
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Dressing Up for Wedding
Teeth of the comb sweep the entire length of my hair;
One more sweep and my younger look comes back to me.
. . .
A sheet of red paper adorns my head
and the marriage document screens my view;
My maiden folks are screened from me and to meet no more.
Dressing up extravagantly in red and green doesn’t help relieve
my anxieties like that of the ill-fated widow in full green dress.
Adapted from the translation by Eric Yeung Shu Kit
Bride’s Visit to Maiden Family
In the porch, dew-drops are leaking;
out beyond, vines are feet-entangling.
How should I live that for a life-time?
Dear father, is that what you wanted for me?
My fore-leg in that place of groom and my hind-leg begged return.
I shall continue forward this day and shan’t return.
Adapted from the translation by Eric Yeung Shu Kit
Month Metaphors
Ancestral worship day in September;
where are my maiden family folks whom I remember?
Seeds fill the blossoming Chrysanthemums in October;
while it is tears of sadness that fill my eyes.
In November when all is covered by frost and snow;
heavy are my steps and my mood is low.
December sees everyone in comfort rest;
having served like a maid at home, the bride I once was is on the wane.
Adapted from the translation by Eric Yeung Shu Kit