Title

The Many Lives of the Woman of Huaiyin in the Song (960-1279): Text, Genre, and Female Morality

Author

Cong Ellen Zhang

Genre

Article

Pages

199-249

DOI

10.6503/THJCS.202103_51(1).0005

Download

PDF

Language

English

Key words

Song dynasty, female morality, text and oral transmission, Xu Ji徐積, Zhuang Chuo莊綽, Hong Mai洪邁

Abstract

Sometime in the Song dynasty, a merchant died while traveling on the road. Without realizing that her husband had been murdered, the merchant’s wife later remarried his killer. Several years passed, during which the couple had two sons. The killer, thinking that his wife would disregard his crime, confessed to her. The woman immediately notified the authorities, who had the man arrested and executed. The above story appeared in six accounts by five Song authors. In addition to large discrepancies in the time and place of the incident and the relationship between the two men, these records diverged in their portrayal of the heroine’s remarriage and her reactions upon learning of her marriage to her first husband’s murderer. This paper traces the evolution of the story based on these Song texts, focusing its discussion on the changing notions of female morality and representation of spousal relationships. Another goal of the study is to show how both textual and oral transmission shaped the woman’s image and memory over the course of a hundred and fifty years. Above all, this examination aims to illustrate the fluidity of various literary genres and offer a case study of the balance Song biji writers attempted to achieve between their authorial intentions and goal of recording reliable material.