Who Is Right And Who Is Wrong? Depictions

who is right and who is wrong? : depictions of justice relating to space, gender, and virtue in ling mengchu’s two slaps one of the primary

Who is Right and Who is Wrong? : Depictions of justice relating to
space, gender, and virtue in Ling Mengchu’s Two Slaps
One of the primary features of successful fiction in any time period
or cultural context is its ability to reflect, re-imagine, and
sometimes subvert hegemonic social norms in order to entertain its
readership. The erotic fiction of Late Imperial China was no
exception. The Ming and Qing dynasties were marked by rapid social
change, in which there was “an ostensible shift from the traditional
agricultural basis of social and economic structure to something akin
to a market economy” (Hu, 27). As literacy rates increased and social
mobility became more feasible for many families, “gender roles and
markers of status shifted and were increasingly uncertain…
distinctions blurred between literati and merchant, respectable and
mean, feminine and masculine” (“Femininity in Flux,” 48). Perhaps in
response to this period of social upheaval and ambiguity, many fiction
writers chose to highlight the importance of neo-Confucian ideals in
their writing. Ling Mengchu, as one such writer, uses his stories as
pedagogical tools to reinforce a moral message. As several scholars of
Ling’s work have noted, “Throughout his entire life… there had been
one thing that remained constant: that is, his conviction to Confucian
ideals and principles” (Hu, 23). However, Ling does not convey his
message simply by extolling the admirable traits of virtuous
characters. The most effective way to disseminate his message –
especially considering the increasing size of his literate audience –
was by giving precedence to commercial considerations: “Writers no
longer aspired to satisfy the elite in order to achieve literary fame.
They first and foremost pandered to the public” (Hu, 33). In order to
appeal to these masses, it was necessary for fiction writers to create
works with ample entertainment value. Therefore, many of Ling’s
stories read as salacious cautionary tales, detailing the downfall of
seemingly respectable households as a result of sexual impropriety or
debauchery. The portrayal of justice in many of Ling’s short stories
is clear-cut and idealistic, appealing to readers trying to cope with
rapid changes in the meanings given to gender roles and markers of
social status during the late Ming and early Qing periods. Ling’s
characters could not hide their immoral thoughts or actions, which
titillated and entertained readers, and they always met a just end (at
least according to Confucian philosophy), conveying the stabilizing
message that moral people are rewarded and immoral people punished
(and furthermore, that it is fairly easy to tell the difference
between moral and immoral people). In considering the social
significance of Ling’s erotic stories, it is important to note the way
in which he deploys the enactment of justice to create a fictional
society in which virtually all characters meet an end befitting either
their moral righteousness or their troublesome infractions of the
tenets of Confucianism. His portrayal of justice reflects wider social
beliefs about importance of controlling and ordering female chastity
and male sexuality, often by invoking a dichotomy between the inner
and the outer.
One of the fundamental ways in which Ming and Qing society was
gendered was through the literal separation of women and men in the
household into “inner” and “outer.” A “paradigm of separation or
distinction between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ defined gender difference and
gender order in the late imperial period…Within [the inner quarters]
resided the ideal woman of virtue …secluded, diligently engaged in the
appropriately feminine pursuits…and sheltered from casual contacts
with people outside her family” (Disgraceful Matters, 134). Because
there was a narrowly defined – and quite literal – proper place for a
woman to reside, women became equated with the inner quarters of a
household, not only in literature, but also in legal and social
discourse, especially when addressing the matter of illicit sex. For
example, “In judicial and nonjudicial discussions, illicit sex was
often described as a violation of the inner quarters: the body of the
rape victim or adulteress was readily equated with the inner sanctum
of the household as the preserve of female virtue and family honor” (Disgraceful
Matters, 142). Extending the parallel between the protection of a
woman’s chastity and the protection of a home, the Ming period penal
code allowed any members of a household to kill an adulterer,
interpreting such a homicide as comparable to “killing an intruder who
entered the house in the middle of the night. Chastity was understood
in this context to be a household and family concern. All members of
the household and family, including servants, were considered equally
responsible for defending its moral integrity” (Disgraceful Matters,
101). Therefore, the inner quarters of a household represented a
tangible space for female chastity. The illegal broaching of these
inner quarters was symbolically equivalent to the illegal broaching of
the female body. In Ling’s stories, never does a man transgress the
boundaries of the “inner quarters” of a household without
transgressing the “inner quarters” of the women contained within.
Perhaps the most blatant example of this double transgression is found
in the story “In the Inner Quarters,” in which Commander Yang Jian’s
concubines assist his retainer, Ren, in sneaking over the wall
surrounding the inner quarters during the Commander’s absence in order
to engage him in illicit sexual liaisons. Significantly, the Commander
does not catch Ren in flagrante delicto, but does return to find him
sitting on top of the wall, with no way to climb down on either side.
The Commander, appealing to appropriate symbolic associations, “was
shrewd enough to know that nothing related to the inner quarters – but
a clandestine affair – could bring a man up to the top of the wall”
(Hu, 211). In other words, the mere sight of Ren on top of the wall is
enough to signal to the Commander – and by extension, the reader –
that he is dangerously positioned to violate the concubines’ chastity.
Ling notes, “The crime committed by Ren Junyong could very well
warrant the penalty of death” (Hu, 214), which makes the Commander’s
decision to castrate him and spare his life particularly significant.
One way to interpret this lenience is to recognize that although Ren
is a male threat, he is already part of the household as the
Commander’s retainer, and therefore is not an “intruder” per se.
“[Sexual] assault was envisioned as being made by an outside male on
another man’s household” (Sommer, 69). In other words, Ren does not
pose an external threat to household stability. The Commander
neutralizes Ren’s subordinate masculine threat without destroying it
completely, and thus preserves the essential structure and harmony of
his household as well. Indeed, “now that his retainer had lost his
genitals, [the Commander] had nothing more to guard against. He would
even invite him into the inner quarters and let him sit among his
womenfolk to drink and play games with them” (Hu, 215). The
Commander’s openness towards Ren after his castration suggests that he
is now simply a presence – no longer gendered male – in the structure
of the household. By grounding the protection (and violation) of
female chastity in the tangible space of the inner quarters, Ling
provides his readers with an easy framework – one reprised in many
other judicial and social discourses – for understanding the moral
implications of the plot: any male violation of the literal boundaries
of a household’s inner quarters is also a symbolic violation of female
purity.
Considering the emphasis that Ling’s stories (among other sources)
place on the literal separation of sexes, it is important to determine
what exactly such separation sought to protect and prevent. For
general purposes, Janet Theiss’s definition of chastity is useful:
“Chastity [is] narrowly construed as absolute sexual loyalty to a
present, past, or future husband” (Disgraceful Matters, 133). Theiss
further discusses the existence of a “chastity cult” in the late Ming
and early Qing periods, which may have been a reaction to the
fluctuations in social understandings of morality and virtue, and
which “encompasse[d] a society-wide movement to extol chaste women as
cultural heroes and promote the norms of feminine behavior they
symbolized” (“Femininity in Flux,” 47). According to the rhetoric of
late imperial moralists, the threat to a woman’s chastity could come
in one of two ways: “Chastity could be threatened only by the moral
weakness of women or the predations of criminal elements unhindered by
family and community ties” (Disgraceful Matters, 133). In other words,
the patriarchal society of the late Ming dynasty suggested that loose
women and unattached men were responsible for violations of a woman’s
virtue. In addressing the former concern, Ling highlights another
deployment of the inner/outer dichotomy: the “distinction between
inner moral integrity and outer moral reputation, and the possible
disassociation of the two” (“Femininity in Flux,” 56). As Ling’s
stories suggest, women’s outward displays of virtue did not always
correlate with inner convictions of morality, and could often be
manipulated to make a woman seem chaster and more socially respectable
(or less chaste and less socially respectable). This possibility for
duplicity was problematic in a society that highly prized female
chastity, and interpreted outward displays of chastity as proxies for
true inner virtue. One of Commander Yang’s concubines acknowledges
this problem, stating “‘Is it not always loose women who appear most
prudish?’” (Hu, 206). She refers to Madam Beautiful Moon, another of
Yang’s concubines, who hopes to have sex with Ren, but “ because of
the presence of the other concubines [assumes] a puritanical cast”
(Hu, 203). Beautiful Moon’s false pretense to modesty is not
exceptional; in light of social and legal advantages given to chaste
women, they had an incentive to portray themselves as morally as
possible. For example, the penal code defined rape in such a way that
often took into account a victim’s moral character, and put the onus
on the victim (typically a woman) to prove her lack of consent, by
showing torn clothing and physical injuries, or by providing witnesses
who had heard her cries of protest. Such evidence was problematized by
the fact that, as many judicial commentators of the era argued, “If an
offender joins with a woman by coercion but consummates the act by
means of her consent, then it does not count as coercion. Furthermore…
if an offender, seeing a woman engaging in illicit sex with another
man, subsequently himself uses coercion to engage in illicit sex with
her, then because she is already a woman who has committed an offense
of illicit sex, it would be inappropriate to sentence him to the
penalty for coercion” (Disgraceful Matters, 144). Implicit in this
description of coerced sex is the assertion that a woman who willingly
gives up her chastity cannot re-obtain it, and is no longer legally
protected in the same way as a truly chaste woman, whose virtue could
only conceivably be compromised through male coercion without her
consent. Furthermore, the ability to prove one’s unwillingness became
a matter of utmost importance, even though satisfying such a burden of
proof was not always possible. As Yuan Bin, author of a mid-Qing
commentary on the penal code, writes, “ ‘If we take torn clothing,
wounds, and witnesses who heard as evidence of starting with coercion,
then if the clothing seen [by the magistrate] is already mended and
the wounds have already healed, is this evidence of final consent?
…There is no evidence for beginning with coercion and ending in
consent… [T]he risks of randomness [in judgment] are great’” (Disgraceful
Matters, 145). Because proving “the truth” was often very difficult,
women sometimes resorted to drastic measures to signal their virtue
when it was questioned, including committing suicide. As a result,
suicide was sometimes seen as the ultimate way for a woman to prove
her virtuousness when faced with allegations of immoral behavior:
“Suicide almost always convinced people of a woman’s innocence and
chastity” (Disgraceful Matters, 149). Theiss describes a case in which
a woman hanged herself after being propositioned, after which a
magistrate ruled that a scratch and a torn sash indicated rape or
attempted rape. She was then canonized for her devotion to protecting
her chastity (Disgraceful Matters, 146). In contrast, Theiss discusses
another case in which a man wielding a knife coerced a woman into sex.
Later, the woman’s brother killed the assailant. Because of the lack
of evidence of unwillingness on the woman’s part, the magistrate not
only sentenced her brother to strangulation for homicide, but also
sentenced the woman to a month in the cangue and a heavy fine, under
the rape statute’s clause addressing coerced sex that ended in the
victim’s consent (Disgraceful Matters, 148). Clearly, there was much
subjectivity involved in interpreting rape statutes, which allowed
magistrates to be swayed by considerations that had little to do with
a literal interpretation of the law. As a result, intangible factors
such as a victim’s reputation and demeanor were used to indirectly
construct her “intent” during illicit sex, “shifting the crux of the
inquiry away from questions about consent and coercion to the
reconstruction of the social and spatial contours of women’s lives” (Disgraceful
Matters, 150).
Legal cases involving illicit sex and the chastity of seemingly
virtuous women were clearly fraught with ambiguity in late imperial
China, yet this ambiguity is nowhere to be found in Ling Mengchu’s
erotic stories. He positions the reader as the ultimate moral judge
who sees and hears all, and resolves his stories in such a way that
“true justice” (as informed by Confucian ideals) is always served,
whether by the magistrate or by fate itself. In Ling’s stories, in
stark contrast with the uncertainties of reality, the reader knows
precisely when a woman transgresses the bounds of respectable virtue,
no matter how chaste she may appear. For example, in “Fatal
Seduction,” Lady Di is introduced as the epitome of virtue, “a woman
of demure disposition, decorous, and lax neither with speech nor
smile” (Hu, 87). She also demonstrates the appropriate outward
displays of modesty that are expected of chaste women; Ling explicitly
states, “Lady Di was a decent woman. The nun’s suggestion that she
meet a male stranger in the convent brought a blush to her entire
face” (Hu, 92). However, despite a lifetime of virtue, her
respectability is undone by one illicit encounter with a man, Teng. By
modern-day accounts, what occurs between them would be described as
rape. Lady Di initially attempts to scream in protest, but knows that
no one will aid her. Soon after Teng’s initial sexual advances, “Lady
Di had become inflamed and was no longer able to control her raging
passions. She writhed about for only a short while before yielding to
him, letting him make free with her” (Hu, 94). In the context of the
late imperial penal code, Lady Di’s ultimate submission means that
Teng’s assault was not rape at any point. Indeed, Ling suggests that
underneath her façade of moral protest, she enjoyed the assault from
the very beginning, since Teng’s initial advances “filled Lady Di with
both joy and alarm” (Hu, 94). The moral message imparted by the story
is another example of the idea that no matter how virtuous a woman
seems, she loses her chastity forever once she willingly engages in
sex with a man other than her husband. The loss of her chastity is
reflected in her dropping all of her displays of outward propriety.
She allows Teng into her bedchamber every night while her husband is
away, and indulges in her illicit affair for months until her husband
catches wind of her infidelity (caused by her implied indiscretion)
and takes precautions to protect her. The story ends with Lady Di’s
death. Though such a story might be interpreted contemporarily as a
sad tale of ill-fated love between Lady Di and Teng, Ling casts blame
on Lady Di herself for her demise: “Lady Di, always before that a
virtuous woman, fell into illicit ways and expired. Of course, her
loss of moral rectitude and her submission to lust must, too, be
ascribed to her own fickle nature” (Hu, 95). Though Lady Di does not
die as a direct result of her infidelity, Ling implies that had she
stuck to a virtuous path of wifely devotion, she would have avoided
much unhappiness and her own death. This story demonstrates with
little ambiguity that Lady Di has lost her virtue; as a result, a
karmic outcome justly punishes her for straying from the Confucian
path of loyalty to one’s husband. The story also suggests that
chastity must be carefully guarded (regardless of how virtuous a woman
might first appear) because once immoral passions are released, there
is no chance to regain the virtue that is lost. Had Lady Di’s husband
taken earlier precautions to guard her carefully, she would not have
died, and he would not have been cuckolded. “One Woman and Two Monks”
is another cautionary tale appealing to the Confucian philosophy
towards women, which defined their “social identity…by [their]
relationship with husband or father” (Sommer, 69). The shrewish female
protagonist, Du, has a marital dispute with her husband, and returns
briefly to her parents’ household. On her way back to her husband’s
home, she is caught in a storm and takes refuge in a monastery, where
she more or less willingly engages in a variety of sexual experiences
with two monks. This story depicts a woman’s literal straying from the
path of Confucian righteousness. A chaste woman should follow a
straight and narrow path from her father’s home to her husband’s (the
former defines her premarital social status, the latter her married
social status). Instead, Du’s literal detour to the monastery is
symbolic of her moral deviance, for which she is ultimately punished
by a violent death at the hands of the older monk. In both “Fatal
Seduction” and “One Woman and Two Monks,” Ling imbues his narrative
with a moral critique of the female protagonists, demonstrating to
readers that neither Lady Di nor Du are truly virtuous women, and that
both are inevitably punished – not by a magistrate, but by fate – for
their immorality. Ling’s depictions of the straightforward meting out
of justice serve not only to convey a clear moral message, but also
perhaps to suggest that the mandates of the penal code were meant to
be. As a government official himself, Ling presumably strove to
inspire faith in the righteousness of the penal code.
For a foil to the untimely demises of Lady Di and Du, readers can look
to the story of Madame Wu in “Fatal Seduction,” which conveys the idea
that a woman’s chastity is not determined simply by the literal
protection of her body against external assault, but is also a
question of her own intent. In other words, a chaste woman is one who
will never consent to sexual acts with anyone but her own husband.
Madame Wu is described as being “beautiful and demure” (Hu, 95), much
like Lady Di, and who is also raped, by a man named Bu Liang. However,
Wu meets a happier fate than Lady Di because she maintains her
chastity by refusing to willingly have sex with her rapist at any
point. The tropes of suicide and wifely devotion are invoked to
indicate just how steadfastly she maintains her chastity: “Overflowing
with regret, she wanted to commit suicide. Yet she wished to see her
husband and tell him the truth, and was therefore unable to make up
her mind to take her life immediately” (Hu, 104). This dilemma is
indicative of Madame Wu’s unblemished sense of virtue in the context
of Confucian morality. She is conflicted between a desire to prove her
chastity by killing herself after being sexually defiled, and her
undying loyalty to her husband. Ultimately, her obedience to her
husband wins out, as is an appropriate choice in the dynamics of an
ideal Confucian marriage. When he hears that she wants to kill
herself, he tells her, “‘Don’t be so short sighted! …It was not that
you sought to lose your chastity, but rather it was that misfortune
befell you. You have made it clear to me that you were innocent’” (Hu,
107). Along with the husband, the reader takes on the role of ultimate
judge of Madame Wu’s innocence. Assured of her blamelessness (as
demonstrated by not only her literal status as an unwilling rape
victim, but her virtue, cultivated over the course of a lifetime),
readers do not even need to know how the judge or the community views
her, because they can judge her moral purity for themselves. Because
Madame Wu is still chaste, her fate is neatly and happily resolved,
while that of her attacker punishes him for his misdeeds. Bu Liang
hardly receives a fair trial; Wu has bitten his tongue off, so he has
no way to articulate a defense to the magistrate’s incorrect
conclusion that he has killed two nuns. He “gestured with both his
hands and feet, trying to signal that he wished a brush and a piece of
paper so that he could write a statement in his defense. Yet his
inability to articulate even a syllable greatly provoked the
magistrate. ‘You sly ruffian!’ he shouted. ‘You can expect no paper
and brush from me!’” (Hu, 112). Such a miscarriage of justice might
inspire sympathy for Bu Liang in modern-day readers, yet Ling’s
intention is not to demonstrate that all crimes are punished to the
letter of the law. Instead, he seems to suggest that fate resolves
crimes in the appropriate way, so that by one reason or another,
victims like Madame Wu are avenged, and criminals like Bu Liang are
punished. Even the characters in his stories believe in the power of
fate to lead to fair outcomes. For example, when Madame Wu expresses
to her husband that she wishes she had killed Bu Liang instead of
biting off his tongue, Jia responds, “ ‘Relax. Someone will kill him
for you’” (Hu, 110). Indeed, a confluence of events conveniently leads
to Bu Liang’s apprehension, conviction, and punishment, even if for an
unrelated crime that he did not commit. Therefore, Ling’s portrayal of
cosmic justice is a general one in which good people (those who are
virtuous by Confucian standards) are rewarded, while bad people are
punished. Furthermore, the message that even women who have been raped
can be avenged and subsequently lead happy lives suggests that – at
least in Ling’s idealized fiction – chastity is a trait that a woman
can preserve (even in the eyes of one’s family and community) as long
as she remains faithful to her husband. However, it seems evident from
examples of the highly subjective application of late imperial rape
statutes that in fact, a woman’s chastity was a reputation that was
delicately constructed and could be interpreted in different ways, and
to different ends, by her community at large.
Though the patriarchy of late imperial China viewed immoral women as a
threat in that they could destroy the stability and social standing of
their households by permanently losing their virtue, more dangerous
still was the threat of the reckless male violator, which could
violate and tempt even the most virtuous woman by force, if necessary.
Because a woman’s sexuality had to be maintained within certain
boundaries, symbolic of the protection of the household, the normative
masculinity was one that was “harnessed to the roles of husband and
father… disciplined by the filial duty to procreate” (Sommer, 83). In
contrast, a dangerous male was one whose masculinity could not be
yoked to traditional familial labels like father or husband. The man
who subverted the mandate that sex be practiced only within a marital
relationship was not only breaking the law; he was also opposing the
family-based Confucian moral order upon which society was premised.
The logic that a man without family was a loose agent capable of
preying on other families’ women was also inverted in the law; “in the
course of prosecution, if a rapist were found to be married, then his
interrogators often focused on that fact: why on earth would he commit
rape if he already had a wife?” (Sommer, 84). However, underlying even
the unease with the criminal potential of unmarried men without
children was the fundamental “threat of penetration out of place”
(Sommer, 67), that is, the fear that the act of penetration could not
be limited to its appropriate social context (a husband penetrating
his own wife or concubine). The danger of disordered penetration can
be used to interpret the wariness with which cross-dressing men and
monks were regarded in Confucian discourse, including Ling’s stories.
Both types of men differed drastically from the normative masculinity
that was posited by hegemonic Confucian ideals. In order to make sense
of these deviant or asexual masculinities, various sources often
portrayed them as a mere façade that hid the familiar threat of
predatory male heterosexuality. Ling collapses both of these
hypersexualized figures into the same character in his story, “The
Elopement of a Nun.” Nun Wang is described as an “exceptionally
competent” woman, who is eloquent, demure, and skilled at writing and
embroidery (Hu, 158), until it is revealed that she is in fact a man
who practices the art of penis contraction, and has many sexual
adventures with the women who frequent the nunnery. For his deception
and multiple engagements in illicit sex, Nun Wang is sentenced to a
dishonorable and violent death, in which he is subjected “to various
instruments of torture. As fragile as pastry dough, the monk was not
able to bear the pain and died on the spot… The corpse of the monk was
thrown into its Guanyin Pond” (Hu, 163). The monk’s deception is
presented as a threat because he is a man who cross-dresses to access
private chambers only accessible to women. Immediately after the story
of Nun Wang, Ling recounts “the tale of a young woman who camouflaged
herself as a monk, yet had a happy outcome” (Hu, 164). This deviant
femininity is not only not punished; it results in a happy ending for
the female cross-dresser. In light of the perfect justice meted out
for moral infractions in Ling’s stories, the outcomes faced by a
cross-dressing woman and a cross-dressing man suggest that she is not
as much of a social threat as he is. This can be further understood in
considering the tendency of late imperial heterosexual gender rhetoric
to depict men as predators to be guarded against, and women the prey
(consenting or not) that should be carefully protected.
In considering what has been argued thus far about the importance of
gendered space and definitions of virtue, the portrayal of monks and
monasteries (and nuns and nunneries, to a lesser extent) in Ling’s
erotic fiction is especially significant as a way to understand the
spatial and social order and disorder of sexuality. The celibacy and
seclusion of monks was often eyed with suspicion in a society that
lauded the necessity of continuing the family line, and of actively
contributing to one’s community. Like the male cross-dresser, the monk
was often interpreted as a heterosexual masculinity disingenuously
cloaked in the guise of asexuality for the purpose of preying on
women. Ling boldly criticizes monks, alleging, “[Monks] will try every
possible means to seduce a woman. Seduction itself is a horrible moral
transgression; yet monks are capable of behaviours even more heinous”
(Hu, 118). Just as monks are represented in Ling’s stories as
sexualized perversions of normative masculinity, monasteries are
represented as spatial perversions of the normative household. In “One
Woman and Two Monks,” Du, the female protagonist, is invited by a monk
to “ ‘go to the inner room and dry [her sleeve] on the brazier.’ This
suggestion of his revealed clearly to her his real purpose. But to go
into his bedroom was precisely what she wanted” (Hu, 120). In the
monastery, the inner room seems to be a privileged private space, yet
it is the negation of the secular home’s inner quarters. Instead of
sheltering women and being transgressed by men, it is a space that
houses men and is transgressed by a woman who, it is important to
note, commits two crimes: not only does she engage in an illicit
affair, but she also does so outside the appropriate sphere of the
inner quarters of her home. Furthermore, whereas the typical inner
quarters of a household are depicted as a privileged space in which
women enact private displays of chastity, Ling portrays the inner
quarters of the monastery as a space for blatant and excessive sexual
perversion. The social hierarchy of the monastery also echoes and
perverts the traditional Confucian social hierarchy, in which junior
members must respect and defer to senior members. The younger monk
explains to Du on multiple occasions that they must indulge the older
monk, since “ ‘He is the head of the house and it is not polite to
exclude him’” (Hu, 122). To invoke norms of etiquette in their
situation – a married woman cohabiting and engaging in ménages à trois
with two “celibate” monks – seems highly ironic. Ling alludes to such
normative social expectations to highlight exactly how morally deviant
these characters are in every other sense of respectability. His
stories suggest that nuns are just as licentious as monks, yet their
disordered sexuality is rarely presented as a problem in and of
itself, except when the nuns work in tandem with men to trap and
seduce virtuous women. The nuns’ femininity – and all of the
weaknesses it entails – ultimately hinders them from achieving the
full potential of their sexual threat. For example, when the
licentious nuns in “The Elopement of a Nun” realize that Jingguan (the
ingénue that they have kept as a protégée) has suddenly disappeared,
they suspect Wenren, their male lover, of kidnapping her. However,
although they devise several options for ascertaining his whereabouts,
“no agreement was reached, since they were, after all, women, unable
to make a decisive move by themselves” (Hu, 180). Ling’s description
suggests that although they may preserve some agency by living
independently of men, their failure to act effectively is due to a
flawed trait inherent to all women (“since they were, after all,
women”). Ling’s portrayal of monks and nuns appeals to the recurring
theme of the sexually empowered male tempting seemingly virtuous
women, of which the hypersexualized monk is an archetype and to which
the sexually deviant nun is an accessory.
Of course, it is important to keep in mind that both Ling and the late
imperial penal code appealed to an idealized conception of chastity
that was much more ambiguous in real life. Ling boldly asserts, “There
are none who have not received their just desserts” (Hu, 137), an
idealistic statement that simply does not accurately reflect much of
human experience. He presents a clear Confucian moral message to his
readers while capitalizing on the entertainment value of characters
behaving badly, resolved by a force of justice that punishes and
rewards perfectly. As is often the case, it is clear that the moral
ideals presented in Ling’s stories did not often coincide with a
reality that was complicated with questions of social status, economic
necessity, and practical considerations. Nevertheless, the way in
which his erotic fiction pedagogically represents and engages with
constructions of gender, space, and justice reveals some of his era’s
most pressing social questions.
Works Cited
Hu, Lenny, trans. In the Inner Quarters. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp
Press, 2003. Print.
Sommer, Matthew. "Dangerous Males, Vulnerable Males, and Polluted
Males: The Regulation of Masculinity in Qing Dynasty Law." Chinese
femininities, Chinese masculinities: a reader. Ed. Brownell, Susan and
Ed. Wasserstrom, Jeffrey. Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 2002. 67-88. Web. 14 Mar. 2012.
Theiss, Janet. Disgraceful matters: the politics of chastity in
eighteenth-century China. Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 2004. Web.
Theiss, Janet. "Feminity in Flux: Gendered Virtue and Social Conflict
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