SOURCE: Wu, Yenna. “Condemnation: Other Fiction.” In The Chinese Virago: A Literary Theme, pp. 106-23. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.

[In this excerpt, Wu focuses on cruel, violent women in seventeenth-century novels, including The Saga of Emperor Wu of the Liang, Marriage Destinies, and The Forgotten History of Buddhists. Such women contradict the social values of Confucian and Buddhist morality with outrageous and grotesque crimes, but many authors drew a complex portrait of the virago that was not without sympathy.]

While cruel palace women and officials' wives often appear in fictionalized histories, viragos from among the common people are more likely to surface in novels proper.

In excoriating the femme fatale, The Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan) expresses the fear of potentially destructive women by both the elite and the populace.¹ Relatively few women appear in the novel that stresses the ethic of sworn brotherhood. Among them, two contrasting types, the physically strong, martial women and the seductive adulteresses, offer an interesting comparison. The novel's theme tends to exclude the claims of family, especially those of women, and so it shows martial women (who fight for the interest of the group) prospering, and seductresses (who act for self-interest) meeting ghastly deaths.

In the novel sexual puritanism is emphasized by the male outlaws' alienation from women. To the insecure outlaws, women are dangerous because of their sexual power.² Temptresses sap a man's power, and sexual dalliance takes time away from martial training. Women, particularly those who cuckold their husbands, are punished for being “creatures of lust.”³

Yet sexual power constitutes only one part of the women's threat. It is their daring to rebel against men that makes them the object of male hatred. The adulteresses Pan Jinlian, Yan Poxi, and Pan Qiaoyun deserve gruesome deaths not so much because of their sexuality, but because they threaten male solidarity and the patriarchal order. Jinlian is dangerous because she bullies, and finally poisons, her weakling of a husband. Moreover, she attempts to sow discord between him and his brother.⁴ Having failed to seduce her brother, she slanders him by claiming that he has made sexual advances toward her.

Song Jiang would have tolerated the adultery of his mistress Yan Poxi. But when she blackmails him by threatening to disclose his connection with the outlaws, he is provoked into violence.⁵

Unlike Jinlian or Poxi, Pan Qiaoyun neither bullies nor openly defies her husband. Rather, she feigns submissiveness to win her husband's pity and then slanders his sworn brother, because he knows about her adulterous affair with a monk. Her husband would have broken up with the sworn brother if the latter had not killed the wife's paramour and thus revealed her betrayal.⁶

Following The Water Margin, the sixteenth-century novel The Golden Lotus (Jin Ping Mei) and other fiction continue to condemn viragos who defy and cuckold their husbands.⁷ While in The Water Margin Pan Jinlian illustrates one type of wifely rebellion, in The Golden Lotus she becomes the fictionalized version of the Chinese femme fatale.⁸ Strictly speaking, the jealous shrew is not to be equated with the femme fatale or the adulteress, although the types sometimes overlap. But Jinlian combines all three: she commits adultery, murders her first husband, and wages war against the other wives of the wealthy libertine Ximen Qing.

The novel recalls familiar rivalries within the seraglio and rings with the echoes of historical legend.⁹ Pan Jinlian's name, Golden Lotus Pan, carries the association of the beautiful but jealous Consort Pan whom Donghunhou both adored and feared: he had golden lotuses inlaid on the palace floor for Consort Pan to step on.¹⁰ The historical Donghunhou may in some way have inspired the creation of Ximen Qing, whose extravagance and debauchery are reminiscent of depraved emperors in legend.¹¹The Golden Lotus also recalls the Zhao sisters; just as Consort Hede accidentally kills Emperor Cheng with an aphrodisiac, Jinlian gives Ximen Qing his quietus.¹²

The author underscores Jinlina's craftiness as well as her greed for power and sex: she emerges as the most active intriguer in the family power game and a dirty fighter constantly engaged in verbal or sexual battle. She avoids directly challenging either male authority or the female hierarchy, while secretly undermining both. Like the “black-hearted” woman Yu Yifang warns us against, she uses sex—however much she enjoys it—as a bargaining chip to earn power and financial control.

In order to monopolize her husband, she first identifies her rivals' status and personalities, and then devises appropriate strategies for injuring or even ruining them. Fully aware of her inferior status as Ximen Qing's fifth wife, she begins by currying favor with his first wife, Yueniang, while drawing the third wife to her side. But her attitude toward Yueniang changes after her own promotion; she begins to discredit her behind her back.¹³ Then with her own status secured, she confronts and humiliates the fourth wife, the one least favored by Ximen Qing.

Jinlian's favorite strategy is to isolate her rival by making her the target of scorn, and then to sow discord between that rival and another woman, using the latter to eliminate the rival. When Ximen Qing becomes enamoured of Huilian, the wife of one of his servants, Jinlian at first refrains from showing any jealousy. Realizing that Huilian still feels a certain loyalty to her husband, Jinlian persuades Ximen to drive the husband out, and makes Huilian feel guilty.¹⁴ Jinlian then stirs up trouble between the fourth wife and Huilian, eventually driving the latter to suicide.

Jinlian's elimination of Li Ping'er, Ximen's sixth and favorite wife, requires an even more elaborate stratagem. Ping'er is rich, amiable, and popular, and so Jinlian maligns Ping'er and stirs up Yueniang's hostility against her.¹⁵ She knows Ping'er will never dare to speak up or confront her, and would rather suppress her grief than complain to Ximen.¹⁶ In her most horrible scheme, Jinlian secretly trains a cat to pounce upon Ping'er's frail baby, causing him to die of shock.

Jinlian also obtains power by acquiring more information than anyone else in the household. She keeps a sharp lookout, peeping and eavesdropping; she pries into Ximen's affairs and never tires of asking his whereabouts. Suspicious by nature, she is the first to detect his secret assignation with Ping'er—an item with which she later blackmails him.¹⁷ She uses her chance discovery of his clandestine affair with Huilian to manipulate both of them.¹⁸ By eavesdropping on the lovemaking between Ximen and Ping'er, she learns of Ping'er's pregnancy as well as the fact that Ximen admires Ping'er for her pale complexion.¹⁹ She not only uses the information to ridicule both of them, she also whitens her own body with powder and cream to arouse Ximen's desire.²⁰ In addition, since she knows so much about Ximen's affairs, he begins to confide in her and seek her advice. Needless to say, his confessions of one devious trick after another only make him more dependent, while her advice benefits her more than him.

Jinlian, however, is by no means the only domineering wife, nor the only victimizer, in The Golden Lotus. Even the gentle Ping'er has bullied her two husbands before becoming Ximen's wife. Like Jinlian, Ping'er rails against her first husband, especially after falling in love with Ximen, and she drives her second husband out when he fails to satisfy her sexually.²¹ Just as Jinlian anxiously schemes to injure her rivals, so some of her rivals devise ways to hurt her. One of Ximen's favorite singsong girls even tries to cast a spell on her.²²

The author condemns Jinlian's cunning, cruelty, and disruption of the household, and has her murdered in ghastly fashion so as to receive retribution (baoying) for her violence against other people. At the same time, skilled in exploring the various facets of human nature, the author depicts her inner frustration and helplessness with some sympathy. He expresses Jinlian's feelings through the songs she sings or writes.²³ He shows her invective and quarrels as resulting from anger and a sense of insecurity. If she inflicts pain on others, she also suffers pain, being sensitive to slights and possessing a greater libido than the other women. And both in the description of the murder and in the poem immediately following it, the narrator seems to lament her gruesome death, calling it a sorry (kelian) fate.²⁴

Some writers widen the scope of a virago's violence beyond her husband and female rivals, showing that the target of her attack may be her in-laws, family, clan members, neighbors, and even the whole community. In Fang Ruhao's The Forgotten History of Buddhists (Chanzhen yishi, 1620s?), Madame You bullies her husband Yang Wei, whose name puns on “male impotence” (yangwei), as well as her mother-in-law, and relying on her powerful father and brother, she intimidates her neighbors.²⁵ She even organizes the womenfolk into a solidarity and draws up ten commandments for controlling men.²⁶ She is violent—but also sanctimonious. Though she pretends to be chastity itself, she is by no means averse to men; she has actually had some affairs on the sly, and to the dismay of the villagers, her female companions follow her example. But the author is obviously satirizing the solidarity; when a knight-errant strips Madame You of her clothes, not a single female comrade of hers springs to her defense.²⁷

Later she suffers from a boil on her back and becomes infested by maggots until her insides are exposed. She dies in excruciating pain, “to the delight of all the people near and far, who regarded her death as just desserts for a rebellious and corrupt woman.”²⁸

Viragos like Madame You who mistreat their parents-in-law are the most denounced and are frequently plagued in their condemnation with a putrid disease. The Qing writer Shao Jitang depicts a similar illness caused by supernatural means. The virago obtains her nickname “Arsenic Bowl” (Pishuang bo) because of the acerbity of her tongue-lashing. She even abuses her blind mother-in-law. One day the virago strangles the old woman, claiming that she died of overeating. Then the virago falls ill, and her ghost faces trial. She admits her guilt and pleads for mercy, while blaming her husband for failing to instruct her. Unmoved, King Yama has her punished. Later her body is covered with incurable boils, and like Madame You, she grows an abscess on her back, with similar results.²⁹

Instead of condemning wives' cruelty toward their rivals, Marriage Destinies to Awaken the World (Xingshi yinyuan zhuan) focuses on the wife's violence toward her husband. Echoing Xie Zhaozhe's remark, “Having a jealous wife is really retribution for the sins a man has committed in a previous life, and it will be extremely difficult to get rid of her,” the author Xi-Zhou Sheng (pseud.) laments that the suffering in the marital relationship resembles “the swollen lymph gland on your neck” which you cannot easily cut off.³⁰ Another seventeenth-century author describes a tyrannical wife as “a cancer setting in at the bone (of her husband).”³¹ Both metaphors capture the feeling that a hapless husband may have about a wife who refuses to leave.

The plot of Marriage Destinies builds on the theme of revenge through reincarnation. In the first part of the novel, the libertine Chao Yuan takes a singsong girl Zhenge as his concubine. When they go out hunting, he kills a fox fairy, and then, incited by Zhenge, he mistreats his wife, who later commits suicide. In the second part of the novel, Chao Yuan is reborn as Di Xichen. As repayment for the sins he has committed in his previous existence, Xichen is destined to be tortured first by his wife Xue Sujie, the reincarnation of the fox fairy, and then by his concubine Tong Jijie, the reincarnation of Chao's wife. Enlightened by an eminent monk, Xichen repents his sins and achieves salvation: after the vengeful Sujie has died, he lives happily for the rest of his days with a reformed Jijie.

The author draws an analogy between the inversion of the hierarchies at the family level and that of the state.³² Perceiving a similarity between domestic and state chaos, he compares favored concubines who ruin a family to the eunuchs who destroy a country.³³ Just as the powerful eunuch Wang Zhen usurps the emperor's power, so the concubine Zhenge usurps the power of both Chao Yuan and his wife. The pompous pageant of Zhenge anticipates the lengthy description of the extravagant birthday celebration for Wang Zhen.³⁴ Drawing a parallel between the cowardly husband and the powerless emperor, the author calls Xichen a “benighted ruler” (hunjun).³⁵

The subplot of Zhenge's rise to power is a familiar one. Having won Chao Yuan's favor, she proceeds to devise ways of eliminating his wife. When she secures her position in the household, she begins to behave willfully. Both Zhenge and Sujie recall Pan Jinlian in their vitality, ingenuity for invective, and shrewish behavior. All appear as egotists ruthlessly pursuing their own interests, who can be brought to their senses only by cruel punishment. Zhenge resembles Jinlian more in her manipulating Chao Yuan with sexual enticements and cunning strategies, while Sujie intimidates Xichen by brute force.³⁶

Sujie's example resembles a pathological case of paranoid jealousy and sadism. The topos of a wife transforming the home into a prison originated in Accounts of Female Jealousy and appears in later literature.³⁷Marriage Destinies to Awaken the World develops the topos even further. Sujie is depicted as a ferocious warder, frequently torturing Xichen from suspicion of his extramarital goings-on and virtually imprisoning him. For example, when Sujie discovers a handkerchief from Xichen's former lover, she lashes out at him: “Sujie shot out her knife-sharp claws and left three bloody streaks down his neck, each being a good fifth of an inch deep and five inches long. Enduring the pain as best as he could, Xichen managed to snatch the handkerchief back from her, at which Sujie wrenched his shoulders into a painful contortion, pinched his thighs and arms, and slapped his face.”³⁸ In guarding her husband from contact with all other women, Sujie recalls the obsessive Madame Guo in A New Account of Tales of the World and Madame Yu in the Accounts of Female Jealousy. One day she sees him chatting with his father's concubine and a woman servant, and immediately suspects him of having an affair with both of them. To force a confession out of him, she “pinched him all over with a pair of pliers.”³⁹ Out of suspicion and vengeful fury, she ties Xichen to a bench, imprisons him in her privy, and starves him on a few occasions.⁴⁰ The author emphasizes this warder-prisoner relationship with a particularly symbolic episode: Sujie dresses a pet monkey in Xichen's clothes during his absence and beats it periodically to vent her anger.⁴¹

In terms of torture, Sujie is perhaps the most imaginative virago in all of Chinese literature. She disgraces Xichen in public, forcing him to toil like a servant. In addition to hurting him with cudgels, pins, and pliers, she has his fingers crushed in an imitation finger-press and, on one occasion, even bites a piece of flesh out of his arm.⁴² Her various ways of venting her anger include dealing Xichen six hundred blows with a club—a beating that nearly proves fatal—pouring hot charcoal down his clothes to burn him, and shooting an arrow at him.⁴³

The author not only exaggerates Sujie's wickedness toward her husband but also portrays her as a scourge to her in-laws and the community. Sujie threatens the generational and the patriarchal hierarchies. She openly challenges the authority of her parents and parents-in-law like Empress Li, or Pan Jinlian who disobeys her mother. Once, after being chastised by Mrs. Di, her mother-in-law, Sujie sets fire to the Di mansion. Sujie is so cantankerous that she constantly picks quarrels with senior relatives and neighbors around her. She also rebels against government edicts which forbid decent gentry women from showing themselves in public, and insists on visiting temples on festival days.

Furthermore, Sujie aggressively seizes financial advantages. When the Dis are preparing a dowry for Xichen's sister, Sujie robs her of the new furniture that is part of her dowry.⁴⁴ Worrying that her father-in-law's concubine might give birth to a son who would eventually be entitled to part of the estate, Sujie attempts to castrate him and get rid of his concubine.⁴⁵ Even before her father-in-law breathes his last, Sujie has already stormed into his bedroom and begun looting.⁴⁶ After his death, Sujie forces his concubine and the baby (whom the concubine later produces) to leave. On another occasion, Sujie attempts to murder the son of Xichen's concubine in order to avoid sharing the estate.

The author shows Sujie's moral degeneration and social decline to be self-induced, and has her receive punishment in accordance with her vices and the torture she gave other people. For example, once she is beaten hundreds of times by Xichen's aunt.⁴⁷ In a scene reminiscent of Madame You's public humiliation in The Forgotten History of Buddhists, Sujie is attacked and has her clothes stripped off by a group of hooligans.⁴⁸ The monkey is so enraged by her torture that it breaks loose and disfigures her, gouging out one of her eyes and biting off the tip of her nose.⁴⁹ A magistrate has her fingers crushed in the finger-press when she falsely accuses Xichen of sedition.⁵⁰ In the end she becomes the prisoner of her own obsessions. Long racked by suspicion and frustration, she falls seriously ill, haunted by ghosts, and dies.

Throughout the novel the author sets the fools and knaves in sharp contrast with the virtuous characters,⁵¹ exaggerating the vices of the knaves. Sujie's open rebellion against her parents and parents-in-law is not only constantly juxtaposed with her sisters-in-law's virtuous behavior but is also contrasted with two women who win honors because of their filial devotion to their parents-in-law.⁵²

Although the author clearly condemns viragos, he pays a great deal of attention to psychological realism and presents the shrewish wives in humanly understandable terms. When illustrating Sujie's violent acts, he portrays her as a victim of mental disorders and external circumstances. He provides justified motivation for her quarrels, through which he shows that the monomaniacal Sujie has difficulty accepting her feminine role and adapting to social norms. He also castigates the spineless Xichen for surrendering himself to Sujie. The reader realizes that Sujie, moderately talented and beautiful as she is (at least before her disfigurement), may be frustrated in her marriage to an inept and potentially unfaithful man. As her mistrust of Xichen deepens, so her anger rises, and she becomes more and more violent. In this manner, she is tied against her will to a man who provokes in her the uncontrollable desire to punish him.

In these condemnatory works, an image of violence used to symbolize the virago's obsession and her all-encompassing baneful power is fire. Fire destroys the marital prisonhouse in both Marriage Destinies and the story “Jie Zhitui Traps His Jealous Wife in an Inferno” (“Jie Zhitui huofeng dufu”). In the former, Sujie sets fire to her parents-in-law's residence for revenge, but perhaps also, unconsciously, to break free from her domestic prison. In the latter story, an imprisoned husband in desperation sets fire to his own house.

The story portrays a tragedy induced largely by the wife's groundless jealousy. A model of loyalty in the history books, Jie Zhitui follows his prince into exile, but has no way of informing his wife of the circumstances. Unaware of his love and the hardship he has to endure, she interprets his departure as desertion.

Years later, the prince returns to his country, ascends the throne, and rewards all his loyal retainers with high official posts, all but Zhitui. Zhitui has received nothing, for as a devoted husband he has gone straight home to look for his wife. But Shi You, like Sujie who finds a monkey to substitute for her husband during his absence, has molded a clay image of Zhitui which she beats and curses day and night. Upon returning,

Zhitui explained everything, but all Madame Shi did was abuse him, “You unfaithful dog! You abandoned me all these years, and now you try to deceive me with phony excuses!” She refused to believe him. Nor did she fail to exercise a woman's customary methods of discipline; she scratched his face, bit him, butted him and kicked him, until Zhitui, like a wounded soldier in defeat, lost all hope.

He dared not utter a word, but secretly hoped that after she had vented her anger, they could enjoy a period of intimacy again, after which he would leave for an official post. But Shi You's heart was so envenomed that she fetched from her trunk a noose made from nine strands of red brocade, fastened it about his neck, and bound him to her, preventing him from stretching himself or even moving.⁵³

The motif of a wife leading her husband around by a rope appears as early as the story I mentioned in Accounts of Female Jealousy,⁵⁴ and resurfaces in some later works.⁵⁵ Here the rope appears, significantly, as “a noose made from nine strands of red brocade.” The color red reflects her passion, however obsessive, while the complex weave of the noose represents her tangled emotions and pent-up frustration.

Zhitui has no way of communicating with friends or requesting their help. In the meantime Duke Wen has told an officer to inquire as to Zhitui's whereabouts. Too impatient to undertake an exhaustive search, the officer sets fire to the mountain to smoke Zhitui out. Zhitui realizes what the officer is trying to do, but bound as he is by his wife's noose, he cannot get away. He also worries about the loss of face. In his mortification and fury, he resolves to die and make an end of it. He starts a fire when his wife is still asleep, and both are burned to ashes.

After their deaths, the Emperor of Heaven takes pity on them both and allows their spirits to receive the sacrificial offerings from that region. However, even after she has become a deity, Shi You is still jealous; she punishes any woman who dares to put on make-up or dress herself up.⁵⁶ When their shrine is first built the images of the couple sit side by side, immaculately dressed, but Shi You wills the images to change drastically:

The idol sitting in the middle was a middle-aged woman with blue eyes, high cheekbones, a purple concave face, and a red mouth the size of an open dust bin. She was squatting in a fierce attitude high off the ground, a short club of burnt wood in her hand. Beside her stood a hunchbacked, wretched-looking man of small stature, facing the cupboard in the shrine.⁵⁷

This grotesque image shows her disfigurement as well as her permanent dominance over Zhitui. It represents the terrible mother and the frightened child, with Zhitui reverting to childhood and cowering before his chastising mother.

The author condemns Shi You for her mistreatment of her husband and other innocent women, and for her refusal to repent. Moreover, she is castigated for ruining her husband's career and preventing him from obeying the Confucian duty to serve the state. Despite his ability and merit, Zhitui is unable to seek an official post because his irrational wife has imprisoned him. Similarly, in Marriage Destinies, Sujie's repeated torture of Xichen causes him to take sick leaves, neglect official duties, lose face in front of his colleagues, and finally resign from office. An early Qing story, “The Henpecked Judge Who Loses a Governorship” (“Weinei weihuo liang cunsi, xiaolu xiaonian shuang jiezheng”), emphasizes a woman's corrupting and destructive influence on her husband.⁵⁸ The judge means to serve with integrity, but his rapacious wife receives bribes, forces him to acquit criminals, and thus robs him of a divine blessing. Due to his corruption, the gods deprive him of a promised governorship, and he dies. The author's general contempt for women is readily apparent in his concluding warning that judges should mete out justice free of temptations and pressures, particularly from wives: “How can the most shallow-minded of persons—a woman—be allowed to reign as master of the house?”⁵⁹

Pu Songling's (1640-1715) tale “Ma Jiefu” demonstrates the various aspects of a vicious wife's ruinous power and blames the husband for capitulating to her.⁶⁰ The names of the main characters symbolize yin controlling yang. Since the name of the husband, Yang Wandan, puns on yang (“masculine principle”) and wandan (“you are a goner”), his name can be construed as “His masculinity is kaput.”⁶¹ The surname yin of the wife, Madame Yin, means “to rule,” but also puns on yin (“feminine principle”) as well as yin (“licentiousness”). Yin guards her husband like a warder guarding a prisoner.

The following scene graphically portrays the reversal of gender roles:

She summoned Wandan, forced him to kneel down, stuck a woman's brocaded headpiece on his head, and drove him out of the front gate with a whip. At first, Wandan felt too ashamed to go outside, for Ma Jiefu happened to be standing outside the courtyard at the time, and only after his wife began lashing him with the whip did he lurch out of the walled compound. Then she rushed out after him, stood there with her arms akimbo, and began stamping her feet in rage. Soon the street was jammed with curious bystanders.⁶²

The scene may signal Yin's discontent with her feminine role and her desire to transgress gender boundaries, as well as Wandan's willingness to accept a lowly status. The sartorial metaphor of the woman's brocaded headpiece is a satiric reference to Wandan's androgynous state.

Yin destroys yang in this story. Madame Yin's abuse is directed against almost every person in the Yang household, from the young to the old, from family members to servants. The story begins with an indirect condemnation of Yin; it shows how she abuses her husband's friend, then subjects Wandan to public humiliation, and mistreats his father along with the rest of the family. Insecure about her childlessness, she beats Wandan's pregnant concubine, causing a miscarriage.

The story plays variations upon a pattern involving Ma Jiefu, a chivalrous fox spirit who volunteers to save his friend Wandan from victimization. On his first visit Ma not only rescues Wandan's father but also conjures up a ferocious giant to intimidate Yin. A chastised Yin refrains from abuse for several months. But the fawning Wandan reveals the secret to his wife, betraying his friend. Yin reverts to her old self, even more vicious than before.

On Ma's second visit his only recourse is to make Wandan take the “Remasculinization Drug.” A transformed Wandan savagely cuts two pieces of flesh from Yin's thigh, but when the drug has worn off, his old attitude returns. Yin finds out that he is no stronger than before and again treats him with contempt.

When Ma appears a third time, he merely rescues Wandan's nephew and heir Xi'er from Yin's clutches. Then a fire destroys Wandan's house, and he is forced to sell his concubine. Yin gets a divorce and marries a butcher, abandoning Wandan to eke out a living as a beggar.

By coincidence Wandan is reunited with Xi'er who has become an official. Xi'er buys back Wandan's concubine for him, and she later gives birth to a son. In the meantime, Yin suffers excruciating torture at the hands of the misogynistic butcher she has married. On one occasion her thigh is drilled completely through, and she is hung by a rope from a roof beam.

The author repeats certain words and phrases that satirize both Wandan and Madame Yin. He half-humorously reveals Wandan's slave mentality by describing him as a crybaby humiliated and downtrodden by his wife. Wandan is so accustomed to being bullied by his wife that he feels uneasy when on rare occasions she treats him with respect.⁶³ He is so numb that not even the slightest notion of resistance crosses his mind. The author shows Wandan's cowardice from Ma's viewpoint and contrasts the two men to Wandan's disadvantage. Wandan's fecklessness and weakness no doubt account for Yin's ferocity.⁶⁴ The key word jian (gradual) reappears to stress how Wandan's problem resulted from a long-term habit.⁶⁵ An inveterate wife-fearer, Wandan indirectly encourages his wife's malice. On the other hand, the domineering Yin is also shown to have her limits. She prostrates herself when frightened by the giant and her “remasculinized” or barbarized husband, or when soliciting pity after ostracism by the community.⁶⁶

Psychological abnormalities in the relationship are implied. Yin's behavior obviously follows a passive-aggressive pattern, while she and Wandan seem tied to each other by a sado-masochistic attachment. Wandan's inability to divorce his wife may result partially from his childish attachment to her as a mother, however horrible she may be. The story hints at a special kind of bond, if not necessarily intimacy, between the couple: Wandan dares not prolong his conversations with a guest past a certain hour at night, and Yin fumes over his absence when Ma keeps him occupied. Even when Yin at the story's end has to depend on a group of beggars for her living, Wandan still feels compelled to go and meet her, and only after his nephew intervenes does he stop visiting her.

The story reveals little of Yin's psyche. She appears isolated, has no female confidante or group of friends, and is lacking in emotional support. There is no way of knowing whether she ever realizes that no other man will care for her and obey her as Wandan has done, and perhaps the lack of a sympathetic female point of view influences the reader's interpretation. For example, no traditional reader finds her divorce of a feckless husband justifiable. The Qing commentators point out her viciousness; one of them, observing on the occasion of her remarriage, voices a belief held by many writers: “Few ferocious and jealous wives are chaste.”⁶⁷

Like Sujie and Yin who bully their husbands and eventually reap what they have sown, the virago in “Jinse,” another Pu Songling story, is condemned in the end. But unlike Yin, who is punished by desertion, ostracism, and poverty, this virago chooses to die rather than live on in shame. Mr. Wang, a scholar of humble origins, marries a woman of wealthy family and higher social station and has to put up with her demeaning treatment:

His wife's brothers looked down on him, and his wife was especially arrogant, often regarding him as little more than a slave. She enjoyed eating delicacies by herself, but placed coarse food and chopsticks made from broken grain stalks in front of him when he came home. Nevertheless, he quietly endured all of these insults.

At nineteen he failed the examination for the first degree in the prefectural capital. When he returned home, his wife happened to have stepped out. Since the mutton in the pot was done cooking, he went over to help himself. At that moment his wife entered the kitchen and, without so much as a word, grabbed the pot and took it away from him. Wang felt so ashamed that he threw his chopsticks onto the floor and exclaimed: “I'd be better off dead than enduring this sort of treatment!” Enraged at his temerity, his wife asked him when he planned to commit suicide, thereupon handing him a rope with which to hang himself. In a fit of indignation, Wang flung the bowl at her face and hit her on the forehead.⁶⁸

Wang's wife fails to drive him to suicide. More courageous than Yang Wandan in “Ma Jiefu,” Wang rushes out in anger to put an end to the miseries of living with a virago. He gets to the underworld, where numerous mutilated corpses are kept, and undertakes such humiliating jobs as burying the dead. For fear of his wife, he prefers to stay in the underworld rather than return home. He is finally rewarded with marriage to a beautiful and kind fairy. In the meantime his wife has started living with a merchant. Like Tiresias after his visit to Hades, Wang returns home, and when his wife hears of his return, she hangs herself in shame.⁶⁹

Lin Lan Xiang, an important but neglected Qing novel that imitates The Golden Lotus, condemns a junior wife's cunning and cruelty toward a senior wife.⁷⁰ The hero Geng Lang, of mediocre talent and with a weakness for wine and sex, has six beautiful wives and enjoys high rank. Like Ximen Qing in The Golden Lotus, he is to blame for letting himself be manipulated by a vicious wife, failing to protect the virtuous wife from attack, and allowing his household to fall into strife. His second wife, Yan Mengqing, who outshines all his other women in looks, talent, and virtue, incurs the jealousy of the fourth wife, Ren Xiang'er—recalling Pan Jinlian's jealousy of Li Ping'er.

The parallel between wives and government ministers is apparent. Mengqing sacrifices herself for her husband like a minister loyal to his lord. More perceptive than her husband, she advises him whom to befriend or avoid. Xiang'er, on the other hand, is cast as the evil minister. She simply encourages Geng Lang to enjoy himself, causing him to fall ill from his debaucheries. Her slander helps fan Geng Lang's resentment toward Mengqing. Then she hatches a scheme with an old maidservant to cast a spell on Mengqing. After Mengqing's death, Xiang'er begins to worry that Mengqing's capable maidservant Chunwan may be promoted and threaten her own status. She tries to poison Chunwan, and also casts a voodoo spell on her.⁷¹ In retribution, the servant who has abetted Xiang'er is bitten by a scorpion and dies a horrible death, while Xiang'er, her health weakened by suspicion, jealousy, and anxiety, falls seriously ill with dysentery. Just before her death Xiang'er hallucinates that her former victim has come to claim her life,⁷² and so her fate fits the pattern suffered by many a virago.

The formidable shrew Wang Xifeng is a dominating presence in China's most famous novel, The Story of the Stone (Honglou meng, c. 1760).⁷³ While Marriage Destinies ostensibly attributes the heroine's ferocity to heaven-ordained retribution, The Story of the Stone directly presents Xifeng's ruthlessness as a problem arising from her personality and environment. The author Cao Zhan portrays her as a complicated character, who has the potential to be kind and virtuous, but is unfortunately married to Jia Lian, an irresponsible lecher far inferior to her in talent and industry. Clever and competitive by nature, she gradually gets control of the finances of the Jia household. While attending to the management of a huge household, she also needs to find ways to restrain her dissolute husband.

Her financial expertise aside, Xifeng's rhetorical skills, hypocrisy, and ability to dramatize herself allow her to prevail whenever she matches her wits with the other members of the household. When she discovers that her husband has secretly taken You Erjie as his concubine and set her up as his mistress outside the Jia compound, she devises an intricate strategy to eliminate the concubine without arousing suspicion. Her ruthlessness resembles Empress Lü's, but with one difference: Empress Lü can afford to torture her rival Lady Qi openly, because she is consolidating her political power while venting her resentment. Lacking Lü's status and power, Xifeng has to resort to more devious measures.⁷⁴

An excellent actress, Xifeng knows how to manipulate other people's perceptions. She first disarms Erjie by describing herself as a proper and dutiful (but wronged) wife.⁷⁵ Then she courts Erjie's friendship, promising to treat her with respect in the Jia household. Once Erjie is won over and moves into the Jias' Grandview Garden, Xifeng orders the maidservant to behave insolently toward her. But since Xifeng maintains a friendly and solicitous attitude, Erjie stifles the impulse to complain.⁷⁶

Xifeng puts on another tour-de-force performance in front of her in-law Madame You. She curses, cries, and threatens to commit suicide. Blaming Madame You for having Jia Lian marry Erjie at a taboo time of national and family mourning,⁷⁷ Xifeng succeeds in putting Madame You on the defensive while cloaking herself in the mantle of a law-abiding and honorable pillar of the clan. She praises herself as a “merciful, soft-hearted” (xinci mianruan) person, and strikes the pose of a model wife by lying blatantly about her motives in moving Erjie into the Garden.⁷⁸

In order to preserve her own reputation, Xifeng stops at nothing, not even murder.⁷⁹ When Erjie has a miscarriage, she makes a great show of burning incense and praying to the gods for the girl's recovery. She even vows to fast and pray for the rest of her life if Erjie gives birth to a son.⁸⁰ Then Xifeng uses Jia Lian's new favorite to get rid of Erjie, adopting the strategy of “killing with a borrowed knife” (jie dao sha ren).⁸¹ Like Li Ping'er in The Golden Lotus, Erjie is too gentle to resist these assaults and finally commits suicide.

Although Xifeng is not without kindness, her excesses are such that she suffers retribution on a grand scale. During a long illness, the crimes she has committed are revealed, the estate falls into ruin, the family loses imperial favor, and their sources of income dry up. Before her death she is haunted by Erjie's ghost.⁸²

Xia Jingui, another character in the novel, takes a leaf from Xifeng's book. She gradually tames her husband Xue Pan, the “Oaf King,” and enslaves him. At first Xue Pan is too infatuated to offend her or to be fully aware of her manipulative tactics. She tries to ingratiate herself with her mother-in-law, Mrs. Xue, and her sister-in-law, Baochai, and to use them against her husband. On one occasion, when Xue Pan gets angry with her, she weeps and pretends to be ill, until Mrs. Xue scolds her son and he apologizes.⁸³ She succeeds in subjugating him by making him feel guilty and by withdrawing her “love” as punishment. The author repeats words such as “Xue Pan's spirit (qigai) is dwarfed (ai, di'ai)” and tells of his kneeling before his wife to show humility.⁸⁴ These scenes dramatize perfectly the changing dynamics between husband and wife as described in “Warnings Against the Black-hearted.”

When Baochai begins to see through her, Jingui changes her tactics from passive pretense to open attack.⁸⁵ Once her position is secure, Jingui reveals her true nature and dares to talk back to her mother-in-law.⁸⁶ The bickering between Jingui and Mrs. Xue echoes that between Sujie and her mother-in-law in Marriage Destinies;⁸⁷ but while Sujie lashes out at both her husband and mother-in-law, the far more cunning Jingui tries to stir up discord between mother and son.

Jingui repeats Xifeng's pattern of aligning herself with one person in order to isolate and eliminate another. Pretending to be free of jealousy, Jingui uses the coquettish maidservant Moonbeam to divert Xue Pan's attention from his guileless concubine Caltrop. Then Jingui leads everyone to believe that Caltrop has tried to cast a voodoo spell on her.

While Jingui's cunning matches Xifeng's, her lasciviousness recalls that of Pan Jinlian. When Xue Pan goes into exile after an accidental homicide, Jingui tries to seduce his cousin. Caltrop happens to pass by as Jingui is dragging the cousin indoors, and the sexually frustrated Jingui resents her all the more.⁸⁸ She tries to poison Caltrop but drinks the poison herself by mistake.⁸⁹

These works condemn the virago's violation of Confucian morality, especially the torture of a rival, husband, family, and their possible ruin. Some works emphasize her breach of the Buddhist injunction against envy, greed, and the taking of life. Grotesque images of torture and mutilation shock the reader into recognition of her malevolence. Occasionally, some authors accuse the weak husband of failing to exercise control and indulging his wife in violence.

When the virago refuses to listen to Confucian persuasion and cannot be punished by the law, the use of violence becomes legitimate. The murder of a wicked virago, like the elimination of a tyrant, is depicted as a righteous act rather than as a crime. By exorcising baneful spirits, such a violent act restores peace to the community. The Forgotten History of Buddhists relates how a virago suffers justifiable defeat at the hands of two knights-errant. One of Pu Songling's stories describes a vengeful young man's killing of his greedy and ferocious grandmother as not unethical. Abusing her role of mother, this woman not only forcibly takes her virtuous daughter away from her lover, but also imprisons and tortures her when she refuses to take up prostitution.⁹⁰ In another story by Pu Songling, an altruistic hero, spurred on by a righteous rage, kills a ferocious woman who has been cursing her husband for trying to feed his starving mother.⁹¹ Similarly, the author of The Latter History of Buddhists (Chanzhen houshi) shows how the vicious Madame Pi (“intractable”) deserves to be kicked by a man and die of a miscarriage.⁹² The Unofficial History of a Female Immortal tells of how two upright female knight-errant figures defeat the evil spirit of a jealous wife and burn her temple to the ground.⁹³

Although horror over the virago's cruelty often leads to a black-and-white dichotomy, some novelists display a more judicious attitude. For example, the cruelty of Empress Xi of The Saga of Emperor Wu of the Liang did not come into being ex nihilo, but is portrayed as originating from her feelings of insecurity concerning her social position. Sujie's violence in Marriage Destinies appears to have partially developed from her frustrations over the social constraints imposed on women and the lack of opportunities in her own life. The author's attention to psychological detail thus often relieves his harsh portrayal. More importantly, The Saga implies that the virago can be redeemed by divine grace in her next incarnation. Religious redemption will be treated more fully in the following chapter.

Notes

1. All references to this novel are to Shuihu quanzhuan (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin chubanshe, 1975). For an English translation, see Sidney Shapiro, Outlaws of the Marsh (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981).

2. Sun Shuyu discussed the outlaws' sense of insecurity and fear of women in his “Shuihu zhuan beihou de wangminghan,” in Zhongguo gudian xiaoshuo yanjiu zhuanji, vol. 1 (Taibei: Lianjing chubanshe, 1979), p. 56. See also Irene Eber's discussion of women's sexual power in her “Weakness and Power: Women in the Water Margin,” in Anna Gerstlacher, R. Keen, et al., eds., Women and Literature in China (Bochum: Studienverlag Brockmeyer, 1985), pp. 3-28.

3. Hsia, pp. 88, 105.

4. Shuihu quanzhuan, vol. 1, chaps. 24-25, especially pp. 310-313.

5. Ibid., chap. 21, pp. 250-253.

6. Ibid., vol. 2, chaps. 45-46, pp. 563-581.

7. See, for example, the plot summary of the story “The Cowed Man Fears His Wife, While the Charming Wife Dies From Passionate Abandon” (“Da haohan jingxin junei, xiao jiaoniang zongqing sangshen”), the second story in Baduan jin (Eight Pieces of Brocade), in Zhongguo tongsu xiaoshuo zongmu tiyao (Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian chuban gongsi, 1990), p. 638. The husband capitulates to his wife because of her youth and ability. When he discovers her committing adultery on a boat, it is she who flies into a tantrum, pretending to plunge herself into the river. In his rage he pushes her into the river, and she drowns. Baduan jin, a collection of eight stories, reprints at least five stories from Yipian qing. See Patrick Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story, p. 235, n. 64.

8. The edition used is Jin Ping Mei cihua. For English translations, see Bernard Miall, trans., Chin P'ing Mei: The Adventurous History of Hsi Men and his Six Wives (1939; rpt., London: The Bodley Head, 1959), and Clement Egerton, trans., The Golden Lotus (London, 1939; rpt., New York: Paragon Book Gallery, 1962).

9. Patrick Hanan has pointed out Ruyi Jun zhuan—an erotic short story about Empress Wu and her paramour—as a source work of the Jin Ping Mei. See his “Sources of the Chin P'ing Mei,” in Asia Major, n.s., vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 43-47 (1963).

10. See Nan shi, juan 5, p. 21a, in Ershiwu shi; and Yanyi bian, vol. 1, juan 8, p. 106. In a fictional account, Consort Pan used to be nicknamed Pan Jinlian. See Liang wudi xilai yanyi, chap. 9, pp. 16b-17a.

11. Katherine Carlitz has also pointed out the association between the Ximen Qing household and the “bad last court” in her The Rhetoric of Chin P'ing Mei (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), p. 41.

12. See chapter 79 in Jin Ping Mei cihua, vol. 1, pp. 8b-9b, and “Zhao Feiyan waizhuan,” in Yanyi bian, vol. 1, juan 7, p. 93.

13. For example, when Yueniang is burning incense and praying in the courtyard, Pan mocks her, taking it to be a hypocritical show designed to win back Ximen's affection. Jin Ping Mei cihua, chap. 21, pp. 1a-4b.

14. Ibid., chap. 25, p. 12b to chap. 26, p. 16a.

15. See, for example, Ibid., chap. 51, pp. 1a-b.

16. See, for instance, Ibid., chap. 41, p. 10a and chap. 58, p. 15b.

17. Ibid., chap. 13, p. 10a.

18. Ibid., chap. 22, p. 4a. She also eavesdrops on their lovemaking, chap. 23, pp. 7a-8a.

19. Ibid., chap. 27, p. 5a.

20. Ibid., chap. 29, p. 12b.

21. Ibid., chap. 14, pp. 6a-8a and chap. 19, pp. 6a-10a. See also Andrew H. Plaks' discussion of the figural relation between Jinlian and Ping'er in his The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 107-113.

22. The girl obtains a tress of Jinlian's hair and tucks it in the sole of her own shoe so that she can trample on it each day. Ibid., chap. 12, pp. 15b-16a.

23. Patrick Hanan points out that popular songs are used to delineate the characters' states of mind in the novel. See Hanan, “Sources of the Chin P'ing Mei,” p. 67. K'ang-i Sun Chang indicates that more often than the other characters, Jinlian sings or writes songs to express her feelings. See K'ang-i Sun Chang, “Songs in the Chin P'ing Mei tz'u-hua,” Journal of Oriental Studies, nos. 1-2, p. 28 (1980).

24. Jin Ping Mei cihua, chap. 87, p. 10a.

25. Fang Ruhao, Chanzhen yishi (typeset ed. of a Ming ed.) (Shanghai, 1936), vol. 2, chap. 21, pp. 363-364.

26. Ibid., pp. 364-367.

27. Ibid., p. 369.

28. Ibid., p. 375.

29. “Pishuang bo” in Shao Jitang, Suhua qingtan (Yiwentang edition, 1896), pp. 42a-55a.

30. See Xi-Zhou Sheng's prologue in Xingshi yinyuan zhuan, vol. 1, p. 5. For a discussion of the novel's authorship and date see Yenna Wu, “Marriage Destinies to Awaken the World: A Literary Study of Xingshi yinyuan zhuan” (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1986), chap. 1.

31. Pu Songling, “Yunluo gongzhu” (Princess Yunluo) in Liaozhai zhiyi, vol. 2, p. 1273.

32. See Andrew H. Plaks, “After the Fall: Hsing-shih yin-yüan chuan and the Seventeenth-Century Chinese Novel,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 45, no. 2, p. 572 (December 1985).

33. See Xingshi yinyuan zhuan, chap. 73, p. 1037 and chap. 9, p. 127, respectively.

34. Ibid., chap. 5, pp. 72-73 and chap. 1, pp. 11-12.

35. Ibid., chap. 96, p. 1372.

36. It should also be noted that both Jinlian and Zhenge commit adultery with several men, but Sujie is almost puritanical.

37. It appears, for example, in the sixteenth-century play The Lioness Roars, in which the wife repeatedly forbids her husband to go out with his friends by locking him inside his study.

38. Xingshi yinyuan zhuan, chap. 52, p. 751.

39. Ibid., chap. 59, p. 855.

40. See, for example, Ibid., chap. 60, p. 868 and chap. 63, p. 903.

41. Ibid., chap. 76, pp. 1086-1087.

42. See Ibid., chap. 63, p. 903 and chap. 73, p. 1043, respectively.

43. See Ibid., chap. 95, pp. 1359-1360, chap. 97, pp. 1385-1386, and chap. 100, p. 1426, respectively.

44. Ibid., chap. 56, p. 814.

45. Ibid., p. 812.

46. Ibid., chap. 76, p. 1080.

47. Ibid., chap. 60, pp. 860-862.

48. Ibid., chap. 73, p. 1042.

49. Ibid., chap. 76, p. 1087.

50. Ibid., chap. 89, p. 1267.

51. See the discussion of knave and fool in Paulson, pp. 20-21.

52. Xingshi yinyuan zhuan, chap. 52, pp. 758-762.

53. Story 1 in Doupeng xianhua (Shanghai: Shanghai zazhi gongsi, 1935), pp. 8-9. Note that this edition has “nine strands of red cotton,” but I follow the 1795 Sandetang edition, which has “nine strands of red brocade.”

54. Du ji, pp. 476-477. See the discussion of this anecdote in Chapter Two.

55. See scene 17 in Wang Tingna's play Shihou ji, in Mao Jin, comp., Liushizhong qu (Beijing: Wenxue guji chubanshe, 1955), ce 97-98.

56. In another legend, it is not Jie Zhitui's wife, but his sister, who is jealous even after her death and deification as the “Goddess of Jealous Women.” See, for example, Xie Zhaozhe's Wu zazu, p. 312, and the dramatization in the novel Cu hulu, chap. 16, pp. 4a-b.

57. Doupeng xianhua, p. 7.

58. “Weinei weihuo liang cunsi, xiaolu xiaonian shuang jiezheng,” story 11 in Zuixing shi, Dong-Lu Gukuangsheng, pseud. (Henan: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 1985). The judge's surname Wei might be a pun on wei (“fear”). See also the discussion of Zuixing shi in Patrick Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), pp. 162-164. See the English translation by Tai-loi Ma in Y. W. Ma and Joseph S. M. Lau, eds., Traditional Chinese Stories: Themes and Variations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), pp. 325-335.

59. Zuixing shi, p. 152.

60. Pu Songling, Liaozhai zhiyi, vol. 1, pp. 721-736.

61. Wandan originally means ten thousand piculs (dan means “picul,” a dry measure for grains).

62. Pu Songling, Liaozhai zhiyi, vol. 1, p. 723.

63. He is twice described as feeling so uneasy that he does not know whether he should sit or stand. Ibid., pp. 723, 724.

64. See the comments of the Qing commentator Dan Minglun in Ibid., pp. 724, 727.

65. Ibid., p. 727.

66. Ibid., pp. 723, 727, 729.

67. Ibid., p. 728. See also the critique at the end of Li Yu's “Duqi shou youfu zhi gua, nuofu huan busi zhi hun” in Liancheng bi, p. 81b. The eighteenth-century writer Shen Qifeng reaches the same conclusion. See Shen's preface to Fuhu tao cited in Zhuang Yifu, p. 1357.

68. Pu Songling, Liaozhai zhiyi, vol. 2, p. 1682.

69. “Jinse” is reminiscent of the story about the Han scholar, Zhu Maichen. When still humble, Zhu cuts firewood in the mountains for a living, and his wife despises him so much that she asks for a divorce in order to marry someone else. After Zhu obtains high rank, however, he brings her and her lower-class husband into his official residence. She eventually hangs herself in shame. See also the dramatization of the story in the chuanqi play Lanke shan in Zhui baiqiu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1955), vol. 2, juan 3. Zhui baiqiu is a Qing collection of highlights from plays.

70. The title is made up of three heroines' names: Lin refers to Lin Yunping, the first wife; Lan, curiously enough, refers to Yan Mengqing, the second wife, through an association to a story in Zuo zhuan; and Xiang refers to Ren Xiang'er. Page references are to Lin Lan Xiang, Suiyuan Xiashi, pseud. (Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe, 1985).

71. She drives nails into a wooden figure with Chunwan's birthdate on it. Ibid., pp. 315-319.

72. Ibid., pp. 349-350, 391-392.

73. The Story of the Stone, or, Shitou ji, is more commonly known as Honglou meng. Page references are to Cao Zhan (better known as Cao Xueqin) and Gao E, Honglou meng (1957; rpt., Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1979). The first eighty chapters were written by Cao Zhan, while the last forty chapters were generally attributed to Gao E. See the English translation by Hawkes and Minford. I will use their translation and transliteration of characters' names, but will drop the hyphen between syllables.

74. Wang Chaowen, Lun Fengjie (Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe, 1980), pp. 456-461, especially p. 458.

75. Cao Zhan and Gao E, vol. 3, chap. 68, p. 882.

76. Ibid., pp. 882-885.

77. Ibid., pp. 888-889.

78. Ibid., p. 892.

79. For example, when she finds out that Erjie had originally been betrothed to a young wastrel, Zhang Hua, Xifeng secretly incites Zhang to sue Jia Lian. Later, fearing that Zhang might inform against her, she orders a servant to kill him. Ibid., chap. 69, p. 897.

80. Ibid., p. 902.

81. Ibid., p. 899.

82. Ibid., vol. 4, chaps. 113-114.

83. Ibid., vol. 3, chap. 79, p. 1043.

84. Ibid., pp. 1041-1043, and chap. 80, p. 1046.

85. Ibid., chap. 79, p. 1043.

86. Ibid., chap. 80, p. 1050.

87. See Xingshi yinyuan zhuan, chap. 48, pp. 699-700 and chap. 52, pp. 754-756.

88. Cao Zhan and Gao E, vol. 4, chap. 91, pp. 1185-1188, and chap. 100, pp. 1297-1299.

89. Ibid., chap. 103, pp. 1329, 1334-1335.

90. Pu Songling, “Yatou,” in his Liaozhai zhiyi, vol. 1, pp. 600-606. According to Allan Barr, “Yatou” is Pu Songling's first major study of a shrew. See Allan Barr, “A Comparative Study of Early and Late Tales in Liaozhai zhiyi,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 45, no. 1, p. 200 (June 1985). I am grateful to Allan Barr for giving me a copy of his article.

91. Pu Songling, “Cui Meng,” in Liaozhai zhiyi, vol. 2, p. 1127.

92. See Fang Ruhao, Chanzhen houshi, chaps. 2-3.

93. Lü Xiong, Nüxian waishi (Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe, 1985), vol. 2, pp. 155-156.

Selected Bibliography

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Carlitz, Katherine. The Rhetoric of Chin P'ing Mei. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.

Cu hulu (The Jealous Wife). Late-Ming ed. In Naikaku Bunko, Japan. Also in Guben xiaoshuo jicheng (A Collectanea of Novels in Rare Editions). Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, n.d.

Doupeng xianhua (Idle Talk Under the Bean Arbor). Aina Jushi, pseud. Shanghai: Shanghai zazhi gongsi, 1935. Also Doupeng xianhua, Sandetang ed., 1795. Harvard-Yenching Library.

Du ji (Accounts of Female Jealousy). Attrib. to Yu Tongzhi. Rpt. in Lu Xun, comp., Gu xiaoshuo gouchen (Selected Ancient Tales), in Lu Xun quanji (Collected Works of Lu Xun), vol. 8. 1938; rpt., Lu Xun quanji chubanshe, 1948.

Eber, Irene. “Weakness and Power: Women in the Water Margin,” Gerstlacher, Keen, et al., eds., Women and Literature in China (q.v.).

Egerton, Clement, trans. The Golden Lotus. 4 vols. London, 1939; rpt., New York: Paragon Book Gallery, 1962.

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—. Chanzhen yishi (The Forgotten History of Buddhists). 2 vols. Typeset ed. of Ming ed. Shanghai, 1936.

Gerstlacher, Anna, Ruth Keen, et al., eds. Woman and Literature in China. Bochum: Studienverlag Brockmeyer, 1985.

Hanan, Patrick. The Chinese Vernacular Story. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981.

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