The 'Taitai' （太太） Lifestyle - vs 'jiating zhufu' （家庭主妇）

[Randy W]

a history of the Women's movement in China from the Sixth Tone

 

The Life, Death, and Potential Rebirth of China’s ‘Taitai’ Housewives

• A popular “Nothing but Thirty” character has renewed debate on the merits of housewifery, but the “taitai” lifestyle was only ever open to a select few.

A portrait of Qiu Jin. From Weibo

 

 

Quote

I listened, somewhat puzzled, as the reporter explained Gu’s appeal. In the show, Gu’s portrayed as the apotheosis of a new kind of modern housewife, raising a child, keeping her house spick and span, and still finding time to pull the strings as a key stockholder in her husband’s company.

 

Not having seen the show myself, I couldn’t speak to Gu’s circumstances, but her story threw me for a loop. If you’re quietly running your husband’s firm, are you really a “housewife”? The answer lies partly in semantics. In Chinese, housewife is usually translated literally, as jiating zhufu, whereas the discourse surrounding Gu revolved around a similar, yet distinct term — quanzhi taitai, or “full-time wife.”

 

In traditional agrarian society, Confucian norms called for men to predominate outside the home, while women stayed within. Women supported themselves through marriage; only nuns or prostitutes could survive outside it. That’s not to say married women were housewives — at least not in the modern sense. In addition to housework and reproduction, these women made significant economic contributions, weaving, sewing or mending clothes, and taking care of livestock.

 

. . .

 

The first legislation passed by the new government was a marriage law stipulating the independence of women — including that married women should get to keep their own surnames — and their equal rights to education and employment. Yet Marxist ideas of feminism also contended women could only achieve true liberation by taking part in productive labor. When Mao Zedong said “women hold up half the sky,” he was endorsing women’s equal participation in social production.

 

 

Edited April 30, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)