Filial daughters-in-law: Questioning Confucian filiality
Publication Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
1-2004
Abstract
The passages about the sage-king Shun’s filiality in the Mencius sometimes remind me of the melodramatic stereotype of the filial daughter-in-law in the Hong Kong soap operas of the 1960s and 1970s.1 The heroine was usually beautiful and always virtuous. Her lot in life was a series of misfortunes and injustices, which she faced with tear-wrenching courage. Throughout her trials and tribulations, she remained the ever-faithful wife to her husband, loving mother to her children, caring sister-in-law to her husband’s siblings, and filial to her parents-in-law. Her filiality never wavered even when, as often happened, she was confronted with a shrewish, abusive, or downright vicious mother-in-law.
Discipline
Arts and Humanities
Research Areas
Humanities
Publication
Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History
Editor
Alan Chan and Tan Sor Hoon
ISBN
9780415647779
Publisher
Routledge
City or Country
London
Citation
TAN, Sor-hoon. (2004). Filial daughters-in-law: Questioning Confucian filiality. In Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History (pp. ). London: Routledge.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2603