The Shaping of Male Images Under the Discipline of Confucian Ritual Ethics: A Study of the "Gentleman" Image in Family Letters of Zeng Guofan, a Qing Dynasty Family Instruction

The gentleman is not merely a moral symbol, but a standardized personality template established by Confucian ritual ethics for men. It constitutes an all‑round discipline covering men's inner cultivation, external conduct, family responsibilities and social missions. In the Qing Dynasty, family instructions realized the daily penetration of ritual ethics into men through familial education. By detailed prescriptions on virtues, conduct, scholarship, household management and social relations, they shaped traditional masculinity in line with patriarchal ethics and social order. Centered on Family Letters of Zeng Guofan, a representative Qing‑dynasty family instruction, and taking the "gentleman" image as the analytical pivot, this paper systematically dissects the Confucian disciplinary system over male gender, reveals the real situation that men in traditional China seemingly held power yet were actually tightly constrained by ritual ethics, and fills the research gap in male discipline in traditional gender studies.