Where Were the Women?: Rethinking Marriage Resistance and Regional Culture in South China

The ambiguity in language concerning marital status of young woman leads to question of where she should have been at time. One may argue that it was not uncommon for county local histories to list young women who, though unmarried, devoted themselves to family of their betrothed. The above could be one such case, which explained why Zhou had not yet settled in Wu household. However, there is other evidence which allows a different reading. My suspicion is raised by two similarly ambiguous entries in same local history. One described a woman of twenty-three (old enough to have been married) betrothed to a man (pinqi), who returned to her husband's home on news of his death. The other was recorded as follows: Woman Li, wife of Wu Peigui. Peigui left home without a trace. At age thirty, Li settled in her husband's home to show her devotion ___ 1 Adding to complexity of circumstances was an entry in a much earlier edition of Xiangshan xianzhi, which stated that the townships of Huangpu, Xiaolan, and Haizhou were slightly tinted