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Abstract
This paper discusses the figuration of the purple jade hairpin as inalienable possession in the Tang author Jiang Fang’s (792–835) marriage romance “Huo Xiaoyu’s story” and the Ming playwright Tang Xianzu’s (1550–1616) dramatic adaptation of the story, The Purple Hairpins (1595). Examining how the hairpin’s materiality and symbolism intersects with the tradition of classical poetry and marriage laws, the paper shows opposing poetics — the critical and the lyrical — of the two marriage romances. Whereas the selling of the hairpin in the Tang romance indicates the loss of Huo Xiaoyu’s identity and the culture of romance — a true social order of exogamy based upon language exchange — the circulation of her hairpins in The Purple Hairpins authenticates her identity and the culture of romance.
Acknowledgments
The original draft of this paper was written when I was studying a graduate course taught by Dorothy Ko on visual and material culture in late imperial China at Columbia University. Since then, I have been grateful for her introducing me to the fascinating fields of women’s literature and material culture. In revising this paper, I am grateful for Haun Saussy who helped polishing my translation of Zichai ji and provided insightful feedback on my close reading and theoretical discussion of inalienable possession. I also hope to thank Matthew Sommer and Beverly Bossler for answering my questions on laws and women in imperial China. Finally, I thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editor of Ming Studies, Ihor Pidhainy, for helping with publishing this article.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Le Yong 勒勇 et al., eds., Shi jing 詩經, 50.
2 All the translations in this article are mine, unless otherwise noted. The translation of poems from Shi jing in this article is based upon James Legge’s translation, but with modifications. See James Legge trans., The She King, 94–5.
3 On the function of feng 諷, see Haun Saussy, The Problem of a Chinese Aesthetic, 92.
4 For boys, this coming-of-age ceremony is to put on a cap.
5 Liii yizhu 禮記譯注, 2: 633.
6 Weiner, Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-while-Giving, 51. On objects in folk literature across the borders of India and Southwest China, see Bender, “Objects in the Border Poetry of Northeast India and Southwest China,” 174–98. For a sociological study of valued objects in identity formation, see Kroger and Adair, “Symbolic Meanings of Valued Objects,” 5–24.
7 Weiner, Inalienable Possessions, 6.
8 As Shiming 釋名 defines the meaning of the compound 叉 in the script chai 釵 as “branches” (叉杈也) and “the chai hairpin gains this name for its shape” 因形名之也, we know that a chai-hairpin has double shafts. See Liu Xi 劉熙, Shiming 釋名, 73.
9 By comparison, Wang Hui interprets 物 the same as 則 as 禮樂規範 (rules of rites and music). See Wang Hui 汪暉, “Wu de zhuanbian: Lixue yu xinxue” 物的轉變：理學與心學 in Xiandai zhongguo sixiang de xingqi 現代中國思想的興起, 265. Also see Wu Hung, “The Age of Ritual Art,” in Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture, 17–22.
10 Jiang Fang 蔣防, “Huo Xiaoyu zhuan” 霍小玉傳, in Tang Wudai chuanqi ji 唐五代傳奇集, 2:1010.
11 Gan Bao 干寶, Soushen ji 搜神記, 200.
12 Zhangsun wuji 長孫無忌 et al., Tangü shuyi 唐律疏議, 256.
13 Jiang, “Huo Xiaoyu zhuan,” 2: 1007; “Huo Xiaoyu’s Story,” in An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911, 531.
14 Owen, “Huo Xiaoyu’s Story,” 534.
15 Shi jing, 244.
16 Gushi shijiushou jishi 古詩十九首集釋, 12.
17 Jiang, “Huo Xiaoyu zhuan”; Owen, “Huo Xiaoyu’s Story,” 534.
18 Shi jing, 78; James Legge, 117.
19 Shi jing, 63; James Legge, 105.
20 Stephen Owen, “Romance,” in The End of Chinese “Middle Ages”: Essays in Mid-Tang Literary Culture, 135.
21 Owen, “Romance,” 131–2.
22 Jiang, 2:1009; Owen, “Huo Xiaoyu’s Story,” 534.
23 Jiang, 2:1011; Owen, “Huo Xiaoyu’s Story,” 538.
24 Jiang, 2:1012; Owen, “Huo Xiaoyu’s Story,” 538.
25 Bossler, Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity, 238–9.
26 Jiang, “Huo Xiaoyu’s Story,” 2: 1007.
27 Owen, “Huo Xiaoyu’s Story,” 532.
28 See Noboru Niida 仁井田陞, Tōrei shūi ho : tsuketari Tō-Nichi ryōrei taishō ichiran 唐令拾遺: 附唐日兩令對照一覽.
29 For a survey of how women received heritage wealth, see Bernhardt, Women and Property in China: 960–1949.
30 Jiang, “Huo Xiaoyu zhuan,” 2: 1010.
31 Owen, “Huo Xiaoyu’s Story,” 535.
32 Levy, “Tang Courtesans, Ladies, and Concubines,” 49–64.
33 Tangü shuyi, 270.
34 In marriage, Li Yi chooses to suspect and hate his wife instead of communication. “At that point Li Yi bellowed in rage, his voice like a tiger. He took the harp and beat his wife with it, questioning her to make her tell him the truth. But Lu could not explain any of it” 生當時憤怒叫吼，聲如豺虎，引琴撞擊其妻，詰令實告。盧氏亦終不自明.
35 For a study on the relationship between props and personal identity in the two plays, see Tina Lu, Persons, Roles, and Minds: Identity in Peony Pavilion and Peach Blossom Fan.
36 The same could probably be said about the music instrument Xiaohulei 小呼雷 (Little Thunderclap) which the playwright Kong Shangren purchased as an antique in a pawnshop in Beijing in 1691 and which inspired him to compose a historical drama Xiaohulei chuanqi 小呼雷傳奇. This case differs from the cases of inalienable possessions in Chinese literature, because the musical instrument is historical rather than fictional. The fact that the music instrument as a historical antique could be purchased and transferred to a chain of owners who are antiquarian connoisseurs and scholars might indicate that the cultural antique is inalienable for the identity of connoisseurs and scholars, but to what extent this cultural antique gives power to the connoisseurs in history, we do not quite know yet. See, Zeitlin, “The Cultural Biography of a Musical Instrument,” 395–441.
37 Volpp, “The Gift of a Python Robe,” 133–58. This example is equivalent to the date palm bestowed upon a Trobriand Islander by his matriline. The date palm will be taken back when he dies, and it is not his to bequeath or gift to anyone else. Weiner, Inalienable Possessions, 25–6.
38 See “Sexual relations between master and servile women,” in Matthew Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China, 45–8.
39 Tang Xianzu 湯顯祖, Zichai ji 紫釵記, in Qian Nanyang 錢南陽, ed., Tang Xianzu xiqu ji 湯顯祖戲曲集, 16.
40 See Sun Ji 孫機, Zhongguo yufu luncong 中國與服論叢, 469.
41 Analects, 176–7.
42 Kangxi zidian 康熙字典, 729.
43 Webster, Gems: Their Sources, Descriptions and Identification, 273.
44 Shi Jing, 50; James Legge, 95.
45 See Wang Xianqian 王先謙, ed., Shi Sanjia yiji shu 詩三家義集疏.
46 Wang Fuzhi 王夫之, Shijing Baishu 詩經稗疏, 1: 27b.
47 Shantang sikao 山堂肆考, 152:19.
48 Zichai ji, 174.
49 Zhou Lüjing 周屢靖, Jingming keben Yimen guangdu 景明刻本夷門廣牘.
50 Song Yingxing 宋應星, Tiangong kaiwu 天工開物, 293.
51 Tiangong Kaiwu, 294.
52 Shiming 釋名 defines a buyao as having dangling pearls. “As one walks, the hairpin sways” 步遙上有垂珠步則搖也. See Shiming, 74. Generally speaking, there are two types of buyao-hairpins: one is a guan 冠 or a cap with waving gold leaves; the other is a hairpin with dangling ornaments. See Sun Ji 孫機, “Buyao, buyao guan, yaoye Shipian” 步搖步搖冠與搖葉飾片, 55–64.
53 The process of diancui is complicated. Generally, silver or gold is made into a plate on which kingfisher feathers are glued. See Zhongguo lidai Funu zhuangshi 中國歷代婦女裝飾, 54–5.
54 Zichai ji, 32.
55 For a survey of the history of hairpins, see Zhongguo lidai funü zhuangshi 中國歷代婦女裝飾, 51–68.
56 Zichai ji, 18.
57 Zichai ji, 16.
58 The spring breeze as scissors can be traced back to the Tang poet He Zhizhang’s 賀知章 (659–744) couplet “No one knows who cuts these slim leaves out. The spring breeze in the second month resembles scissors” 不知細葉誰裁出, 二月春風似剪刀.
59 Shi jing, 30; James Legge, 79.
60 Shi jing, 37; James Legge, 85.
61 Zichai ji, 26.
62 Shi jing, 3.
63 James Legge, 59.
64 Saussy, The Problem of a Chinese Aesthetics, 76.
65 Catherine Swatek has discussed the multivalent and subtle meanings of plum flowers and plum trees; see Swatek, “Plum and Portrait,” 127–60.
66 Zichai ji, 27.
67 Ko, Teachers of Inner Chambers, 87.
68 On “gold boy and jade maiden,” see Ko, Teachers of Inner Chambers, 187–90.
69 His friend says, “You are not married to the woman of your kins, why do you report to me like Wu Maqi reported [the marriage within kinsmen] to Confucius?” 你不曾同姓爲婚。怎生巫馬期以吿.
70 For a study on Zichai ji’s emphasis on officialdom and Tang Xianzu’s involvement in politics, see “Huo Xiaoyu zhuan in Zichai ji,” Shen Jing, Playwrights and Literary Games in Seventeenth Century China, 77–94.
71 Zichai ji, 46.
72 Zichai ji, 45.
73 Zichai ji, 56.
74 James Liu, The Poetry of Li Shang-yin, 51.
75 Zichai ji, 172.
76 Zichai ji, 164.
77 Bai Juyi ji ji 白居易集, 239.
78 An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginning to 1911, 447.
79 Weiner, Inalienable Possessions, 10.
80 Zichai ji, 183.
81 Wai-yee Li, Enchantment and Disenchantment, 52.
82 Zichai ji, 201.
83 Zichai ji, 219.
84 Bai Juyi ji ji, 439.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Yuanfei Wang
Yuanfei Wang is visiting scholar at the University of Southern California. Her first book Writing Pirates: Vernacular Fiction and Oceans in Late Ming China is forthcoming from the University of Michigan Press, 2021. Her next book project examines how the materiality of objects in late imperial literature intersects with the formation of personal identity, agency, and open communities. E-mail: [email protected].