Jesuits and Eunuchs: Representing Masculinity in Late Ming China

Abstract

For early modern ethnographers, gender was an invaluable category of analysis. It provided a crucial means of testing the civility and morality of foreign people. And it was put to vigorous rhetorical work in conjuring up comforting similarities and repulsive alterities. Hence in their descriptions of China, the Portuguese apothecary Tomé Pires commented reassuringly that “The women resemble Castilian women”, while the Spanish Dominican friar Gaspar da Cruz focused on the “filthy abomination”, the “accursed sin” of male homosexuality with which late Ming society was afflicted. My article explores Matteo Ricci's strategies of representation in describing Chinese masculinities. In doing so, it sheds light on the vulnerability of the Jesuit's own gender identity.

Keywords:

• Matteo Ricci
• Jesuits
• Eunuchs
• Ming China
• Masculinity

Notes

The account is strikingly similar to that already quoted by the Florentine Carletti, who—one may infer—was probably drawing on the 1615 Augsburg edition of Ricci's History.

On the sancong or ‘three obediences’ which required women to submit to the authority of their fathers, husbands, and sons, see Ko (1994: 6).

On the history of footbinding and on the role of Protestant missionaries in the campaign against the practice, see Ko (2005: 14–17).

On patriarchy in early modern European context, see Ozment (1983), Roper (1991) and Strasser (2004).

On the nature of celibacy in Buddhism, which—in contrast to the conventions of Christian monasticism—was not necessarily a life-long commitment, see LaMotte (1984: 55–56).