Money matters: managing skills of an ‘Exemplary Wife’, Yuan Jingrong (19c.)

Abstract

The fictional character Wang Xifeng from the Qing novel, Dream of the Red Chamber, tells nonetheless a very true fact about gentry women’s lives during this time, namely, their role as household managers. As this character reveals, a household manager stood at the center of the intricate power dynamics within a gentry family and, in this capacity, witnessed the enormous drama playing out in the emotional and material lives of the family members. Money, as it turned out, stood as a crucial facet of much of this drama. Yet in “real life,” as told by historical records, gentry women seldom talked about money. This study is an attempt to uncover this side of their lives by exploring the writings left by Yuan Jingrong (1773 - ca.1852), wife to the Qing minister Wu Jie (?-1836). Yuan’s meticulous records not only inform us of the ways a gentry women actually “talked about money,” but reveal the tensions, delicate familial relations, and power dynamics that were intimately tied to the money matters of her household. Much as they bore testimony to Yuan’s ascent to authority, they also skillfully crafted her profile as an “exemplary wife” - the woman who made critical contribution to her husband’s lineage, and who was in every way the contrary of the ruthless Wang Xifeng.