Religious Women and Local Society: Christian Virgins and Catholic Communities of Women in Northeast China

Abstract

Roman Catholic communities of women did not enter China until the second half of the nineteenth century. They introduced to Chinese women a new kind of organized religious life. However, not all Chinese Catholic women were willing to join the communities. A tension existed between the Catholic Church’s effort in institutionalization and the 'traditional' Christian life style chosen by Chinese Catholic women, especially some Chinese Catholic virgins who called themselves xiaoshennü or “God’s little daughters” in northeast China. After Les Soeurs de la Providence de Portieux (Sisters of Providence of Portieux), the first group of French Catholic congregation of women, arrived in Manchuria in 1875, the Church began to organize indigenous virgins to participate in activities of charity and relief. From the 1870s to the early twentieth century, social and natural disasters were severe in northeast China. The increasing number of orphans and refugees required more orphanages, hospitals, shelters and other ways for relief. The communities of Catholic women in northeast China, usually established, organized, or supervised by French Catholic missionaries, increasingly got involved in local education, charity and disaster relief, and served as a major welfare-provider to the rural society. This article examines the early history of Roman Catholic communities of women in northeast China and the involvement of Catholic women in the local society during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.