Author: Olivia Anna Rovsing Milburn, 中文學院 (School of Chinese), 香港大學 (The University of Hong Kong) - Academia.edu

Abstracts:
- »At the end of the Qing dynasty, the scholar-official Xue Fucheng (1838–1894) produced a series of short stories in which he reflected on the shared experience of historical women in China, meditating upon the tradition of gender oppression and Confucian patriarchy. As part of this series, he wrote on a number of occasions about the tragic life of Li Zu’e (fl. 545–581). Having survived a highly abusive marriage to the alcoholic Emperor Wenxuan of the Northern Qi (r. 550–559), after he died, she was repeatedly raped by her brother-in-law, Emperor Wucheng (r. 561–569). As a result, the widowed empress became pregnant, and when she killed her newborn baby, Emperor Wucheng murdered her son and beat her so badly that she nearly died, before expelling her from the palace. Li Zu’e’s life was undoubtedly terrible, but also extremely challenging to gender norms about widow chastity promulgated from the Song dynasty onward, along with the idea that women should commit suicide to avoid rape and should be nurturing and love their children no matter what circumstances they are born in. While Xue Fucheng was generally very sympathetic to women’s sufferings in his writings, he also needed to change and adapt this story in order that Li Zu’e would fit better with nineteenth-century mores and be seen by his readers as a suitable heroine. This chapter explores the process by which the life of this Northern Qi empress was reshaped to fit with the gender ideals that pertained a millennium after her demise.« (Source: Article)

- »In Chapter 1, “Gender Perspectives and Women’s Pain in the Writings of Xue Fucheng (1838–1894),” Olivia Anna Rovsing MILBURN focuses on Xue Fucheng who wrote about historical women’s oppression under Confucian patriarchy. The Qing-era reframing of Empress Li Zu’e’s tragedy exposes tensions between Confucian ideals and women’s lived experience of suffering. Xue’s reinterpretation of Empress Li Zu’e’s harrowing life—characterized by misery, violence, and loss—challenged traditional gender norms like widow chastity and maternal devotion. By modifying her story to align with nineteenth-century ideals, Xue effectively recast her as a socially acceptable heroine.« (Source: Kelly Kar Yue Chan and Chi Sum Garfield Lau. »Introduction.« Evolving Genders: The Dynamics of Narrative Benchmarking in Asian Literature. Edited by Kelly K.Y. Chan et al. Singapore 2026: vi)

Contents:

	Abstract (p. 3)
	1.1 Introduction (p. 4)
	1.2 The Tragic Life of Li Zu’e (p. 5)
	1.3 Xue Fucheng and Master Yong’an’s Jottings (p. 8)
	1.4 Conclusion (p. 14)
	References (p. 15)

Reviews: -

Wikipedia: History of Asia: History of China / Northern Qi, Qing dynasty | Literature: Chinese literature / Xue Fucheng | Sex and the law: Rape / Li Zu'e