Changing Identities: Chinese Muslims’ Marriage Choices in Late Ming Quanzhou

• In Event: Gender and Ethnicity in Late Imperial China

Abstract

Recent scholarship on early Ming Sinicization policies has revealed that the founding emperor of the Ming, Zhu Yuanzhang (1328-1398), carried out a series of reforms to revive the Chinese features among his people targeting at the Mongol and other foreign impacts within the empire. In 1372, Zhu Yaunzhang issued an edict to enforce intermarriage between Chinese and non-Chinese, and prohibit endogamy within non-Chinese. Endogamy had long been used as an effective means to consolidate the purity and ensure the continuity of the Muslim community in China. Anthropological research on contemporary Quanzhou Muslims shows that Quanzhou’s Muslims developed a cross-regional marriage network with other Muslim communities. This study traces back to the early Ming to examine how the imperial state’s policy of forced intermarriage affected Muslim marriage choices. It includes three aspects: marriage values (how did people weigh endogamy and intermarriage), marriage strategies (how marriage choice was made for Muslim family’s survival), and the adjustment of family practice within intermarried households. It attempts to argue how gender played a critical role in Chinese Muslims’ changing identities through marriage choices.

Author

• Guotong Li, California State University, Long Beach