Citizens of the People's Republic of China, no longer subjects of the old imperial regime, embody notions of gender and sexuality with deep roots in the past. Even in the gay community that has grown in major urban centers, powerful affinities for family and kinship continue to dominate nascent sexual identities. The most important link that embodied citizens share with their late imperial ancestors lies in the connection between childrearing and loyalty to the government. The Qing government installed Mencian Confucianism as the prevailing orthodoxy, and it was Mencius who declared that not having a son was the most unfilial act of all. A son's foremost obligation to his parents was to have a son of his own to continue the family line. Similarly, to “seek a loyal subject in a filial son” was a maxim of late imperial governance, and the Qing court campaigned relentlessly to anchor all male subjects firmly in families in which they could be properly socialized as orderly subjects. China's Communist government remains firmly committed to family-based citizenship, particularly in the post-Mao era.

In a family-based polity, childbearing and childrearing are the tasks of mothers, whose privileged role was vaunted and protected by late imperial policies. The Qing court bestowed honorific titles on mothers and grandmothers of successful officials. Literati memoirs never failed to pay homage to the guidance and sacrifice of mothers. And the vast medical corpus devoted to “women's medicine” elaborated the formulae and protocols for conceiving, carrying, and delivering healthy babies, especially boys (Yi-Li Wu 2010). A mother's moral character as well as her education shaped her ability to nurture a fetus, as detailed prescriptions for taijiao (fetal instruction) show. In that sense, a woman's fidelity to her husband's family was an integral part of her pledge of loyalty to the government. It bound her to bear and rear the offspring of the next generation, to carry on the family line and supply subjects loyal to the state – or, failing that, to supply her husband with a concubine who would bear sons for her, or see to the adoption of an heir in the event of her husband's untimely death.

Boji was an aristocrat who lived before the first century CE. Ning Lao T’ai-t’ai was a working woman who came of age at the end of the Qing dynasty. Each articulates clearly a conviction that women belong at home, and that “coming out” risks shame and dishonor. To be sure, Boji was mildly ridiculed by a noted sixteenth-century scholar who found her story an example of womanly virtue taken too far (Handlin 1975:19–20). But the testimony of Ning Lao T’ai-t’ai shows that ideas about the proper separation of men and women retained their power into the twentieth century.

In their close reading of the romantic drama The Western Wing, Stephen West and Wilt Idema paused to wonder why scholars had done so little historical research on the rich field of Chinese sexuality (1991:141–153). They blamed Confucianism and Marxism:

Anyone can see their point: just try checking the index of standard textbooks and sourcebooks on premodern (or modern!) Chinese history for the words “sex” and “sexuality.” Never mind that China's earliest philosophers were fascinated by sexual appetites, or that China's government has been constantly engaged in the process of regulating and prescribing sexual behavior. Historians seem not to be paying attention.

An overview

When the People's Republic of China (PRC) was formally established on 1 October 1949 the nation's new leaders faced daunting problems. Society and polity were fragmented, public order and morale had decayed, a war-torn economy suffered from severe inflation and unemployment, and China's fundamental economic and military backwardness created monumental impediments to the elite's goals of national wealth and power. Yet by 1957 the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could look back on the period since 1949 with considerable satisfaction. A strong centralized state had been established after decades of disunity, China's national pride and international prestige had grown significantly as a result of fighting the world's greatest power to a stalemate in Korea, the country had taken major steps on the road to industrialization and achieved an impressive rate of economic growth, the living standards of its people had made noticeable if modest progress, and the nation's social system had been transformed according to Marxist precepts in relatively smooth fashion.