The transformation of the old order that had commenced
at the end of the Qing era continued into the period of
the early Chinese republic. By 1915, the assault on the
old system and values by educated youth was intense. The
main focus of the attack was the Confucian concept of
the family—in particular, filial piety and the subordination
of women. Young people demanded the right to
choose their own mates and their own careers. Women
demanded rights and opportunities equal to those enjoyed
by men.
More broadly, progressives called for an end to the concept
of duty to the community and praised the Western
individualist ethos. The prime spokesman for such views
was the popular writer Lu Xun, whose short stories criticized
the Confucian concept of family as a “man-eating”
system that degraded humanity. In a famous short story
titled “Diary of a Madman,” the protagonist remarks:
I remember when I was four or five years old, sitting in the
cool of the hall, my brother told me that if a man’s parents
were ill, he should cut off a piece of his flesh and boil it for
them if he wanted to be considered a good son. I have only
just realized that I have been living all these years in a place
where for four thousand years they have been eating human
flesh.5
Such criticisms did have some beneficial results. During
the early republic, the tyranny of the old family system
began to decline, at least in urban areas, under the
impact of economic changes and the urgings of the New
Culture intellectuals. Women, long consigned to an inferior
place in the Confucian world order, began to escape
their cloistered existence and seek education and
employment alongside their male contemporaries. Free
choice in marriage and a more relaxed attitude toward
sex became commonplace among affluent families in the
cities, where the teenage children of Westernized elites
aped the clothing, social habits, and musical tastes of
their contemporaries in Europe and the United States.
But as a rule, the new consciousness of individualism
and women’s rights that marked the early republican era
in the major cities did not penetrate to the villages, where
traditional attitudes and customs held sway. Arranged
marriages continued to be the rule rather than the exception,
and concubinage remained common. According
to a survey taken in the 1930s, well over two-thirds of the
marriages, even among urban couples, had been arranged
by their parents (see the box on p. 102); in one rural area,
only 3 of 170 villagers interviewed had heard of the idea
of “modern marriage.” Even the tradition of binding the
feet of female children continued despite efforts by the
Nationalist government to eradicate the practice.
Nowhere was the struggle between traditional and
modern more visible than in the field of culture. Beginning
with the New Culture era during the early years of
the first Chinese republic, radical reformists criticized traditional
culture as the symbol and instrument of feudal
oppression that must be entirely eradicated to create a
new China that could stand on its feet with dignity in the
modern world.
For many reformers, that new culture must be based on
that of the modern West. During the 1920s and 1930s,
Western literature and art became popular in China, especially
among the urban middle class. Traditional culture
continued to prevail among more conservative elements
of the population, and some intellectuals argued
for the creation of a new art that would synthesize the best
of Chinese and foreign culture. But the most creative
artists were interested in imitating foreign trends, whereas
traditionalists were more concerned with preservation.
Literature in particular was influenced by foreign ideas
as Western genres like the novel and the short story attracted
a growing audience. Although most Chinese novels
written afterWorldWar I dealt with Chinese subjects,
they reflected theWestern tendency toward social realism
and often dealt with the new Westernized middle class
(Mao Dun’s Midnight, for example, describes the changing
mores of Shanghai’s urban elites) or the disintegration
of the traditional Confucian family. Most of China’s
modern authors displayed a clear contempt for the past.
World History
