Seminar Notes

Pillars of Faith - a talk given by Dr Gary Tiedermann on 20 Feb 2007

The Role of the Catholic ‘Institute of Virgins’ in Late Imperial China

This presentation focused on a particular group of Chinese Catholic laywomen activists, namely the so-called ‘Institute of Virgins’. These unwed women, having consecrated their lives to the service of God and having taken a vow of chastity, lived either individually with their families or in small groups near a church or chapel.

In consequence of the strict segregation of the sexes in Chinese society, they became a vital element in the Christian apostolate amongst females from the beginning of the modern Catholic missionary enterprise in China.

After a brief comparison of the the Catholic ‘Institute of Virgins’ to other ‘deviant’ groups and practices in traditional Chinese society, namely the phenomena of ‘marriage resistance’ and ‘sworn spinsterhood’, the crucial role of these unwed Catholic women in the preservation of the Christian faith and the expansion of the Chinese church in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was explored in detail.

The protracted struggle after 1840 between these laywomen, seeking to preserve the power they had achieved in local Christian communities (chrétientés) during the long years of persecution, and the returning foreign priests insisting on curtailing it, is also considered. However, the ‘Institute of Virgins’ persisted as a ‘necessary evil’ throughout the missionary era, and beyond, in China.