23. 1600-1850- Cloistered Women in Asia
During the West's period of rapid growth and expansion, Asian empires continued to thrive, but pressures to modernize and westernize affected women's lives everywhere. In China and India, the powerful empires provided stability before the gradual decline and intrusion from British imperialism. Japan saw major changes to women's lives and status as it underwent the Meiji Restoration. In the Ottoman Empire, women saw elevated status that shifted and changed, while Wahhabism also transformed the lives of Muslim women wherever it took root.
How to cite this source?
Remedial Herstory Project Editors. "23. 1600-1850 - CLOISTERED WOMEN IN ASIA" The Remedial Herstory Project. November 1, 2025. www.remedialherstory.com.
Trigger Warning: This chapter references rape and sexual assault
Women across Asia saw their lives changing and shifting as the world modernized. Pressures to westernize both helped and hurt their status for various reasons. But women, wherever they were, served their communities and made history. Despite the influx of modernization efforts, the influence of Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintoism, and Islam continued to play prominent roles in women's lives and societal expectations. Women increasingly were encouraged to serve the community beyond the cloistered sphere, which influenced freedoms as well as a backlash of restrictions.
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China
In 1644, the Chinese were conquered by the Qing (or Manchu) dynasty from Manchuria. Qing rulers had mixed feelings about Chinese customs. On the one hand, they worked to reintegrate Confucian teachings in which gender roles were devastating for women, but they also believed themselves superior, thus forbidding intermarriage between the Manchu and the Chinese and segregating schools.
The Manchu attempted to rid the Chinese of many practices, and some of these changes were beneficial for women. For example, women were forbidden from foot binding, a painful Chinese practice left over from the Song dynasty. But so much of Confucian thinking about women was deeply ingrained. Women were always referred to by their association with men: wife of [blank], or mother of [blank]. Her social status was determined by her role as a mother or wife, and bearing children was essential.
In the Qing period, women, especially widows, were praised for not remarrying after the death of their husbands as a sign of their purity and loyalty. The idea that men should remarry after their wife’s death while a widow should never remarry had been held as a Chinese cultural value for some time, but in the Ming dynasty, this became viewed as the ultimate cultural path for women. Such women could be granted awards of merit, be honored through writing of their virtuosity, and in some areas, sculptures and arches were erected in the honor of women who remained forever loyal to their husbands. At the height of the Qing dynasty, 1644-1736, almost 7,000 women received these honors.
However, such loyalty often meant that the widow would need to be taken in and cared for by her late husband’s family, which came with complications. This was particularly true when a woman was married young and had not produced children before her husband had passed away. She may be looked at by her husband’s family as a burden, and in some instances, these young women were sold off by their late husbands’ families or married to one of his brothers instead.
More ominous was the increasing prevalence of widow suicide. While this, too, had been looked at as a sign of devotion to one’s husband (similar to the Hindu practice of sati) some started to question the validity of these acts. Some elite families used the prevalence of this practice within their family to gain notoriety and power in their region, calling into question whether these women had pursued this path voluntarily, or were coerced and even forced. Thus, the practice of honoring widows’ ultimate devotion to their husbands through such chastity started to decline in prominence.
The Qing era was a period of expansion for the Chinese, leading to an influx of peoples from conquered territories into the Chinese population. Conquests transformed Central Asia. Once a cosmopolitan center along the Silk Roads, it was now a hotbed for conflict between the nomadic pastoralists and infiltrating agricultural society. Despite the increasing diversity within the empire, Qing women saw little improvement to their daily lives, which remained highly restricted and revolved around the domestic sphere and rearing strong sons.
The Qing campaigned to promote the ideal of a virtuous woman. Even men who had many wives valued the chastity and virginity of women. Literature of the period demonstrates just how important this was, and poems and songs honored female purity. They included stories of women who were so loyal to their virtue that they chose not to remarry when their spouse died or even committed suicide to avoid rape. None of these stories actually named these women – so they were likely representative of the ideal woman that women should aspire to be, rather than any real woman.
This was not exclusively male-driven. Poet Wanyan Yun Zhu was an elite Chinese woman who married into the Manchu and was famous for supporting other women in the arts. She was a patron of women’s literature and compiled poems written by other women. She also compiled biographies of important and moral Chinese women who lived exciting lives full of murder, sacrifice, and travels to exotic lands. The women she chose to include were almost exclusively faithful wives, submissive daughters, and other examples of "ideal” Chinese women.
The Qing dynasty declined slowly beginning in the late 1700s and culminating with British and other foreign imperialism in the late 1800s. Social uprisings against the Qing began with the White Lotus Uprising in 1796–1820 and continued through the next century, often aided or instigated by foreign parties seeking influence in the Chinese markets. With this decline, came major changes in women's lives and status, but as always, not all change was positive.
Map showing the Qing dynasty at its greatest extent in 1760
Wanyan Yun Zhu
The Pirate Queen
The decline of the Qing dynasty also saw the rise of a pirate empire. Piracy had long been practiced in Chinese waters and throughout the Pacific islands, as the nation featured a massive coastline peppered with trading harbors that could not all be protected by a government that didn’t prioritize naval power and was losing its grip over foreign powers. As with piracy around the world, this was a field dominated by men, but that does not mean that women were not active participants in all phases of piracy – as pirates, the family of pirates, victims, and benefactors.
The identities of many women who participated in piracy have been lost to time, while some have become legend, like Anne Bonny and Mary Read who raided and were executed as pirates in the Golden Age of Piracy. Long before, Grace O’Malley was the Irish pirate queen who was powerful enough to be received by Elizabeth I. However, China’s Zheng Yi Sao headed the largest pirate fleet of all time.
Shi Yang was believed to be a prostitute, and married pirate Zheng Yi in 1801. Upon marriage, her name became Zheng Yi Sao, which translates to “wife of Zheng Yi.” The couple had two sons, and Zheng Yi also came into the marriage with an adopted son, Zhang Bao.
Zheng Yi Sao proved to be a capable organizer and strategist, who helped her husband to consolidate power over warring pirate bands as they formed a massive confederacy in the next few years. The confederacy was broken up into six fleets with the Red Flag Fleet being commanded by Zheng Yi, personally. However, in 1807, Zheng Yi died in a storm and while his adopted son took on command of the Red Flag Fleet, he and other prominent members of the confederacy backed Zheng Yi Sao to take her husband’s overall leadership role.
The pirate fleet reached its peak in the next two years under Zheng Yi Sao’s leadership, facing the Chinese government’s fleets head-on. They also raided the villages of the Pearl River Delta, leading to the deaths of thousands while making millions. By mid-1809, the Chinese government had to court an alliance with another enemy - the Portuguese who claimed possession of Macau - to help them. Nonetheless, Zheng Yi Sao brilliantly outwitted and broke through the alliance’s attempt to capture her fleet at the Battle of the Tiger’s Mouth.
After this point, however, the fleet began to disband. Starting in 1810, the risks for pirates were increasing. The alliance with the Portuguese was only the beginning of additional enemies or threats in the region, with the British joining in months later. Further, the cohesion across the individual flag fleets was fracturing, and without strength in numbers, they would not likely succeed against the growing alliance. Last, but not least, the Chinese government tried the same strategy employed by Europeans when combating the scourge of piracy in the Caribbean, which was to offer amnesty and even naval employment to pirates who would reaffirm loyalty to the government. One of the fleets under Zheng Yi Sao’s command had already taken this pardon, and others were likely to follow.
While they had leverage, Zheng Yi Sao and Zhang Bao moved to negotiate. Zheng Yi Sao debated with government officials personally, and in April of 1810, she turned over her fleet of over 200 ships, and secured the pardons of the over 17,000 pirates who served. The two were married, and then Zhang Bao and many of the men were granted leadership roles and employment in the government’s naval forces. Zheng Yi Sao was not only pardoned but compensated with property in the harbor region of Canton where she continued to prosper as the owner and operator of a gambling house, making her one of the most successful pirates in history.
Salon (n.), social gatherings during the Enlightenment that provided a space for the exchange of ideas, including political theory, philosophy, and literature.
Illustration of Zheng Yi Sao
Meiji Restoration
Off the coast in Japan, rapid change affected the lives of women. The Shogunate that had brought centuries of peace ended in civil war in 1868, out of which rose the Meiji Restoration. Influenced by increased American and European influence in trade, many Japanese people saw the Shogunate as cowing to foreign pressure, and urged a resurgence of imperial strength to avoid colonization by foreign forces. This political revolution returned singular power to the emperor - rather than spreading power across numerous shoguns - placing power in the hands of Prince Mutsuhito, later known as the Emperor Meiji. This move away from a military state ruled by warlords to an imperial nation, led to industrialization, modernization, westernization, and eventually imperialism at the end of the 19th century.
The reforms brought about by the Meiji Restoration included laws that created a degree of social equality. They included land redistribution, class restructuring, and a trend toward democracy. Women's roles, rights, and responsibilities were part of this social upheaval. Traditional Japanese society had a mix of Confucian, Shintoism, and Buddhist ideals for women, and the push for modernity and "modern women," simultaneously challenged the idealized female role and created a nostalgia for it. "Good wives, and wise mothers” were called on by the imperial government to hold together the fabric of a rapidly changing society.
Painting titled, “The New fighting the Old in early Meiji Japan”
Islamic Empires
Further south, India’s Mughal Empire fostered a new phase of interaction between the Islamic and Hindu cultures in South Asia after its founding in 1526. The Mughal leadership were Muslims, along with just 20% of the population, while the rest formed a Hindu majority. Akbar, who ruled from 1556–1605, recognized that he needed to accommodate the Hindu majority, so when he conquered northwestern India, he married several princesses but did not force them to convert to Islam. He also supported the building of Hindu temples and made reforms to some Hindu restrictions on women that proved helpful to women’s status, including encouraging the remarriage of widows which was forbidden in many Hindu communities. He also discouraged child marriages, and he persuaded merchants to set aside certain days for women to go to the market in relative seclusion which preserved their customs of separating women from men who were not related to them, while also preventing their complete seclusion in the home.
Akbar’s reforms were deemed too tolerant by some Muslim elite who wanted Hinduism eradicated. The philosopher Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi was one of Akbar's most vocal opponents. Specifically, he blamed women from Sufi Islam and Hinduism for Akbar‘s deviation from the righteous path. He derided their religious practices, writing, “because of their utter stupidity women pray to stones and idols and ask for their help. This practice is common, especially when smallpox strikes, and there’s hardly a woman who is not involved in this polytheistic practice.” Sirhindi and others feared that continued tolerance of Hindu practices could affect their own customs regarding women, class, and even invite God’s wrath.
Despite the criticisms of women from Muslim elites like Sirhindi, when times demanded it, women wielded enormous power in Mughal society itself. For example, Nur Jahan was the favorite wife of Akbar’s successor, Emperor Jahangir, a raging drunk and opium addict. She became the power behind his throne in the early 17th century; meeting with dignitaries, consulting with ministers, and having coins issued in her name and image. She was Persian, and she encouraged her family and poets, artists, scholars, and officers from her home region to bask in the luxury of her court in India.
Their reign was not without criticism. She was accused of too much spending and corruption, and the large number of foreign Persians in her court didn't help. Meanwhile, Jahangir exercised mass conversions to Islam and persecuted the Jains.
When Jahangir died in 1627, Shah Jahan, his son by his second legitimate wife, Malika Jahan, became emperor of perhaps the greatest empire in the world at the time. Suspicious of her power, Shah Jahan had Nur Jahan put under house arrest in the city of Lahore, where she remained until her death in 1645. A far cry from her life of power, she lived out her last decades peacefully with her daughter and granddaughter.
Like his father, Shah Jahan married many women, but his favorite was Nur Jahan's niece, whom he gave the title "Mumtaz Mahal" or “the exalted one of the palace.” She gave birth to 14 children, but tragically died in her final childbirth in 1631. Shah Jahan had the Taj Mahal built as a tomb for her: considered to be a monument of undying love. Its construction began immediately, and took over twenty years to complete. Thus, an enduring symbol of Indian culture traces its purpose to a singular Muslim woman.
Anti-Hindu thinking found a champion in Shah Jahan's successor, the Emperor Aurangzeb, who was less tolerant in his approach to establishing Islamic supremacy. Where Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan had discouraged Hindu practices, Aurangzeb forbade them. Music and dance were banned at court; common vices like gambling, drinking, and prostitution were suppressed. Dancing girls were ordered to get married, and the custom of widows burning themselves on their husband’s funeral pyre (sati) was outlawed. The fracturing religious tensions in the empire opened the way for the British takeover a century and a half later.
The Mughal Empire was not the only Asian power that saw major cultural shifts and dangerous fractures in their societies. In Southeast Asia, Muslim women saw significant changes to their access to power and public resources. In Sumatra, many women ruled in the late 17th century, resulting in the male patriarchy banning women from exercising any political power. In Java, elite Muslim women served political roles in royal courts, and in Indonesia, women made substantial contributions to the economy as laborers, consumers, and shopkeepers – beyond their domestic responsibilities. Yet, in each place that viewed patriarchy as a tenant of their faith, women were forced into great seclusion and restriction.
Map of the Mughal Empire under Akbar
Nur Jahan
Jains (n.), believers of a traditional Indian faith similar to Hinduism, centered on non-violence, non-attachment, truth, and sexual restraint.
Mumtaz Mahal
The Taj Mahal
Ottomans and Lady Montagu
To the west, the Ottoman Empire had grown over centuries to control most of the modern Middle East. Yet, by the 1600s, the empire began to lose its economic and military dominance over Europe. Europe had strengthened rapidly with the Renaissance Era reforms, and the Age of Discovery had opened up vast new trade networks and markets, weakening the powerful economic allure of the Middle East. This growth would continue with the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolutions into the 1700s and 1800s. Despite these power shifts, shared borders and ongoing trade still necessitated continuous contact between the Ottomans and Europe.
One remarkable woman who worked to bridge the gap between East and West was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Lady Montagu was an English aristocrat, writer, and poet, as well as an early recipient of smallpox inoculation in Turkey and her efforts to see the treatment become commonplace in Britain. Perhaps she is best known for her “Turkish Embassy Letters,” written during and about her time in the Ottoman Empire in the early 1700s while her husband was serving as the ambassador to Turkey.
Montagu saw the Islamic faith in a more positive light than many of her contemporaries, recognizing its monotheistic parallels with Christianity and the empire’s sense of religious tolerance as a practice in Enlightenment thinking. On many occasions, she wrote of the faith’s superiority to Catholicism. At a time when many Western Christians viewed Islam as the enemy and its followers as barbarians, her understanding of the religion was astounding and nuanced.
She also criticized the differences between Ottoman treatment of enslaved peoples compared to the practices of European nations. After she engaged with slaves in both a slave market and local bath house, she wrote,
you will imagine me half a Turk when I don't speak of it with the same horror other Christians have done before me, but I cannot forbear applauding the humanity of the Turks to those creatures. They are never ill-used, and their slavery is in my opinion no worse than servitude all over the world.
This, again, strongly contrasted with the reports of other travelers at the time that presented the Muslims as barbaric savages.
Her ability to engage with Turkish women also helped to dispel varied misconceptions of women’s role in Ottoman society as well as views of what constitutes freedom for women. She criticized male writers of the time who wrote of Ottoman women as “Voyage-writers who are very fond of speaking of what they don't know. [...] [and] trite observations [...] [of] boys [who] only remember where they met with the best wine or the prettiest women" Instead, she wrote of what Ottoman women truly did, said, and advocated for when they were away from the eyes and ears of Western men.
One of the moments she wrote about with an air of humor was when she was in a Turkish bath and the Ottoman women caught sight of her corset. They looked at it with a mix of horror and morbid curiosity. She explained that "they believed I was so locked up in that machine that it was not in my own power to open it, which contrivance they attributed to my husband." Yet again, this was passage from her letters that clearly illustrates cultural differences between the two societies she represents, but also paints an interesting and controversial picture of European womens’ supposed cultural superiority.
Map of the Ottoman Empire at its greatest extent
Inoculation (n.), the action of immunizing someone against a disease by introducing infective material, microorganisms, or vaccine into the body.
Alexander Pope declared his love to Lady Mary, who responded with laughter.
Montagu in Turkish dress
Ottoman Reforms
However, much changed for Ottoman women in the century after Lady Montagu traveled there. Muslim reformers sought to restrict women’s religious gatherings, and while Turkish women kept some of the social power they had enjoyed in their pastoral societies, they remained uncounted, and unconsidered in imperial censuses. Elite Turkish women were increasingly veiled as an oppressive practice used to hide female bodies and show male ownership of them. Yet, for many women, the veil provided the freedom to be themselves, display their devotion, and be measured by their intellect and not their faces.
The empire changed in many ways as it expanded over the centuries. More and more enslaved women from the Caucasus Mountains and the Sudan entered into the empire, diversifying the population, and by 1839, the empire was becoming more modern with reforms across most systems. Likewise, industrialization led many working class women to work full time jobs in factories, especially in rug production. This was a craft they had long worked on and followed as it modernized in the final years of the century. Rug production had shifted from home workshops to large factories employing thousands of women, including girls as young as four years of age. Workdays were long, being up to 11 hours for all but the youngest girls. Some women walked to work, others lived in dormitories furnished by the factory. In addition to rug making, Muslim and non-Muslim Ottoman women worked in the shoe, silk, and cigarette industries. The number of women working in factories doubled between 1880 and 1900. For example, in 1880, workers in Usak numbered 3,000 women and 500 girls; by 1900 their total had increased to 6,000.
This modernity was not always met with excitement. Men and women worked side-by-side in many factories, even though the textile, rug, and cigarette industries were classified as women's work. The large number of women and girls working in Ottoman factories drove wages down and helped make those industries more competitive with European producers. One European report described women's labor as “cheaper than water,” usually costing less than half that of male workers. Further, in 1908, mobs of women protested against the move to factory production, as home working fit better with their lives and culture.
Additional reforms, known as Tanzimat, created educational opportunities for girls in state-run schools in the mid-1800s. In 1869, a decree required both boys and girls to go to grade school. This new law required more teachers, and in 1870, the Ottomans opened the Teacher Training College for Girls. Missionary schools also provided women with an education. New magazines and journals for women emerged as women became more literate, and as in the West, these magazines focused on women's issues, family life, religion, and "acceptable" women's work. Ottoman women could sense some internal shifts happening, and feminism followed education. In 1876, the first Ottoman Women's Organization was founded to help wounded soldiers, and minority Ottoman women organized to influence reform.
In the late 1800s, scholars and government officials debated the status of women in Ottoman society. They were critical of traditional Ottoman practices and began to shift toward Western practices, asserting that the “new” woman would help the nation succeed in the modern world. The “traditional” woman, in contrast, was trapped in the antiquated traditions of the past and progress. One of the common tropes of the early 1900s was the image of an old hag, who symbolized traditional culture, contrasted with a young Westernized woman of the future. This vision of womanhood was championed by the political group called the Young Turks. The Young Turks stated, “Women must be liberated from the shackles of tradition.”
Women's status in the cities improved a bit, and women began to participate in public social activities, education expanded, and women earned positions in professional roles as lawyers and doctors - like Safiye Ali; one of the first female doctors in Turkey who cared for soldiers across multiple wars, specialized in maternal and infant health, and became the first woman to teach medicine in the country. Public spaces like restaurants were segregated to allow women to patronize them without completely upending social norms. In 1917, marriage laws changed to become more secular, rather than religious. While this change was progress in the right direction, in rural parts of the empire, traditional values prevailed.
Extravagant (adj.), lacking restraint in spending money or using resources.
Ottoman woman in veil
Safiye Ali
Wahhabism
Further south on the Arabian peninsula, reaction to modernization was brewing. In the early 1700s, an Islamic scholar from central Arabia, Muhammad Ibn Abd Abdullah al-Wahab, worked to address the weakening Ottoman Empire through a return to what he saw as traditional Islamic thinking. He saw efforts of modernization as dangerous, both in terms of the empire’s power and in the eyes of God.
His teachings included a call to return to the way women had been treated under Muhammad. He believed women were spiritually equal to men and made no exceptions to the five daily prayers during menstruation, generally considered a positive because others considered menstruating women filthy. He commended Aisha’s contributions to the hadith and advocated for women’s agency. He also called for a return to traditional Islamic practices where women had the right to consent to their marriages and power over their finances and divorce.
But the effect of Wahhabism varied significantly from his ideas. Wahhabism spread from the Saudi Arabian peninsula throughout the Islamic world, through Southeast and South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The Wahhabi Movement found political headway when it was backed by a Saudi Arabian ruler at the turn of the 20th century. The result was the destruction of idols, the burning of books, the banning of vices, and the banning of “non-authorized“ texts. Al–Wahab’s urging of traditional Islamic beliefs took on a puritanical angle, and ultimately proved selective in which traditional values it would adhere to.
This climate was dangerous for women. One particularly problematic trait of Wahhabism was its return to “traditional” Islam strayed from Muhammad’s views on women to a focus on the forcible control of women’s sexuality and ancient tribal punishments of sexually promiscuous women. “Promiscuity” could be anything from having a child out of wedlock, to adultery, to prostitution, and even a targeting of women who had been subject to rape. Women could be dragged by their male relations before all male judges and juries, using only male witnesses to defend their actions. Women convicted would be subjected to a horrendous punishment such as whipping, beheading, or truly horrific acts like being buried up to their necks in dirt and then having stones hurled at their head until they died by the hands of those closest to them.
Wahhabism still thrives in parts, but not all, of the Islamic world today. To understand its causes, goals, and impact would take a much deeper exploration than can be offered here and there are numerous religious and secular studies that can be used to better understand these matters. It's important to note that all of these ideas about Wahhabism are controversial among Muslims, both then and now.
Intertwine (v.), connect or link closely; twist together.
1979 Iranian Women’s protest against mandatory veiling and other traditional customs
Ongoing European Colonization
The Pacific remained an area of focus for European exploration as well. Explorers circumnavigated the globe seeking new lands, more efficient paths between the continents, and new resources that could be used to bring additional wealth. Jeanne Baret is the first known woman to have circumnavigated the globe from 1766-1769, disguised as a man serving as an assistant to her lover and the ship’s botanist, Philibert Commerçon. While she did not receive credit, many of his natural findings were believed to be her’s. As voyages like Baret’s passed through the Pacific, there was increased interaction between European and Asian powers. This led to the exchange of ideas and goods, but also to power struggles as Europeans sought to plant their flag in the region.
European colonial interests were not limited to taking on large powers like Japan, China, or India. While they were exploring these regions, they were also cutting paths through the countless islands of the Southern Pacific. Of noted interest was Australia. “Discovered” by the Dutch East India Company in 1606, several expeditions had taken on the task of charting the continent’s position and coastline over the next century and a half.
It was not until 1770 that James Cook claimed possession of “New Holland” (along the East Coast) for Britain, and two years later, French explorers claimed the West Coast, though the first permanent colonies were not established until 1788. For Britain, this became an opportunity to make up for lands lost in the American Revolutionary War. Likewise, across the centuries of exploration and colonization, thousands of British convicts had been transported to the New World colonies to not only do the hard work associated with establishing new settlements but also release British society from the expense of jailing them. Australia presented new opportunities to continue this practice. Over 150,000 British and Irish criminals, men and women, were sent to the Australian frontier to establish new colonies and face the risks of interacting with the Aboriginal population, unpredictable weather, new animal and plant life, disease, and other such dangers.
Many of the women who were among these early settlers were those who had been charged with varied crimes. Some were political prisoners or violent criminals, charged with crimes like murder and assault. Others were charged with prostitution or theft, often being women with limited options. Others, still, were charged with “crimes” like homelessness and debt. These women could be loaded on ships and sent to the penal colonies of Australia without a say, and few were likely to ever return. Similarly, women in Britain could see their husbands or fathers convicted of such crimes and sent away, leaving them to try to keep the family afloat on their own.
Cartoon depicting English women seeing their loved ones sent away to Australia
Conclusion
In Asia, women saw bold change driven by a desire to modernize as in Japan and the Ottoman Empire, stagnation and division that bred opportunities for imperialism as in the Mughal Empire, and calls for a return to tradition as in Arabia. Everywhere, women's lives both changed and simultaneously remained the same. Grounded in traditions present for centuries, if not millennia, women labored as they always had. Yet, the demands of the modern world, industry, and soon-to-emerge massive world wars put cracks into traditional expectations for women.
What changes did these empires endure and how did they impact the everyday lives of women - good and bad? What new freedoms did they allow women? How did the different ways women were treated influence the international relations between the diverging industrialized world?
