Rural Reform in Republican China: Christian Women, Print Media, and a Global Vision of Domesticity

Abstract

This article explores the Christian efforts to modernize rural women, who were placed at the center of rural reform in Republican China in the 1920s. Rural women represented an important, untapped force for change in rural communities. The Christian magazine Nü xing 女星 (Woman’s Star), launched in 1932, reached out to this group. Through a new model of rural womanhood, a figure called Mrs. Wang, the magazine demonstrated how rural women could transform local communities through domesticity and Christian faith. The modern model of rural womanhood promoted by Nü xing emerged as a part of a global Christian movement in which creating Christian households was the primary goal. The magazine thus represents the integration of a marginalized group of women into a global community founded on shared domestic concerns and spiritual practices. Nü xing reveals how rural women, as historical agents of change, were connected to rural reform and nation-building in China and to a global collective of Christian domestic womanhood.