Widows in traditional Vietnam: conceptualization of legal and social status

The article explores legal and social status of widows throughout the history of Vietnam before the 1945 August Revolution. The author assesses the history of legislative regulation of their situation, the behavioral role and the image that were assigned to them in official discourse and in public consciousness, as well as those advantages and the restrictions that accompanied the widowed Vietnamese in their daily lives. Thus the study aims to create a holistic concept of such a socially important and privileged category of women as widows in traditional Vietnam.Studying the legal status of widows and the attitude to them in society allows to clarify the prevailingthesis about the totally disempowered position of women in traditional societies of countries of the Confucian cultural realm. The Vietnam example demonstrates that the theoretical paradigm of “three obedience” ( Viet. tam tòng), according to which, in particular, after the death of her husband, a woman must obey her eldest son, in reality had a different content.The source base of the study includes state historical chronicles and legal acts, as well as fiction and journalistic articles. This allows us to see both the theoretical model of the state vision of the place and role of the widow in society, and at least partially present the corresponding social practice in different segments of the population, as well as the evolution of public attitudes towards widowed women and the prevailing interpretation of the behavior towards their proper behavior in the population.

women in the history of Vietnam, widows, Vietnamese family, legislation in Vietnam, women's rights, the concept of social category