Wei Huacun: A Case for Motherhood as a Source of Female Empowerment in Medieval Daoism

This paper examines the historical and hagiographical materials pertaining to Wei Huacun (252-334), the purported first matriarch of the Shangqing current of medieval Daoism. The question that it attempts to answer is how Lady Wei came to occupy a place of such prestige within the tradition. It will argue that this was due in no small part to her familial situation. She was a daughter of a powerful minister, a widow, and a mother of two successful officials. All these facts significantly strengthened her position within the community of practitioners where the Shangqing revelations arose. However, it was Wei’s role as a mother in particular that likely played an outsized role in her recognition in the male-dominated early Shangqing milieu. The paper will conclude by discussing how the traditional understanding of motherhood in China provided a source for female empowerment in Daoism more generally.