Meng Ke Mu Zou

Background

Meng Mu lived in the principality of Zou (in present-day Shandong Province). There is no exact information about the date and the place of her birth.

Career

Meng Mu is credited with bringing up her son and instructing him so well in the importance of education and proper behavior that he became a famous scholar.

She is said to have moved twice before she was satisfied she had found a good environment for her son’s education. At first they lived by a cemetery, where the mother found her son imitating the paid mourners in funeral processions. Therefore, the mother decided to move. The next house was near a market in the town. There the boy began to imitate the cries of merchants (merchants were despised in early China). So the mother moved to a house next to a school. Inspired by the scholars and students, Mencius began to study. His mother decided to remain, and Mencius became a scholar.

Another story further illustrates the emphasis that Mencius's mother placed on her son's education. As the story goes, once when Mencius was young, he was truant from school. His mother responded to his apparent disregard for his education by taking up a pair of scissors and cutting the cloth she had been weaving in front of him. This was intended to illustrate that one cannot stop a task midway, and her example inspired Mencius to diligence in his studies.

Achievements

• Meng Mu was known as one of the exemplary female figure in Chinese culture.
  
  One of the most famous traditional Chinese four-character idioms is 孟母三遷, which means: Mencius's mother moves three times. The idiom refers to the importance of finding the proper environment for raising children.
  
  

Personality

Meng Mu was known as a wise woman and a loving mother.

Connections

Meng Mu was a mother of a Chinese philosopher Mencius. Her husband died when Mencius was very young, so Meng Mu raised her son alone.

Son:

Mencius

Mencius, also known as Mengzi, was a Chinese philosopher who was the most famous transmitter of Confucius’s teachings.

References

• The Position of Woman in Early China According to the Lieh Nu Chuan, The Biographies of Chinese Women.
  1971
• Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: Antiquity Through Sui, 1600 B.C.E. - 618 C.E This new volume of the "Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women" spans more than 2,000 years from antiquity to the early seventh century. It recovers the stories of more than 200 women, nearly all of them unknown in the West.
  1998