This pathbreaking work argues that the major intellectual trend in China from the seventeenth through to the early nineteenth century was Confucian ritualism, as expressed in ethics and classical learning.Through the performance of rites, the early Qing scholars believed they could cultivate Confucian virtues and achieve social order. The author shows how Confucian ritualism, with its emphasis on lineage, became a broad movement of social reform that stressed conformity and clearly prescribed rules of behavior, expressed notably in the growing cult of female chastity.