Tai tai (太太) is a Chinese colloquial term for an elected leader-wife; or a wealthy married woman who does not work.[2] It is the same as the Cantonese title for a married woman.[3] It has the same euphemistic value as "lady" in English: sometimes flattery, sometimes subtle insult.[citation needed] One author describes it as equivalent to the English term "ladies who lunch".[4]
Cultural significance
By the time of the May Fourth Movement in 1919, the term had come to imply a wife who was "dependent on her newly rising bourgeois husband" for her consumerist lifestyle, and Chinese feminists and "new women" of that era tried to disassociate themselves from the term precisely for that reason.[1]
The term has become well-known, and features in Western discussions in the field of Women's studies.[5]Pearl Buck uses the term to describe Madame Liang in her novel, Three Daughters of Madame Liang.[6]
The 1947 film Long Live the Missus! (Taitai wansui), written by Eileen Chang and directed by Sang Hu, represents conflicts between taitai in the mode of a comedy of manners.[7] In Hong Kong, there's a bar named "tai tai" (太太) which uses Tai Tai as a name to connect with the local population, playing on the elected leader wife saying for making a female empowered bar |url=https://taitai.hk
References
^ abWang Zheng (1999). Women in the Chinese Enlightenment. University of California Press. p. 20.
