| dc.description.abstract | The Yeh Wumei Ancestral Hall, located in Daniu Lan, Yongxing Village, Xinwu District, Taoyuan City, is a loyalty temple exclusively for the Yeh family. The ancestors of the Yeh family established their home over 200 years ago through hard work and dedication. Today, their descendants number over ten thousand, forming a large Yeh Wumei clan. In traditional patriarchal families, there is a legacy of male superiority and a dominant power structure centered around husbands and fathers, revealing the deeply rooted conservative ethical views of a patriarchal society. In recent years, with changes in the social environment, Hakka ancestral halls have gradually begun to change mindset and adjust their traditional customs in response to the development of gender equality and the awakening of female consciousness.
This study will focus on the Yeh Wumei Ancestral Hall, utilizing literature and the construction of gender equality to explore the long-standing lineage preservation of the ancestral hall. With changes in the environment and the progress of the times, factors such as declining birth rates have led many families to having only daughters but no sons, with some having no children at all, or facing issues like unmarried status, late marriage, singlehood, or divorced. The Yeh Wumei Ancestral Hall will ultimately need to adjust its traditional customs to adapt to contemporary circumstances and ensure that women have a convenient path to return home. This is essential to prevent sisters and aunts who are connected by blood from becoming lost and wandering outside in today′s world.
The Yeh Wumei Ancestral Hall will transform into a corporate entity for worship, focusing not only on registering land assets but also urgently promoting gender equality and the manifestation of equal rights for men and women. This shift is essential to address the inherent social stratification and inequities in the context of worship, where women are often positioned as disadvantaged substantial groups across social, economic, legal, and political dimensions. This study will utilize in-depth interviews to conduct an extensive study across various social strata and will include observations and exchanges with neighboring ancestral halls of different surnames. Efforts to promote gender equality have already led to the establishment or planning of places for female tablets, women′s access to the towers and ancestral halls, and other initiatives. The management of the Yeh Wumei Ancestral Hall must carefully consider these developments, ensuring that they adapt to environmental changes while collaboratively innovating collective memory to alter the current situation and achieve their ideal goals. | en_US |