From “Ru Ren” to “Women in Family Tree”: The Historic Change of Hakka Women's Roles in Pedigree

　　 The genealogy is every family name and every race, which is used to record and narrate the history and lineage of the family name. In the Liu Tui region of Taiwan South, The genealogy is named as family tree or pedigree. In these pedigree, male of family is priority over female, or females are not written into family tree, or females is under husband's name and written with “ deceased mother of Ru Ren”, which has family name but not given name. The family name of female is represent her father but not herself. Hakka's pedigrees of modern Liu Tui region are canceled the restriction that female can't written in the pedigree. They has name, the year of birth, the husband, the children, and so on.

　　In pedigree of a clan have some weight to record female's family life, role in the family and clan. The record form and standard in pedigree reveal the development process of hakka female's status. In this paper, we attempt from the development of pedigree to explore the change of Hakka female's status. The material are collected by author from Liu Tui region, the research methods include content analysis and interview visits. On one hand from the writing form to explore female's title and position in family tree. On one hand to analysis the content and style of pedigree, and to induce the restriction of family rule which to female's norms of conduct, limit of marriage, and so on. This is the first step to study the Hakka women history of Liu Tui region.