Zheng Yuxiu

Name in Chinese
鄭毓秀
Name in Wade-Giles
Cheng Yü-hsiu
Related People

Biography in English

Cheng Yü-hsiu (1891-16 December 1959),  was the first woman lawyer in republican China and the wife of Wei Tao-ming (q.v.), studied law in Paris, practiced in Shanghai, and became president of the second special court in the French concession. In 1928 she became a member of the Legislative Yuan, and from 1931 to 1937 she was president of the school of law at the University of Shanghai.

A native of Kwangtung, Cheng Yü-hsiu was born in the Paoan district, adjacent to Hong Kong. Her grandfather owned land in the Hong Kong area, and her father served as a minor official in the Board of Revenue of the Ch'ing government. She spent her early years at Canton, where she received traditional instruction in the Chinese classics from a tutor. Then she accompanied her mother to northern China to join her father in Peking, where she began her formal education.

In a later autobiographical account prepared for Western readers, Cheng Yü-hsiu described herself as a "revolutionary by nature," who defied the established custom of foot-binding and broke the betrothal arranged by her grandmother. To lessen the disgrace brought upon her family through her second act of defiance, she was sent to Tientsin to attend the Chung-hsi Girls School, directed by two American missionary women. She remained in that school for only a few months, however, since she was not interested in its religious program or in its emphasis upon female domesticity. However, she began her study of the English language there and acquired a taste for Western-style clothing and customs.

In 1912 Li Shih-tseng (q.v.) and others launched a thrift-study movement to enable Chinese students to go abroad and study in France. A preparatory school was established in Peking, with about 30 students, including Li Shu-hua (q.v.) and others. Cheng Yü-hsiu and the other girl student in the institution performed regular chores. Many republican revolutionary leaders, including Chang Chi, Lin Sen, and Sung Chiao-jen, used the school building as a hostel when they were in Peking, and Cheng Yü-hsiu doubtless heard detailed accounts of the anti-Manchu revolutionary movement from them.

After several months spent studying French, the students in the Peking school left for Europe in December 1912, traveling by way of Siberia. It is not clear whether Cheng Yü-hsiu accompanied the group at that time. It is known that she was in Paris in the spring of 1914. There she adopted the name Soumay Tcheng; she continued to study French and enrolled at the Sorbonne. She apparently remained in Europe during the years of the First World War and must have been in touch with Wang Ching-wei, Ch'en Pi-chün, and other southern Chinese then living in France. In 1919, because of her fluency in French, she was appointed an attache to the Chinese delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, handling liaison and press relations. She was also a prominent figure in a Chinese student organization in France that opposed the transfer of the former German rights in Shantung province to Japan.

The years after the First World War was marked in China by an intensification of the political and military struggles between the supporters of the Peking government in the north and the forces of the Nationalist revolution in the south. The course of events was reflected to some extent in the political attitudes of the Chinese student community in Paris, where the official Chinese diplomatic representative, Ch'en Lu (q.v.), was the envoy of the Peking government. Because of his position, Ch'en Lu encountered the animosity of some Chinese in Paris who opposed the policies of the Peking government. In March 1921 a student named Li Hao-ling shot at Ch'en Lu in the home of Cheng Yu-hsiu in Paris.

Cheng Yü-hsiu was involved in the struggle for women's rights, and she supervised a group of some 20 Chinese girls from Szechwan who came to France to study. Her autobiographical account of her early career, Souvenirs d'enfance et de revolution, was published in Paris in 1921. While a student in France after the First World War, she made the acquaintance of a younger Kiangsi student, Wei Tao-ming (q.v.), who was also reading law. Cheng Yü-hsiu received her doctorate in law from the University of Paris in 1925, with a thesis on The mouvement constitutionnel en Chine," and Wei Tao-ming gained his degree from the same institution in 1926.

After her return to China, she began her legal career. She and Wei Tao-ming established a joint law firm in the French concession of Shanghai. Because of her European legal training, Cheng Yü-hsiu soon came to occupy a prominent position in the legal and judicial community in Shanghai. When the Nationalists arrived there in 1927, they appointed H. Y. Loo (Lu Hsing-yuan) president of the Provisional (formerly Mixed) Court, which had been established so that cases in the Western concessions involving Chinese nationals could be tried by Chinese judges. Loo, a barrister from the Inner Temple who held an M.A. degree from Oxford, had previously served as president of the supreme court in the government at Canton headed by Sun Yat-sen. Later in 1927 Wang Ch'ung-hui, then minister of justice, appointed Cheng Yühsiu, whom he had known in Europe when he had served as a deputy judge of the World Court at The Hague, to succeed Loo. However, Loo refused to vacate the post. Chen Yü-hsiu, despite her claim to be the first Chinese woman appointed to a judgeship in the International Settlement at Shanghai, did not actually serve in this position. Later, she was appointed president of the second special court in the French concession.

In the spring of 1927, when her law partner, Wei Tao-ming, was named secretary general of the ministry of justice, their joint law practice had to be dissolved. "But just as the legal partnership ended," Cheng Yü-hsiu later recalled, "our personal partnership began." She and Wei Tao-ming were married in August 1927.

Early in 1928, Cheng Yü-hsiu was sent to Paris by the Nanking authorities to attempt to work out a preliminary understanding with the French government with respect to the rapidly changing situation in China. Because she was expecting a baby, Wei Tao-ming accompanied her to France in the spring of the year. Their first-born son, Tchow-mei, was born in Paris in May 1928. Shortly thereafter, they left Europe to return to China by way of the United States. In November 1928 Cheng Yü-hsiu was appointed by Hu Han-min to membership in the Legislative Yuan. She was one of the first two female members, the other being Soong Meiling, the wife of Chiang Kai-shek. In the years from 1 928 to 1931, Cheng Yü-hsiu worked in the Legislative Yuan while her husband served as minister of justice (1928-29) and as mayor of Nanking (1930-31). She was also one of the five members of the commission established to codify the Chinese civil code, which was promulgated by the National Government in 1931. She then returned to Shanghai to practice law, concurrently serving as president of the law school of the University of Shanghai, a post which she held until the outbreak of the Sino- Japanese war in the summer of 1937. She helped to organize civilian assistance in the war effort in the International Settlement but fled to join her husband at Nanking in the late autumn of that year.

After the retreat to Chungking, Wei Tao-ming served as secretary general of the Executive Yuan during the early war years. Cheng Yühsiu remained a member of the Legislative Yuan and also served for a time as vice minister of education. In April 1941 Wei was appointed ambassador to France. He and his wife left Chungking by air in July for Hong Kong. There they boarded President Madison, intending to go to France by way of the United States. When they arrived at San Francisco, they learned that Japanese troops had occupied parts of French Indo-China and decided to wait in the United States for clarification of the situation. During the winter of 1941-42 they were in Washington, where Wei served as a staff member of the Chinese embassy under Hu Shih (q.v.), who was then ambassador. On September 1 942 Wei was appointed ambassador to the United States, replacing Hu Shih. During Wei Tao-ming's term in Washington from 1942 to 1945, Cheng Yü-hsiu participated actively in war relief work and public affairs. She played a prominent role during the historic wartime visit of Madame Chiang Kai-shek to the United States in early 1943, lent her name to the United China Relief Fund drives, and became honorary chairman of the China Aid Council. She was initiated into the Eta alumnae chapter of Kappa Beta Pi, a legal sorority. And her autobiography, My Revolutionary Years, was published in 1943.

After the war, she and her husband returned to China, where Wei Tao-ming was named vice president of the Legislative Yuan at Nanking in 1946. In 1947 Cheng Yü-hsiu was elected to the Legislative Yuan, receiving the next highest number of votes of any Shanghai candidate. In the spring of 1947 Wei Tao-ming was transferred to Taipei as the first civilian governor of Taiwan province. He held that post until the end of 1948, when he was replaced by a military man, Ch'en Ch'eng (q.v.), who was assigned responsibility to prepare for the evacuation from the mainland. Wei Tao-ming and Cheng Yü-hsiu then went to the United States. They visited Brazil, but they resided in the United States after 1949, living first in New York and later in southern California. Cheng Yü-hsiu died of cancer in Los Angeles on 16 December 1959.

During her active years in Shanghai, Cheng Yü-hsiu was known for her forceful personality and her vivacity, a quality perhaps enhanced, in gesture and volubility, by her years of residence in France. An impressive speaker and a facile writer, she was fluent in both French and English. She was known to have had excellent connections with the French and the Chinese who controlled the French concession at Shanghai. At the same time, she was perhaps the best example of a woman of independent political and personal influence in the Kuomintang during the years after 1 927. Cheng Yü-hsiu was on intimate terms with Chiang Kai-shek's wife, Soong Meiling, and wielded notable influence over Wang Ch'ung-hui, the distinguished jurist and veteran figure of the National Government, both of whom assisted her husband's career between 1927 and 1949.

Biography in Chinese

郑毓秀
西名:苏梅
郑毓秀(1891—1959.12.16),民国时代第一个女律师,魏道明的妻子。她在巴黎学法律,在上海开业,任法租界第二特别法庭庭长,1928年任立法院委员,1931—1937年,任上海法政学院院长。
郑毓秀广东人,生在邻近香港的宝安县。她祖父在香港有土地,她父亲在清朝度支部当一名小职员。她早年在广州度过,在家聘老师受旧式中国传统教育,不久和母亲一起去北方,她父亲在北京。在那里她开始受正式教育。
她后来为西方读者写的一些自传性小说里,她自称“生来就具有革命精神”,反对缠足和毁弃她祖母为她许下的婚约。
为减少她抗婚而给家庭带来的不名誉,所以送她到天津由两名美国女教士办的崇实女校读书,她对那里的宗教课程和强调妇女致力于家务的教育毫无兴趣,因此在校仅数月。但她从此就开始学习英语,很喜欢西方的服饰习俗。
1912年李石曾等人发起勤工俭学运动,使中国学生出国去法国留学。北京先办了一个预备班,有学生三十人,其中包括李书华等人。郑毓秀等几名女生在预备班充当杂役。不少共和革命的领袖如张继、林森、宋教仁等人,都把这所学校当作他们旅京时的寓所。郑毓秀无疑从他们那里听到一些反满共和革命的详情。
预备学校的学生学了几个月法文后,于1912年12月取道西伯利亚离北京去欧洲。郑毓秀是否也是这次出国,不得详知,但她于1914年春已在巴黎,取名苏梅,继续学习法文,后进松堡大学。第一次世界大战期间,她一直在欧洲,很可能和汪精卫、陈璧君等留在法国的中国南方人士有联系。1919年,因为她的法语很流利,任巴黎和会代表团随员,负责联系和新闻等工作。她又是一名留法中国学生组织中的著名人物,反对把山东的权利由德国转让给日本。
第一次世界大战后,中国国内北方的北京政府的拥护者和南方国民革命势力,在政治军事上进行紧张争斗。这种情况也在一定程度上反映在巴黎的中国留学生中间,那时中国官方的外交代表是由北京政府任命的陈箓,他遭到一些反对北京政府政策的学生的愤懑,1921年3月,一个名曰李鹤良的学生在郑毓秀巴黎的住处行刺陈箓。
郑毓秀为争取女权而斗争,率领二十多名在法国学习的四川女学生。郑毓秀1921年在巴黎出版的自传《童年和革命的回忆》中记载了她早期的经历。
郑毓秀在第一次世界大战后仍在法国留学。那时她认识了一个江西青年学生魏道明,他也是学法律的。1925年,郑毓秀写成《中国的立宪运动》论文获得巴黎大学法学博士学位,魏道明在1926年在同一学校获得学位。
郑毓秀回国后,在法律界开业,她和魏道明在上海法租界设立了联合律师事务所,因她受过欧洲法律知识训练,很快在上海司法立法界获得显著地位。
1927年国民革命军到达上海,任命卢兴原为上海临时法院院长。成立这个法院的目的是要在租界中由中国法官审讯涉及中国人的案例。他原是牛津大学法学学士,曾在伦敦任内院律师,回国后,曾在孙逸仙的广州政府中任最高法院院长。1927年底,郑毓秀在欧洲认识的当时司法部长、曾任海牙世界法庭副判事的王宠惠,任命她继卢兴原为上海临时法院院长。但卢兴原拒不离职,因此,虽为上海公共租界第一个妇女院长的郑毓秀,实际上并未就职,不久,任命她为法租界第二特别法院院长。
1927年春,她在法律界的友伴魏道明任司法部秘书长,她们的联合律师事务所不得不解散。郑毓秀以后追述说:“法律界的伙伴关系结束了,而我们个人间的侣伴关系却开始了”。1927年8月,郑毓秀和魏道明结婚。
1928年初,南京当局派郑毓秀去巴黎,初步了解法国政府对激烈变化中的中国的态度。郑毓秀因怀孕,所以在春天由魏道明一起陪她去法国,他们的第一个儿子于1928年5月生在巴黎。不久,他们经美国回国。1928年12月,胡汉民任郑毓秀为立法院委员,这是仅有的两个女委员中的一个,另一人是蒋介石的妻子宋美龄。1928—1931年间,郑毓秀在立法院工作时,他丈夫于1928—29年任司法部长,1930—31年任南京市长。郑毓秀是民法编纂五人委员之一。国民党政府于1931年公布这部民法。然后,她回上海开业,同时任上海政法学院院长,一直到1937年夏抗日战争开始。她在租界区协助组织抗日民援团体,是年秋,她飞往南京魏道明处。
国民政府撤到重庆,魏道明在战争初期任行政院秘书长。郑毓秀仍任立法院委员,同时任教育部次长。1941年4月,魏道明被任命为驻法大使,他和他妻子于7月从重庆飞香港,乘“麦迪逊”总统号准备经美国去法国,他们到旧金山时得悉日军占领一些法属印度支那,因此在美国等待事态的澄清。1941—42年冬,他们住在华盛顿,魏道明在胡适任大使的驻美大使馆中任职员。1942年9月代胡适而为驻美大使。1942—1945年,魏道明在华盛顿任驻美大使期间,郑毓秀积极参加救济工作和公共事务。她在蒋介石夫人1943年初战时历史性访问美国期间起很重要作用,她列名于联合对华救济基金运动之中,并成为援华会名誉主席。郑毓秀以女法学毕业生,列名于美国大学生联合会第七批妇女协会会员。她的自传《我的革命年代》于1943年出版。
战争结束后,郑毓秀夫妇回国,1946年魏道明在南京任立法院副院长。1947年,郑毓秀选入立法院,她是上海籍中获第二位选票的人。1947年春,魏道明任台湾第一个文官省主席。1948年军人陈诚继其职位,负责从大陆的撤退。郑毓秀和魏道明去美国,其间曾去巴西,1949年后定居美国,先在纽约,后在南加利福尼亚。1959年12月16日,郑毓秀因癌病死于洛杉矶。
郑毓秀在上海活动期间,以她个性极强机智伶俐而著名。她的仪态多端和口若悬河,也许得之于她多年在法国的居住。她的法语、英语都很流利,言辞动听,书写敏捷,她在上海法租界时与中法当局人士相处很好。1927年间,她也许是对国民党起着独立的政治和个人影响的一个中国妇女的最好代表人物。
郑毓秀和蒋介石的妻子宋美龄关系密切,她对杰出的法学家和国民政府的元老王宠惠很有影响。他们两人自1927年到1949年给她的丈夫魏道明在政治上的经历很有帮助。

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