ABSTRACT
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were a time of great economic development in the three East Asian countries, and this development brought about changes in gender relations in urban and rural areas. In all three countries, women and men produced goods for emerging rural and urban markets, managed small enterprises, engaged in new forms of labor, and were major consumers of the new products being produced. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Europe and America were emerging as the center of a new imperial order. The expansion of the monetary economy and the social fluidity it produced were hallmarks of China's early modern era and shaped daily life in complex ways. In the eighteenth century, economic prosperity and political stability created the conditions for tremendous population growth. Expansion of domestic and foreign trade spurred commercial production of agricultural products such as cotton, silk, and tea as well as manufactured goods such as porcelain and finished silk and cotton textiles.
