Details from “Spring Morning in the Han Palace” by the Ming artist Qiu Ying (c. 1498–1552) This scroll is a representation of various daily activities in the palace of the Han Dynasty.

---

 

Women had long been neglected in imperial China, leaving few traces in ancient documents and arts. The exact role and status of women has often been obscured by the biases of ancient societies. Still, despite the harsh realities of living under the weight of philosophical and religious norms, some women were ahead of their time and challenged the male-dominated society.

 

Social influences
China had been a matriarchy in prehistoric times, giving women the primary power positions in social roles rather than men. Females dominated the prehistoric mythology, such as with the goddess of thunder, the goddess of the moon and the goddess of fertility. Even the Yellow Emperor used to be female at that time.

The situation changed drastically with the rise of patriarchy. Defined by the men in their lives, women in ancient China were valued mainly as wives and mothers. They did not enjoy the status, either social or political, afforded to men. During the pre-Qin period after the Western Zhou Dynasty (771–221 BCE), women, especially those born in noble families, were required to be subordinate to first their fathers when  unmarried, then their husbands, and finally, in the case of being left a widow, their sons in a system known as the “three followings” or sancong. Female commoners were allowed more freedom, which has been proven by some historic texts. The poems depicting marriage and love account for a large proportion of the Classics of Poetry (Shi Jing). Some describe the forms of admiration and dating that existed between men and women. For instance, the poem “The Cypress Boat” is about a woman’s persistence in love when her parents disapprove of her marriage—“Unstable is the cypress boat,/ As down the river it drifts afloat./ On two sides are locks of hair;/ He is my mate without compare./ To him I’ll cling, adored./ Oh my mother! Oh my Lord!/ Why can’t we find accord?” (translated by Wang Rongpei).

When Confucianism became the dominant political ideology and social norm during the Han Dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE), women were put under more restrictions than before. There were more detailed and former codes of conduct for women. Nü Jie, or Lessons for Women, a treatise on the education of women by the female intellectual Ban Zhao, was circulated widely in imperial China as a guide for women’s conduct. Women were required to abide by the so-called four virtues and thereby suffered a lot. In the tale “Peacock Flying to the Southeast,” the heroine Liu Lanzhi and her husband were forced apart by their oppressive families. In the end, both of them committed suicide. Liu’s tragedy mirrored the general experiences of women at the time.

During the Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern dynasties (220–589), Confucianism’s unchallenged domination of Chinese culture and thought was greatly weakened and Neo-Daoism became influential, which led to fewer restrictions upon women’s rights and higher status. This era valued women’s talent more than their virtues, and kept an open mind towards female virginity, which had been highly valued since the Han Dynasty. Widows remarrying was quite common in those days. Cai Yan, the famous female poet of the late Eastern Han Dynasty, was once captured by the Xiongnu nomads after her first husband died. During her captivity, she married the Xiongnu chieftain and bore him two sons. Twelve years later, the Han Chancellor, Cao Cao (155–220), paid a heavy ransom for her release and she married again to a local government official after returning to her homeland. Furthermore, women could freely express their feelings towards love and marriage. Their natural and vigorous personalities and manners can be found in many historic works. Women wailing their woes about failing to find husbands were vividly depicted in the folk songs of the Northern Dynasty.

From the Tang (618–907) and Song (960–1279) dynasties onwards, restrictions on women became more pronounced as Confucianism prevailed again. The Analects for Women (Nü Lunyu) by the female scholar Song Ruoshen prescribes the roles and expectations of women in the family or in society for the main purpose of instructing women to become so-called “virtuous women.” These rules were also encouraged by scholar-officials, who wanted to dominate them. The great female poet Li Qingzhao (1084–1155) had been publicly criticized for being indiscreet and shameless because she expressed a longing for love in her poems.

During the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1616–1912) dynasties, women enjoyed lower status than before as neo-Confucianism became the dominant belief system of the whole society. Numerous injunctions for women were established, focusing their roles around caring for their husbands, cleaning, cooking and looking after their kids. Persuading female descendants to comply with these rules was often a part of the family guidelines written by Confucian scholars.

Due to long immersion in the male-dominated philosophical and religious norms, the stereotypes associated with women imposed by the society rooted deep in the subconscious of the ancient Chinese. Even women themselves believed that they should act accordingly. However, there were still some women who did break through these barriers and fight against oppression. Reflection on whether to conserve or to reform can be discovered in the personalities of ancient Chinese women.

 

Wisdom
“It is the virtue of a woman to be without talent” is a traditional expression to highlight the importance of virtue for women in ancient China over talent and knowledge. Even the well-educated woman Ban Zhao thought that knowledge was not necessary for women. Texts about moral principles and codes of conduct, such as the Analects for Women and the Lessons for Women, along with the teaching of household management and needlework, constituted the main content of female education before their adulthood. Men, on the contrary, had access to literature, rites and arts, putting women at an unfair disadvantage in competing for knowledge.

Despite the unfavorable conditions, some women could and did circumvent conventions and rose to live extraordinary lives producing great literature and forms of scholarship, displaying their brilliance. Lady Zhen, the first wife of the ruler of the state of Cao Wei, was interested in scholarly arts and used her brother’s writing materials for studying. When she was young, her brother told her, “You should learn what women traditionally do (such as weaving). When you picked up reading, were you thinking of becoming a female academic?” Lady Zhen replied, “I heard that virtuous women in history learnt from the successes and failures of those who lived before them. If they didn’t read, how could they learn all that?”

 

Marriage and career
In traditional thought, marriages brought together families of different surnames and so continued the family line of the paternal clan. Marriages in ancient China were usually arranged by both sets of parents based on economic and social considerations rather than love.

Although playing a passive role in marriage, ancient women still looked forward to true love and romance, and tried hard to achieve them. Zhuo Wenjun (175–121 BCE), a female poet of the Western Han Dynasty, eloped with the poet Sima Xiangru despite strong opposition from her father. She set an example of free love for later generations of intellectual women. Intense social restrictions also aroused rebelliousness. During the Ming Dynasty, chastity was deemed to be the upmost virtue for widows. However, while chaste widows were widely honored in the society, there was a growing trend towards sexual libertinism, which was primarily mirrored through the prevalence of the Sanyan and Erpai, vernacular literatures by the Ming writers Feng Menglong and Ling Mengchu.

Lives of ancient women, especially those of the upper classes, were strictly controlled. They were shaped to be gentle and obedient. Such a personality is reflected in many examples of women’s writings of the times, which focused on love affairs and feminine sentiments. However, there were always strong and willful women who stood out in troubled times. The female warrior Liang Hongyu (1102–1135) served in the Song army to defend her country from Jin invaders. Mu Guiying, a legendary heroine of the Northern Song Dynasty, became the General of the Song army and played a huge part in the following battles against the Khitan forces. The history of ancient China has proven that the potential and willpower of women are not inferior to men’s and that women have never stopped making strides in equality and liberty.

 

The article was edited and translated from the journal Exploration and Free Views. Guo Fang is the former vice president of Qingdao Academy of Social Sciences.

edited by REN GUANHONG