The Role Of Women In Premodern China

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Women in the Marital Workplace
Common in premodern China was the heavy discrimination of women and a strict social role that they were obligated to follow in order to survive. Women were assigned a limiting job at birth: be a good and faithful wife. For thousands of years, women were portrayed more as employees of their husbands than lovers or partners, and this is prevalent in imperial Chinese literature. The primary duty of a woman was to do as her husband demanded without complaint. Ban Zhao wrote a manual of the expectations and proper behavior of a woman in the Han Dynasty, and in it she emphasized the importance of respect and obedience, saying, “That the way of respect and obedience is the highest deportment for a married woman” (Zhao). There are many instances in premodern Chinese literature where a women follows the demands of her husband because she believes it is the correct …show more content…

These “hand-picked” classics were the guidelines of society. Women did not have the same privileges as men. When the Classics are interpreted as “hand-picked” selections exemplifying Confucian beliefs, the poem “The Han So Wide” depicts that promiscuous “girls roaming free” need to be civilized by a Confucian lifestyle (The Han So Wide). Meanwhile, it was common for men to have multiple wives, such as Magnate Ma in Rescriptor-in-Waiting Bao’s Clever Trick: The Record of the Chalk Circle (Xingdao). Magnate Ma had two wives, the First Wife, and former prostitute Zhang Haitang, yet he was never shamed (Xingdao). Zhang Haitang, however, was judged heavily by everyone in the town for her social background, causing her to lose her first court case against the first wife for the murder of Magnate Ma (Xingdao). It was unacceptable for women to be seen with more than one man, but men could have as many wives and concubines as he

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