Women Roles in Ancient China

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P3: By the end of the Han Dynasty, the Confucian expectations/virtues of women were largely established. Such thinking undoubtedly is reason for the family system was patrilineal, patrilocal, patriarchal and allowed concubinage. However, the problem of such gender relations did not lie in the familial system, but in moral lapses. Moralists held models and idealized self-sacrificing women for emulation, women who adhered to virtues of loyalty, chastity and faithfulness at great personal cost. For example, in source 56 (Widows Loyal Unto Death) there is a story of a woman, Zhang Zhongyu, who was engaged to a man but he had died before marriage occurred. Loyal to her would be husband, she cut her hair and lived a secluded life alongside her husband’s coffin. When there was a fire she leaned against the coffin and wished to burned with her husband, but she survived. In another instance, an army walked by her and she kept a knife and guarded her husband’s coffin. The general of the army as well as the soldiers recognized her righteousness and attached orders that she is to be undisturbed. As death neared for her she told the mother in law to not let any man touch her body as she buried alongside her husband. Zhang’s will and determination without a doubt epitomizes her loyalty to her husband. Zhang had even earned the respect of the enemy army, she knew her role as a woman in society and executed it flawlessly. It is unfortunate that only women were subject to such loyalty. Many other women in this source chose the path of suicide instead of preserving as Zhang did and continue to contribute to society.

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