Females in Traditional Chinese Society

Women Looked Over but Overlooked and Undervalued in Ancient China

Sep 22, 2009

From the Chinese character "woman" and other related characters, what was socially expected of women, in the established Chinese tradition, can be discovered.

In ancient China women were to be obedient in three situations and posses four virtues. The three aspects of obedience were: to obey their father before marriage, their husband during married life, and their sons in widowhood. The four virtues were: integrity, pleasant appearance, propriety in speech and be a skilled needlewoman.

Chinese Women Were Subservient

The Chinese character for “woman” is an outline showing a woman with her arms folded. A Chinese ancient dictionary, published in the beginning of the second century, “Shuo Wen Jie Zi”, says that it is portraying the image of women who are “to yield to, to assent, to serve’.

However, China seems to have had a matriarchal society prior to the patriarchal one. For example, the Chinese word for “Surname”, consisting of a woman and another character “to give birth”, very possibly dates from the time when the mother’s name was known but not the father’s, and so the woman gave the name to the clan or family.

The Peaceful Influence of Chinese Women

Another example of the ancient Chinese matriarchal society would be the word “peace” which depicts a woman below the roof and consequently indicating “a woman inside the house”. It seems that the ancient Chinese concluded that if a woman was in the house, all was peaceful, quiet, and orderly. (See the Illustration)Even more so, this character, in fact, implies “governance”. Conformation of this can be found in the names of past Chinese capital cities.

For example, the city to the west of the place where the Terracotta Warriors are discovered, Xi’an, and another nearby city, Chang-an, both had been capital cities during early Chinese dynasties. The name “Xi’an” means “Western Peace” and “Chang-an” means “Permanent Peace”.

Expectations for Chinese Women

Of course, the matriarchal society did not last for long. Most of the Chinese words portray “women” as hard-working and attentive subordinates; this is evident in the characters of some common words such as “skilled / refined”, “to impede / to obstruct”, “to walk slowly” and “like / as”.

The character for “skilled / refined” consists of “woman” and a symbol which means “spare time”. In their spare time women still needed to be engaged in skillful activities. The Chinese character “impeding / obstructing” is expressed by a representation of a woman giving directions, once again denigrating the role of women.

Chinese Women Were Forgiving

The character combining a “woman” with “a large book” has two usages: “walking slowly” (necessary when walking and reading at the same time) and “to condemn”, which derived from the contention that “a woman with a book is to be condemned”.

It is no wonder that the character for “like, as” has a mouth next to a woman, giving the meaning “speak like a woman” is to suppress her own opinion but merely to agree and endorse those of others’ (men’s).

Furthermore, “To forgive, to excuse” has three separate parts: a woman, a mouth, and a heart jointly proposing to speak with womanly skill in attempting to persuade men to adopt a more gentle and less aggressive attitude. When the heart is added, the idea is to act in accordance with the higher impulses of one’s nature.

Please see the illustration below for these Chinese characters and other key Chinese words appearing in this article.

Chinese Women Were Condemned as Trouble Makers

At the same time, both the two words of “jealousy” and one character for “covetous / greedy” in the Chinese language are all related to women. Chinese women were maligned by the scribes as if jealousy and greed were confined only to the females of the human race. A jealous or covetous man was deemed to be behaving as a woman.

Most interestingly, the character depicting three women is “adultery / to debauch”. In China, three being a number that can stand for “many” thus implies that where there are many women, there could have been adulterous relationships. In another form, the same meaning of adultery plus the guilt of “wicked / treacherous” is represented by a woman with a weapon.

Chinese Women Should Not to be Too Sweet

Although Chinese women were expected to present themselves amiable and attractive, expressive manners were not acceptable. For instance, the Chinese character comprising “woman” and another character “giggling” has the meaning “weird/ bewitching/seductive”. A woman seen to be giggling was considered bizarre and intolerable.

As mentioned above, in the Chinese patriarchal society women had no right to voice their own opinion but submissively accept men’s decisions. Fortunately, nowadays women are much more appreciated in China. Again, this is reflected in the modern Chinese language.

For example, in the modern Chinese language, “lady” is “woman scholar” whilst “madam” is “an adult’s person” which was the title of the wives of feudal lords in imperial China.

Nevertheless, when learning the Chinese language, the student is advised to be aware that deep down in the structure of Chinese characters, women were portrayed as having no opinion or independence nor even their own rights in life but should always show their respect and solicitude to someone else. Women were supposed to forgive and tolerate without demur anything men did.

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