Women of the Traditional Family in China

Gender Issues Lurking in the Chinese Characters

Sep 14, 2009

By analyzing Chinese characters which relate to "women", such as "mother," "wife" and "sister," the traditional role of Chinese women in the family can be understood.

Two popular Chinese sayings, “the great virtue of a woman is to have no talent” and “It is more beneficial to raise geese than daughters”, reveal the low esteem in which women are held in conventional Chinese society. This kind of attitude can be detected in the structure of most Chinese characters concerning women.

Chinese Weddings Were Under the Moon

Generally speaking, there are two words for “marriage” and two terms for “getting married” in the Chinese language. Interestingly, all the four characters have a “woman” radical. (See the illustration)

The other part of the two marriage characters are “dusk” and “on the basis of / cause” respectively. The “dusk” part indicates that a wedding was normally held in the evening when people had finished their daily work. It is understandable that, before the development of convenient lighting devices, people had to complete most of their tasks during day light hours.

Happy Chinese Marriages

As to the part of “on the basis of / cause”, it is both convenient and reasonable to interpret the character as “woman” is the cause of a marriage. However, in order to get the original meaning, a further analysis of the character “on the basis of / cause” is necessary. This character portrays a person lying on a nice mattress, suggesting, originally, a comfortable and trouble free living environment.

Nevertheless, Chinese ancestors believed that there must be a reason for getting a result. Consequently, the implication of “marriage is the basis of having a family where people would have a restful and secure livelihood” emerged. The question is who made a home a pleasant space?

One of the two “getting married” terms, literally “to marry a wife”, shows a hand holding an ear, and thus implying a marriage is “to obtain a woman and hold her firmly”. This is from the point view of the groom who takes the bride from her parents’ home to live with her in-laws. The structure of this character coveys the view that a wife is merely one of her husband’s possessions.

The other Chinese character for “getting married”, actually “to marry a husband”, combines “woman” and “home”, depicts a bride leaving the parental home.

The Duty of Chinese Wives

The Chinese word “wife” represents a woman holding a duster and “a married woman” shows a woman with a broom. Obviously, the inference is that a wife is the one who does the cleaning and, in fact, performs all the household chores! It is difficult to tell whether this situation has changed or not, however, it can confidently be said that the Chinese language has undergone a considerable modification.

For example, “Mrs.” nowadays is “Tai-tai” (Great-great) which formerly was the title for the senior female members of the royal family in Chinese history dating back to the Han Dynasty (206BCE-220AD). It became a stated rule in the Ming Dynasty that “an official or scholar’s wife, who on becoming 30, is entitled to be called 'Tai-tai’”. However, during the last Chinese imperial regime, the Qing Dynasty (1644AD-1911AD), “Tai tai” became a popular term for servants to address their mistress whether or not they were aristocrats.

Chinese Women are Loving Mothers

By their association with children, the image of Chinese women in the Chinese language is of caring and benevolence. By making the breasts prominent, the character “Mother”(mu) indicates a mother is the one who rears children. And the Chinese word “Nice / good / right” (hao) consists “women” and “children”. This combination could be interpreted in various ways such as: a woman looking after a child is the nicest thing; the attitude of women to children is always nice. (See the illustration)

A generic term indicating “a girl / a woman / a mother” (niang) comprises the radical of a “woman” and the character of “fine/good”, which means kindness. This implies that every girl, woman, and mother is a nice person.

Chinese Sisters

The character for “elder sister” (jie) is a combination of “woman” and a type of “chopping block” which was used in ritual events, suggesting that the elder daughters were the folks responsible for preparing offerings for ceremonial occasions. Whilst the character “younger sister” (mei) is made up with “woman” and a stroke added onto the top of a “tree” indicating the “younger” part of a tree, thus in this case, a family. (See the Illustration) In the modern Chinese language, “Miss” is “Junior elder sister” (xiao-jie).

It is still common practice, in northern China, to address an unfamiliar adult female “big nice woman” (da niang) to show respect. With the same purpose but differing from the northern custom, the south Chinese prefer to call them “big elder sister” (da jie). In the case of young girls, such as waitresses in a restaurant, a friendly greeting - “little younger sister” (xiao mei) would be used.

To sum up, in the Chinese language, a marriage was less regarded as a man taking a wife but rather like obtaining any commodity for the home; the women at home was portrayed as having the responsibility for housekeeping and bearing children. Their socialized “nature” is of kindliness, gentleness, and caring. The words are still the same in the modern Chinese language, but the intention has been consciously altered.

The copyright of the article Women of the Traditional Family in China in Learning Chinese is owned by Hsiao Ying Chang. Permission to republish Women of the Traditional Family in China in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.