In the Han dynasty, women contributed to social order by demonstrating the womanly behavior of virtue, which was comprised of humility, obedience to the husband, humanity, gentleness, and deliberation. The support for this statement stems from literary artifacts and connections between Confucianism, the wife’s responsibility for the marital union’s purity in Chinese culture, and the concept of Yin. In Chinese culture, the family is considered the foundation of society because it transmits intrinsic values that support society’s inner harmony. The building blocks of traditional Chinese family morality are derived from Confucianism. The Chinese believed that marriage was a combination of morality and responsibility, making the wife’s role crucial. Being respectful, gentle, friendly, and pleasant was seen as the wife’s most important duty because her true inner essence was Yin. The wife’s first and foremost duty was to obey her husband and parents, maintain order in the home, and bear children. The “Admonitions for Women” and “Mencius’ Mother” illustrate the role of female virtuousness in maintaining strict order and supporting appropriate relationships between generations, whereas “The Feng’s Letter” demonstrates how the absence of virtue ruins society.
Reading the “Admonitions for Women,” one can see that women were expected to be virtuous, which can be explained as the absence of egoistic interests or the willingness to promote one’s own position and challenge the existing order of things. The behavior of virtue included humanity, courtesy, obedience, humility, gentleness, and other attributes inherent in women and required of them. The Confucian ideal of women was the virtuous wife who would demonstrate obedience and would never question the male-dominated distribution of power in an ideal society, which fits with the qualities emphasized in “Admonitions” (Ebrey and Walthall 51). The text emphasizes the importance of relatives and the woman’s humility. Women then held a very low position: “She was humble and modest, and must consider it her chief duty to obey others” (Zhao 822). In ancient times, the importance of virtue rose to unprecedented heights and was sometimes contrasted with talent. The book “Admonitions for Women” demonstrates that a good woman needs no talent (Zhao 823). As Chinese society developed, the standards became stricter and stricter. As a daughter-in-law, a woman was expected to obey her husband’s family without complaint (Zhao 823). As a wife, she was expected not to be jealous of his mistresses; as a mother, she was expected to teach her children the right way to live. As a stepmother, she was expected to love her husband’s children as her own. In poverty, a woman was not allowed to show discontent; in wealth, she was enjoined to remain a thrifty and diligent hostess. All these manifestations of virtue supported the maintenance of social order by making the woman’s place in relation to older and younger generations, as well as the husband, strictly determined.
“The Mother of Mencius” demonstrates the protagonist’s behavior as an intelligent and gentle woman who is virtuous enough to fulfill her duties as a woman and teach others to do the same. The mother is sensible, moderately strict, and kind to her son, which supports her in setting the right example for the boy, thus revealing the woman’s virtuousness in obedience to social norms rather than the desire to challenge them. The mother spreads the norms of female virtuousness by reacting to interpersonal conflict with her feminine virtuous wisdom, which helps her contribute to social order by preventing the destruction of others’ marital unions. Specifically, when Mencius’s wife comes to her and asks her to send her home because her husband has been acting strangely after seeing the girl dressed “wrong,” Mencius’ mother gives sound advice to her son (“The Mother of Mencius” 73). She showed what a relationship with her mother-in-law should be. Mencius’s mother is an example of a true benefactor; her actions were designed to raise a real man. The mother’s determination to raise her child with a solid understanding of the norms of behavior for the two sexes and the expectations of men and women accepted at the time would be understood as her contributions to the stability of social order.
“The Feng’s Letter” describes the exact opposite of a virtuous woman. As opposed to the aforementioned definition of female virtuousness centered on obedience and humility, Feng’s wife is angry, ruthless, unhelpful, and lazy, and the husband’s directions have no impact on her perspective (“The Feng’s Letter” 74). The woman described in this letter is incapable of regret, tenderness, and virtue. Refusing to put others first, which is crucial to virtuousness, the character’s wife turns out to be incapable of work. It disrupts the family order by challenging the traditional distribution of housework between family members. In violation of cultural norms, her husband and children try to do all the work around the house, making the family challenge social order by serving as an example of a social deviation that should not exist. The husband believes that as long as this woman lives in his house, there will never be happiness and good fortune (“The Feng’s Letter” 74). Failure to behave virtuously undermines the family order and, therefore, the social order. The family will never be happy if the woman behaves in this way. In this work, the wife does not set an example of virtue-based behavior for her children and the husband and values her own interests higher than the family’s and society’s, thus disrupting social order.
Works Cited
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley, and Anne Walthall. East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History. Cengage Learning, 2013.
The Feng’s Letter. Translated by Lily Hwa.
The Mother of Mencius. Translated by Nancy Gibbs.
Zhao, Ban. Admonitions for Women. Translated by Patricia Ebrey.