What are your thoughts on the place/treatment of women in the Confucian tradition, particularly in the context of marriage?

Since the onset of Confucianism during the Great Han Dynasty, the general perception of women from antiquity was that they were often seen as submissive, looked down upon and incompetent in a feudalistic society and patriarchal system of government. Reflecting from one of the five classic books called the book of poetry (Shi Jing); it illustrates the role of women during the Confucianistic dogma:

When a son is born,
Let him sleep in the bed,
Clothe him with fine robes,
And give him scepters to play with,
Their cry will be loud
They will be [hereafter] resplendent with red knee-covers,
The [future] king, the princes of the land.

When a daughter is born,
Let her sleep on the ground,
Wrap her in common wrappings,
And give her broken tiles to play with
May she have no faults, nor merits of her own;
May she well attend to food and wine,
And bring no discredit to her parents!

The book of odes is one of the most revered and authentic sources of materials in understanding the social life of ancient china through poetry. From the quote above, the inequality of women in ancient China proved to be undermining the function of a woman. Submission seems to be the main theme in glorifying and defining the ideal woman in ancient China. This act of suppression could be further ascertained with an existed code of conduct for women which controlled the behaviour and instruction of women in the first century BC with the dominance of Confucianism. Throughout life, Chinese women was subjected to the three submissions, which stipulated that she follows the wishes of her father, submitting herself to her husband and obeying her son (wei jia cong fu, ji jia cong fu, fu si cong zi). In other words, a woman should build her life around the men in her life, and submit herself to them totally and without reservation. A woman is not entitled to have an independent construal of self.

Similarly, Confucius himself although did not directly undermine the role of women (not even his wife) however there are hardly any mention about women specifically even if it did. It is always negative instead it speaks of the role of sons, fathers, ministers, emperors who are part of the alpha male society. In the Confucius Analects or Lun yu, various analects quotes from chapter 16 verse 7, chapter 9 verse 17 and chapter 17 verse 25. From these quotes, it was clearly seen that women was treated as less significant, completely substandard to the male equivalent. These suppressive views on women often prevented women to have freedom to pursue their own goals in life. With this kind of mentality within the Confucius community, a woman place is centered on home and family. The liberation of women during Confucius era was not well accepted and intellectual discourse was seen as a form of disloyalty, assertive and against Confucius’s patriarchal ideas and Chinese traditions of preferring a son to carry on the family name.

The position of Chinese women was further undermined and affected by the publication of two great books called Lienuzhuan (the biographies of women) by Liu Xiang and nujie (admonishments for women) by Ban Zhao . Both writers described rigorously moral conduct for women which women needs to adhere to and model themselves strictly on these confucianistic teachings. The authors inculcated the idealistic idea such as “nan qi qiang wei gui, nu yi ruo wei mei” which means the value of man is strength, beauty is weakness or qi chu zhī tiáo which is the seven reasons for divorce: - disobedience to parents, barrenness, jealously, maliciousness, talkativeness, immorality and deceitfulness.

In the context of marriage, traditionally in China they are perhaps more concern of the family than the individual. This idea could be seen in my Chinese drama whereby family which consists of a father, mother, and siblings (perhaps married) living under one roof. Marriage were arranged with little or no consideration for the personal feelings and wished of the couple concerned. When a woman suffered unfair treatment in her marital life, she had no legal rights of appeal and had to bear her suffering as best as she could. She could not even initiate divorce unless her husband was guilty of unfilial acts towards members of her family of origin from a traditional perspective. However, the husband could legally initiate divorce if the wife was found guilty of one of the seven conditions or qi chu as recorded in the book of rites (one of the five classics). These were being unfilial, barren, lascivious, jealous, succumbed to an incurable disease, excessive gossips, or stealing.

However, the status of women in the people’s republic of China has improved. I think a marriage law was enacted in 1950s which clearly specified that marriage was to be based on freedom of choice. Indeed, Mao once famously remarked that "Women hold up half the sky". This showed that confucianistic ideas no longer hold as much. Marriage was to be a relationship in which men and women shared equal rights, monogamy was upheld and bigamy and the taking in of concubines by men were prohibited. Objectification of and disrespect for women might still exist in marriage. In addition, with globalization and urbanization taking place, the traditional arranged marriage no longer holds. Perhaps due to the women had met their husbands through informal introductions by friends, colleague or neighbors, or perhaps had casual encounters at school, work or leisure activities.

In retrospect, the so-called unlucky women of ancient china may not have been fortunate enough to inspire the envy of today's women in becoming a devoted wife, dutiful spouse and exemplary mother.