What Are the Purposes of the Very Brief “biographies of Exemplary Women” (607-13)? Are These Truly Biographies of Diverse Individuals, or Merely Variations of the Same General Archetypes? Whose Interests Are Served by Such Commemorative Texts?
Essay Preview: What Are the Purposes of the Very Brief “biographies of Exemplary Women” (607-13)? Are These Truly Biographies of Diverse Individuals, or Merely Variations of the Same General Archetypes? Whose Interests Are Served by Such Commemorative Texts?
Report this essay
The Biographies of Exemplary Women in Mair, Steinhardt, and Goldins Hawaii Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture [2005] (here after referred to as the Reader) are pithy stories highlighting the often shortened lives of Ðvirtuous women and their commendable actions and roles as wives, fiancД©es, and daughters (in-law) [Mair, Steinhardt, and Goldin, 607]. The original stories, Lienu zhuan, written by Liu Xiang in Han times were tremendously popular, and had a significant impact on dynastic culture several centuries afterwards. Their original purposes may have been to prevent further damage done by court women who lacked classical Confucian educations. These women were in close proximity to the emperor, which negatively influenced the imperial court. Liu Xiangs stories served as educational basis to counter their influence by offering them an ideal to aspire to [Ebrey, 58]. These stories correspond to the turn of the governments support from Huang-Lao Daoism to Confucianism as the official philosophy of the Han dynastic era. Liu Xiangs original works encouraged several womanly qualities including cleverness, resourcefulness, and depravity but by late-imperial times, the focus of the similar biographies centered almost exclusively on Confucian “wifely fidelity”. This shift of focus played an undisputed role in the changing of the role of and perspective on females amongst the literate elite in the Ming and Qing dynasties; however, the Confucian ideals of women did not apply to the peasant class in as severe a manner as they had for the women of the literate elite since the former could not afford such restrictions on the roles of their women. It is also noted that Liu Xiangs intentions for these short biographies impact on the public are not the same as those of Wanyan Yun Zhu who compiled the stories in the Reader.
The Readers selection of stories taken from Yun Zhus “Precious Records of the Maidens Chambers” (Langui baolu) (1831) is the product of centuries of recycled, replicated, and romanticized tales [Mair, Steinhardt, and Goldin, 461] that had grown in popularity [Mair, Steinhardt, and Goldin, 607] and evolved in intent. They are “lively tales” that served not only as a form of recreation common in genteel households [Mair, Steinhardt, and Goldin, 607] but also as a reminder of the womanly virtues idealized in Confucian culture. By the Qing era, biographies of exemplary women were an essential part of every official dynastic history; essays praising virtuous widows were a standard subgenre of writing by literati [Mair, Steinhardt, and Goldin, 461] and had become an minor industry in and of itself [Mair, Steinhardt, and Goldin, 607].
The women of the Lienu zhuan are portrayed as attempting to live closely to the Confucian ideal of women. Ban Zhaos chapter titled “Womanly Conduct” from her work Admonitions for Women [Mair, Steinhardt, and Goldin, 188] plainly describes the expectations that women are held to in Confucian society. These include womanly virtue, which is essentially exclusive to chastity and filial piety, womanly speech, womanly appearance, and womanly merit; all of which are geared to the primary roles women are intended to fulfill: chaste and pious women; fiancД©es and wives; daughters and daughters-in-law [Mair, Steinhardt, and Goldin, 607].
The goal of the stories is to perpetuate a model of the righteous woman according to Confucian standard. Although the situations of each story vary, the plot lines generally run identically to one another Ð- each story ultimately exemplifies at least one womanly virtue/ideal quality. The biographies are standard stories because there are only a few ideals they intend to reinforce. This structure sets up the women to seem like they are variations of the same general archetypes, especially since the details of each story are selectively chosen and omitted to highlight the virtues further. The heroine is often a martyr and always unyieldingly chaste, if not a virgin. Little else is known if it is not supportive of the womans virtuosity. For this reason, the women are not at all depicted as diverse individuals, and for the majority of the stories in the Reader, each womans attempt to exemplify the virtues is also very similar to the others.
The ideals held for women, such as affirming ones devotion to the empire, according to some, such as Ban Zhao, led to drastic actions on part of these commemorated women and others like them. Since Han times, “a wifes loyalty to her husbands family could be used to symbolize loyalty to the empire itself” [Mair, Steinhardt, and Goldin, 461], and especially during the fall of the Ming empire, there are documented cases of women who would needlessly sacrifice their lives to prove their allegiance to the Ming. “The Story of the Three Wang Girls” [Mair, Steinhardt, and Goldin, 609] is an appropriate example, in which all three young women drowned themselves to escape captivity from rebels. Their heedless loss of life was considered honorable yet should be considered contradictory to Confucius words in the Canon of Filial Piety [Mair, Steinhardt, and Goldin, 106]. He speaks against suicide because he tells us the beginning of filial piety is “not daring to destroy or injure [ourselves]” because “[our] self, [our] body, [our] hair, and [our] skin [are gifts] from [our] mother[s] and father[s]”, while the end of filial piety is “establishing oneself, practicing