Abstract
Throughout history, women have had to struggle to make their voices heard in the public sphere. In many ancient societies, including China, patriarchy was the norm and women were forbidden to be a part of the outside world. Because of the influence of Confucianism and its strict social codes, women’s voices were silenced in history. However, this very social environment gave women a chance to express their feelings, often camouflaged, through poetry. As a result, Chinese literature has become a wonderful storehouse of women’s experiences during the rule of the Ming and Qing dynasties. This essay aims at looking at how this new consciousness developed among women through history. It talks about the social constraints they faced and how women managed to navigate a way for themselves and make themselves heard.
Classical Chinese poetry is a treasure trove of women’s contribution to the field of literature. During the Ming dynasty’s reign, society at large became more conscious about poetry. Starting with the Ming dynasty, poetry began to increasingly have a feminine undertone, and this trend continued up to the time of the Qing dynasty. However, women during this period were not allowed to go outside, nor were they empowered in any way. Under such circumstances, how were they able to convey their thoughts or express their feelings to society? Literary creation, through songs and poems, became the emotional outlet for women of that period. Through my research, I will present how women’s status and poems reflect a consciousness for their lot during the Ming and Qing dynasties.
In ancient China, women produced outstanding works of poetry which were noticed and spoken about by highly respected scholars of the time. But even though female poets showed extraordinary talent, they could not continue for a long time, mainly due to the traditional make-up of Chinese society. Ancient China put more emphasis on men rather than women. Like most societies of the day, women were sidelined and not much attention was paid to their status. In those days, people were expected to obey the concept of ‘内外有别’, which literally meant that insiders (women) and outsiders (men) were different and that people needed to be ruled by Confucianism. As such, women’s participation in social activities was negligent – the most they could venture out to was the boudoir. In particular, women were expected to work at home while men went outside. This social arrangement provided women with an extremely limited space for developing their talents.
It is important to note that in ancient China, while wealthy women were allowed to get educated, their male counterparts were always treated with greater respect. Even within the confines of their homes, women who could read or write barely received any encouragement from their parents. As a result, whatever writing talent they had could hardly be developed. But many argue that not all Chinese women in the feudal period were treated harshly. Take, for example, the poet Li Qingzhao, a famous female writer from the Song dynasty. Born into nobility, she was the daughter of Li Gefei, himself a famous writer of the time. It is indeed undeniable that Li Qingzhao enjoyed opportunities way beyond the reach of ordinary people since not all women got a chance to be educated. Therefore, it’s hardly a surprise that all the great women poets of the Ming and Qing period belonged to a higher educated ancestry.
In order to better understanding the status of women in the Ming and Qing dynasties, we have to compare the status of women in different time periods. As mentioned earlier, the existence of feudal ideas gave women a lower status in society. Not just that – married women in the Zhou dynasty enjoyed a particularly low position whether at home or in society. Everything depended on the husband. If he wanted to maintain a marital relationship, the woman could keep her identity as his wife. Alternatively, if the husband did not want to maintain his marriage, he could easily abandon his wife. In The Book of Odes, 诗经, there are a number of poems which reflect this tragic situation which many married women had to go through. One poem, named 氓 méng， vividly presents this tragedy:
For three years, I was your wife, and thought nothing of my toil in your house. I rose early and went to sleep late, not intermitting my labors for a morning. Thus (on my part) our contract was fulfilled, but you have behaved thus cruelly. (37)
It is clear that the persecution of women was commonplace in the Zhou dynasty. However, due to the strong influence of matriarchs, the status of women gradually began to improve in the Qin and Han dynasties. At home, women began to be treated on a similar footing with men. According to Tang family and marriage laws, both men and women had the option of choosing a spouse independently, without seeking any consent from their parents. It is not difficult to see that during the Tang dynasty’s rule, women came to be valued. It was during the Song dynasty’s rule that women’s status in society was demoted. Blind worship led men to advocate chastity for women, especially widows who were also forbidden from remarrying. What’s more, men of the Song dynasty believed that the real beauty of women came out through ‘bound feet’. As a result, from a very young age, women had to suffer the cruel practice of foot binding, a custom which continued up to the Qing Dynasty.
In the Ming dynasty, a number of talented women made their mark in society and were greatly respected by the scholars of the age. Still, men and women were generally isolated by Confucianism’s idiom of ‘three cardinal guides and five constant virtues’ (三纲五常 sangang wuchang), which formed the moral standards of the feudal set-up. As such, a woman’s chastity became extremely important, because of which she was often imprisoned within the four walls of her home. During the same period, men were allowed to keep concubines. The laws even dictated that a man could break his marriage on the grounds that his wife was childless or she was jealous of his concubines. This gender oppression continued up to the Qing dynasty, but these very experiences helped women to express their despair through poetry. Interestingly, in the Ming and Qing periods, even concubines started writing poetry which was widely circulated.
According to writer Grace S. Fong, “poetry as cultural practice pervaded the quotidian life of educated men and women in the Ming and Qing” (19). This reveals that irrespective of gender, poetry was a very common thing in the Ming and Qing periods. But men and women focused on widely different issues in their artistic expressions. While men focused mainly on social conditions, women focused on their own lives. The famous Ming dynasty male poet Gao Qi wrote the poem Yue Wang Mu to express sadness at the death of General Yue Fei, a loyalist who was wrongly imprisoned by the Song Emperor Qinzong. At the same time, Ma Xianglan, the famous whorehouse female poet of the Ming dynasty, wrote ‘歌入离人耳，青衫泪点多’ or Fu De Zi Jun Zhi Chu Yi, to showcase the sadness women felt in their boudoirs. In a sense, women’s poetry presented indirectness. In The Inner Quarters and Beyond, Grace S. Fong writes, “by means of poetry, women attempted to express alternative states of perception arising from their experience of illness” (21). What she possibly means is that women often fell ill as a means to narrate a personal tragedy.
Under the feudal system, many classes of women usually stayed within the confines of their boudoirs, a space that honed and nurtured their imagination and artistic talent. This led to the development of a theme in their poetry that focused on their immediate surroundings or on illness or sadness. Gan Lirou, a famous woman poet from the Qing Dynasty, wrote a poem titled “While Sick: An Impromptu Composition” 病中口号bìng zhōng kǒu hào
懒看柳线舞牵风，一任残花落地红。
横卷枕边不成梦，又闻鹦鹉唤开笼。
Too lazy to watch the willows dance in the wind, I let the last red blossoms fall to the ground.
Lying curled up by the pillow dreams do not form, Again I hear the parrot squawk to open the cage. (39)
In this poem, certain words clearly convey Gan’s thoughts, owing to the style of traditional Chinese poetry. In this tradition, poets like to tactfully express personal thoughts rather than state them directly, in order to hide the true meaning. From the line “While sick” to the “parrot squawk to open the cage”, the entire poem deals with the issues of suffering and the desire to be free. Women in the Qing dynasty did not have the freedom to step outside freely. This angst and solitude is beautifully reflected in the poem, especially in the sentence “squawk to open the cage”.
Female poets also used disease as a theme to express feelings and as a metaphor for suffering and grief. Along with sickness, sadness also found a place in women’s poems. During the feudal period, widows were a miserable lot and some of them used poetry to deal with the topic of chastity. In NAN NÜ, an interdisciplinary journal featuring studies on Chinese men and women in the fields of literature, history and more, editor H. Zurndorfer talks about Wen Shi, a famous lady from the Qing Dynasty, who wrote a poem after her husband’s death:
When I suddenly start to miss him,
Tears are gushing out and my heart is aching.
Please wait for me beyond the clouds,
For I will eventually return to live with you. (62)
This poem is not just an expression of Wen’s memory of her husband, but also an affirmation of her chastity and virtue. From the aforementioned examples, it is clear that illness, sadness, and a sense of enslavement form common themes in women’s poetry. What is also clear is that these very emotions helped different female poets attain some kind of spiritual sustenance.
As a result of backward feudal education, Chinese women had to put up with theocracy, kingship, and slavery at the hands of their husbands. They remained hidden in their boudoirs and were almost cut off from the outside world. Conservative social mores ensured that women were always subordinate to men, the center of the social sphere. Traditional idioms like ‘女子无才便是德’, meaning ‘a virtuous woman is the one who without talent’ proved the point. These contributed to women losing their economic independence and the sense that they too could play an important role in society.
After the middle Ming period, new ways of thought made society question the status quo. This resulted in a sort of enlightenment that resulted in liberal ideas taking root. One such thinker who was able to leave a mark was Wang Yang-ming, also known as Wang Shou-jen. His dynamic thinking greatly influenced the intellectuals of the day and caused a change in people’s perceptions and tightly-held ideas. As writer Tu Weiming writes in his book Neo-Confucian Thought in Action, “Shou-jen’s extraordinary competence in handling poetic language in youth must be appreciated in the cultural context for Ming society. Yet his remarkable ability to compose poems instantaneously implies something more than the gift of language” (22). Moreover, from Wang Yangming’s poems, we get a clear view of how he advocated people to develop new ideas:
Because this mountain makes the moon small,
We think it bigger than the moon,
But if someone had an eye wide as heaven
He’d see a small mountain and a big moon (23)
It is obvious that Wang Yangming looked at poetry not merely as a creative outlet, but also as a means of challenging existing norms and ideas. Through his efforts, the traditional Chinese feudal ideology that young men and women believed in was slowly making way for newer, innovative thoughts.
The awakening of female consciousness in the Ming and Qing periods did not happen all of a sudden. It was a gradual process that took root, was nurtured, and finally came to fruition after a long feudal period lasting several dynasties. In the old way of life inspired by Confucianism, marriage was the only thing that brought meaning to a woman’s life and family was the only space she could really call her own. In that kind of a male-dominated society, it was a struggle for women to even form an independent personality. By using sadness, disease and chastity as metaphors, many Chinese women raised their voices so that they could be heard through the walls of patriarchy, subordination and their caged boudoirs. The struggle was long and it was difficult. But in the end, the women prevailed.
Works Cited
Fong, Grace S., and Ellen Widmer. The Inner Quarters and Beyond: Women Writers from Ming through Qing. Vol. 4. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Print
Zurndorfer, Harriet T. Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender in Early Imperial China Vol. 5 No. 2 2003. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Print
Elizabeth, Jean, Ward. Book of Odes. 1st ed. Jean Elizabeth Ward, 2008. Print.
Tu, Weiming. Neo-Confucian Thought in Action: Wang Yang-ming's Youth (1472-1509). Berkeley: U of California, 1976. Print.
